I was just curious as to which character from the Ender/Shadow/Speaker series you all feel you identify most with, and why. I think it's a good topic and one that could be pretty fun to read.
The more I found myself reading the various stories the more I found myself identifying strongly with Peter. It's as honest as I can really be with myself. I see him making the same kind of mistakes I constantly make, struggling with the same internal conflict I currently struggle with, just on a much more grand scale.
Then again, I'm not an uber-genius hell-bent on taking over the world. Nope, just mildy intelligent and marginally bent on taking over the world.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Petra. And not just 'cause she's a girl. It's her attitude, and her place in the world, and the baby-coveting thing.
Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
Ender, definantly Ender.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Bonzo.
Okay, really-- um. . . Dink Meeker.
Posted by DemonGarik (Member # 7793) on :
Peter, very much so. everyone in my group of friends who has read these books always comes back to me and goes, wow you are so peter! So I guess I'm doomed to grow up and rule the world... damn
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Dink. No one else is even close.
Posted by Portabello (Member # 7710) on :
I don't think I'm much like him, but I definitely identify with Peter.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I have to say Ender. I was amazed to find someone out there like me, even if he is a fictional character
Posted by Portabello (Member # 7710) on :
The story "Teacher's Pest" is the only story that has ever reminded my wife and I of our bizarre courtship.
Posted by seespot (Member # 7388) on :
Now, DarkKnight, do you mean that you're like Ender in that you just want people to leave you alone or think your normal? Or that you have unknowingly crushed another species?
As for me, perhaps John Paul and Theresa in the Ender books. . . you know keeping my genius from everyone, hoping that it will grant me a normal life.
I really don't know. Generally when I read, I find myself identifying with whoever the current protagonist is. But, I guess that is the author's intention.
Posted by jjmelberg (Member # 7099) on :
not to be a cop-out or anything, but i feel like i relate to ender most. once i read the shadow series, i was thinking about how much i actually relate to bean, but i think i have that psychotic aspect of ender that bean really didn't have.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
*sigh*
Its not who exactly I am its who I'm worried I'll be. And thats Mick, I feel that if I'm not careful I'll fall and be washed out.
*sigh*
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
seespot, no one who talks to me very long is going to think I'm normal It's mostly his sympathy and how he really tries to understand others, that kind of thing. Plus the whole using your own strength to keep everyone else going. The part where he has to put more on himself after Petra cracks always makes me tear up. I can relate to that general feeling a lot
Posted by Frangy. (Member # 6794) on :
Bean
Posted by dafadox (Member # 6885) on :
Petra (I'm a guy)
Posted by Gryphonesse (Member # 6651) on :
definitely Val...
Posted by Agnes Bean (Member # 7614) on :
It's weird. Reading the books I identify with Ender, Bean and Peter the most, as in, they are the character's who I feel like I understand the best/connect with the most emotionally in the context of the stories. But I don't think I'm like any of them, really. I have Peter’s ambition (well, I don’t want to rule the world, but applied to other area’s in life), but not his drive, and I'm not like Bean or Ender at all, really.
Posted by aiua (Member # 7825) on :
Plikt or Wang-Mu, but not because they're women. They just seem under-appreciated and really rather quiet.
Posted by ThumperXC (Member # 7455) on :
Some times I fell like an Ender, other a Peter, a Miro,a bean, I see a little bit of most of the characters in me.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
Has to be Dink.
Posted by urbanX (Member # 1450) on :
Peter.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Agnes, I'm not like any of them either. Well, OK, I have Graff's body. But other than that ...
Posted by Portabello (Member # 7710) on :
I think Carlotta is Card's inner Nun just screaming to be let out.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
You know... Mr. Card, have you ever considered playing Graff yourself in the movie? If you have his body, you just need to get into his persona and act it, who better than the guy who made it?
Anywho, although redundant, I say Dink again.
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
"Graff's body"? OSC looked pretty normal-sized at WorldCon Philadelphia in 2001. How's he look these days?
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
One kind of stress puts [weight] on, another takes it off. [He is] a creature of chemicals. --EG, Ch. 15
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
But in this week's "Uncle Orson" column he says, "And partly because of my futile new do-I-really-want-to-be-this-fat? program otherwise known as a 'diet.'"
(Note: I wouldn't have asked this if OSC himself hadn't been dropping these hints in recent weeks.)
Posted by Syrjay (Member # 7706) on :
Nikolai. Mostly because I am able to grasp almost any complex idea but I am never able to do it as quickly as the extremely smart kids. I'm always a step behind in that regard.
Posted by Frangy. (Member # 6794) on :
Bean for his way of separating of the others and of seeing the world, not for the way of thinking.
Posted by Jasmine (Member # 7370) on :
Definately Petra. she's a girl..who's a sharpshooter(i'm real good at shooting games at the arcade ). She was locked up in an emotional prison, and i guess you can say sexually harrassed by Achilles...and i was harrassed. Ambition, but not as much as her. i also write good poetry. hehe
[ April 29, 2005, 04:19 PM: Message edited by: Jasmine ]
Posted by Carl Conrad Coreander (Member # 7851) on :
From everything *before* when Ender visits the Outer World, I'd say Miro. Poor Miro. So many bad things happened to him.
Posted by AB (Member # 7458) on :
The first time I read Enders Game, I identified with Petra, because she was girl with all boy friends (that was me as a child).
As I think about it now, I realize that in a way I was like Ender as a child, in that I had a fiercely loyal group of friends that looked to me to be the leader, and a fierce group of enemies (a.k.a. "everybody else") that lived to see me taken down as many pegs as possible. On of my greatest accomplishments of adulthood has been figuring out how to win a bunch of those kinds of enemies over without compromising on anything significant. It helps that we've all grown up. :-)
As an adult, I identify with the Shedemai of Earthborn, in her attitude toward life and relationship with the "God" (not the actual circumstances of her life, of course.) I also love all the Samoan family in Children of the Mind - identify with the female head of the household but can't remember her name. I also feel a kinship with Tagiri in Pastwatch. Side note: a friend of mine described Tagiri and her daughter as two of the most realistic black female characters she had ever read. She was shocked to find out OSC's ethnic identity and sex. She is an African-American woman, I am not, BTW.
Now for another question - Who do you least identify with? For me its Qing-jao, Gloriously Bright, in Xenocide.
Edited [twice!] to correct spelling mistakes.
[ April 29, 2005, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: AB ]
Posted by delusional1 (Member # 7896) on :
jane. definitely jane. too much to accomplish with little to no relative help. constantly wishing to be something more than what i am. wondering how it would feel to be something i'm not even sure i understand or want to. watching things go on that i can't control while taking care of an overload of things i wish i didn't have to. loving someone you know you could never have because you can never be what they need. yeah, definitely jane.
as for the character i identify with the least, i would probably say petra. i love her character, and i would love to be like her, but i'm just not. i'm not that strong. she would do ANYTHING she had to do to get the job done. i don't have that drive, unfortunately. but i'm trying.
Posted by ether_ore (Member # 7844) on :
Grego, but with Miro's discomfort after his accident.
Posted by Mr_Megalomaniac (Member # 7695) on :
I used to be like Peter, because I wanted to take over the world... I'm serious, don't laugh. I just realized later how much work that would take... still serious.
Now though, I have no idea who'd I'm most like. I haven't read any of those books in quite a while and I have a bad memory, so it really is difficult and plus all of those characters if I remember right are really smart, so that makes it even harder. I'll go with Valentine, because she's a middle child too. It's so similar it's baffaling... just skip over the fact that we're opposite genders.
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
I will admit that reading Ender's Game at a young age did leave an impression from Peter on me. I did have plans for world domination for quite some time... gave them up because, like the person above me, the work and responsibility after I have it.
Posted by Beanny (Member # 7109) on :
I identify with Valentine.
I never bully people, but I can definitely boss them around, people don't fear me but often want me to think well of them.
Like Valentine, I also find myself sometimes drawn to people that are not neccessarily very nice, just because of their charisma and power.
It's an interesting thread, thank you for bringing it up.
Posted by olhando (Member # 7866) on :
i dont like this topic, it feels like one of those really corney, made-up-on-the-spot quizes that you find on movie websites that says like which ... donnie darko character are you. and you answer like three questions and it tells you that you are frank...wtf. but i have to say im a lot like peter in the sense that im really harsh to people around me. but i dont think its realistic because it makes them hate me.
Posted by Peter (Member # 4373) on :
Either Jane or Wang-mu, which sounds weird cause they are both female and i'm not, but their atitudes are identical to mine, i think.
They are selfless and will give up everything to serve others. there's some of that in ender too, but not as much.
Posted by dropofTapioca (Member # 7867) on :
Nikolai, for the same reason as Syrjay. That is, because I always end up 'getting it', but it takes a little more work than the others. Of course, this is partly by design, as I choose classes in which I'll start off in ~75th percentile.
Posted by prerak (Member # 7923) on :
I always identified more with Peter. And for some odd reason I never identified much at all with Ender, just the general sense I usually get when I read something from a main character's perspective.
Posted by Jonathan Howard (Member # 6934) on :
Shen, because of my wigglin' butt.
Just kidding. I think that Miro's the one with whom I most identify... Although I identified more with Bean in the Shadow series than Ender in his Game.
JH
Posted by Feiwaltan (Member # 7912) on :
I would have to say that all the characters partially reside within me because I have a little of all their traits and personalities. A sort of combined complex from the ender universe, fictional as it may be. Posted by Ayren (Member # 7317) on :
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
It's her attitude, and her place in the world, and the baby-coveting thing.
![[Evil Laugh]](graemlins/evillaugh.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
It's mostly his sympathy and how he really tries to understand others, that kind of thing. Plus the whole using your own strength to keep everyone else going. The part where he has to put more on himself after Petra cracks always makes me tear up. I can relate to that general feeling a lot
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
). She was locked up in an emotional prison, and i guess you can say sexually harrassed by Achilles...and i was harrassed. Ambition, but not as much as her. i also write good poetry. hehe![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
I did have plans for world domination for quite some time... gave them up because, like the person above me, the work and responsibility after I have it.
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
![[Hail]](graemlins/hail.gif)