This is topic Peter Wiggin (Enders brother) in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
(This entierly freestyle)

What does everybody think of Peter?
 

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Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
 
I think he is a brat.
 

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Posted by Sala (Member # 8980) on :
 
I think he goes through a very interesting character arc ~ changes over time.
 

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Posted by sarcare (Member # 8736) on :
 
I like Peter, he reminds me of my older sister. Every one thinks their older sibling is a psychopath--or am I the only one
 

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Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
 
Do you really need to clarify the fact that Peter Wiggin is Ender's brother? I am pretty sure everyone on this forum is well aware of that.

I've always felt like he was simply evil. Even through all of the later character development and all the good things he tried to do, I could never get over my first impression that he was just an evil , evil person.
 

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
He's about six hundred thousand times more interesting than Bean.
 

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Posted by SteveRogers (Member # 7130) on :
 
He lacks the foresight required to do his job. Sometimes.
 

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Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by TomDavidson:
He's about six hundred thousand times more interesting than Bean.

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quote:

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He's about six hundred thousand times more interesting than Bean.

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I agree. Bean really was a character I couldn't get much into, his parts felt *eh* whereas Peter's through line was interesting, and sometimes I felt (sorry OSC!) that in comparison with say, SoTD, Xenocide, CoTM, that Peter's written part in the new set was at times overly "weak" comparative to what we would learn about him by SoTG.

But that's me. Peter was the character through all the books I found most potentially interesting.
 

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Posted by TL (Member # 8124) on :
 
Peter, to me, is one of the most interesting and complicated characters ever written.
 

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Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
 
Before Peter was written out into the Shadow books, I imagined him as a terrible, manipulative person who established a benevolent dictatorship and brought peace, prosperity and happiness to the world, not because he loved those things for their own sake, but because achieving them was the measure of a leader's success, and he was driven to be successful, whatever that meant.

In my imagination, it was only later in his life, as he saw what he had created, that he actually did come to love it for its own sake, and regret the person that he had been, and the awful home life that he had created for Ender.

Maybe there's another totally unrelated book that could be written someday about that character Not by me or Card, though, I don't think. I doubt either of us would want to spend that long in the mind of a truly despicable person.
 

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Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
 
The only time I saw Peter approaching redemption was when he was playing with Bean's children. Aside from that, I saw him as a totally utilitarian being who did what he needed to do to achieve the desired result.

I never liked Peter, but I did feel sympathy for him when he was so empowered by his parents finally telling him that they were proud of him. That scene showed me both his strength and how very broken he is.

Even well meaning parents can really mess-up their kids.
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
Wait, Peter was Ender's brother? How did I miss that?
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
Hi, everybody!

I loved the way OSC makes the readers change their opinions about Peter by simply showing what's in his mind - suddenly it turns out he's not quite the Evil Incorporate, as Ender saw him, but a guy with, well, a lot of hang-ups

I must say I first started to like Peter after reading Xenocide and CotM. I mean I know that wasn't the true Peter, but nevertheless it somehow made me think twice about the original Peter
 

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Posted by Hank (Member # 8916) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by A Rat Named Dog:


It was only later in his life, as he saw what he had created, that he actually did come to love it for its own sake, and regret the person that he had been, and the awful home life that he had created for Ender.

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Posted by Hank (Member # 8916) on :
 
I think Peter never really felt sorry for what he did to Ender because he could never wrap his head around Ender-the-person. I think that, just as Peter represented evil for ender throughout his whole life, Ender wasn't a person to Peter, he was and entity. The untouchable, perfect son that Peter could never be, because he himself knew that he was too ambitious to ever be self-sacrificing.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Well said Hank, well said.

And a A Rat Named Dog I don't think you can be such a judge for OSC. After all Peter did spring forth from Cards own mind
 

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Posted by Brinestone (Member # 5755) on :
 
Considering the fact that A Rat Named Dog is Card's son, I'm fairly confident he can speak for Card.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Is that true A Rat Named Dog?

If so then, I'M NOT WORTHY, I'M NOT WORTHY!!
 

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Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :
 
A Rat Named Dog is also the person on whom I believe OSC said he slightly based Ender in addition to being his son.

Just because he's OSC's son doesn't make him a god Advent. Just calm down man.
 

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Posted by sarcare (Member # 8736) on :
 
Really? I thought that the original Ender's Game story was written or thought up when OSC was quite young? I had heard that the children in Lost Boys bore some resemblance to OSC's.
 

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Posted by Shawshank (Member # 8453) on :
 
Story was written in 1977 I think. That's 28 years ago. He just said in his recent article he's 54. That's 26 when he wrote it- or when it was published. Seems a decent age for (especially a Mormon) to have a young child in the house.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
When reading Ender's game, it leaves me with the impression that Ender associates fear with Peter; because I sympathize with Ender, I loath Peter. However, in the Shadow series, Peter's character become much more complicated and much more human rather than simply an emotion. I found that I liked Peter a lot for his flaws; his imperfections mad him more likable to me because he tried to fix them.

Just my humble opinion.
 

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Posted by sarcare (Member # 8736) on :
 
Hmm, I just remember reading some account of him thinking up the story while being younger, but I have a bad memory for that. It isn't important really, whether or not Ender is like OSC's son or not, I'll still enjoy the books.

I think it would be hard if people thought you were the inspiration for a beloved character. Did you ever hear what happened in the end to the boy who was the inspiration for Peter pan--not the movie, but what happened when he grew up? Man, that'd be depressing, both for author and inspiration, probably why most authors don't point to people as direct inspiration that often.
 

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Posted by Hank (Member # 8916) on :
 
I agree that everything about Peter in the Ender series is tainted by the fact that the central character has such a warped relationship with him. I think the Peter seen through Bean's eyes is a much more accurate picture. Bean's whole identity isn't tied up with Peter, so he can see him clearly, PLUS it shows Peter in a stage of life where he's older, and therefore much more aware of what his actions mean--actually, now that I think about it, maybe, by the time we see him in the Shadow series he's maksed his ture self.
Dang, now I don't know what I think.
 

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Posted by Black Mage (Member # 5800) on :
 
I remember that Peter harmonized in my mind with my relationship with my older brother, and I think got me to understand that relationship a lot better. Actually, it was after the whole Ender-Peter dynamic is mostly explained that I realized I do look up to my brother and value his opinion of me quite a bit.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
For your information Shawshank I was being sarcastic. After all I've never heard of OSC's children writing any best sellers.
 

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Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
 
Even in Ender's Game, Peter working with Valentine was better than Peter as a younger child. Sibling rivalries can be ugly. But usually people grow out of them. I was mean to my younger brothers, I know that. But it's been a long time since I gave either one of them a noogie.
Especially since they are both taller and bigger than me now (you know when they say smoking stunts your growth? It ain't a lie, people).

But I'm still meaner, so maybe I could get away with it.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
A good point WntrMute brothers and sisters can be quite cruel to one another.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
i don't think Peter wanted to even deal with Ender; he was simply a shine to the fact that Peter wasn't good enough for battle School.

Or so he thought.

SPOILER! ha had to do that.


(i.e. when Graff tells him later why he didn't get in; not because he wasn't good enough to get in, but because he have empathy or something like that. correct me if I'm wrong, anyone.)
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
No, no, your right, but its Mazer who tells him that he just wasn't empathic enough to be the commander they needed.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
ahh i see; thanks advent.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
No problem Monroe, anytime you need something cleared up email me.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
okie dokie, thank you

ANYWAY! Back to the lovely Peter Wiggin.

I understand how people could hate him after only reading Ender's Game; but after the whole shadow series, I feel that Peter was a good human being, in whatever terms 'good' means to you.

Cheers.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Well he did unite Earth under one peaceful voted for government, I consider that good.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
me too.
 

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Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
 
Not me. I don't like that one bit. Blech. Uniformity is so dull.

Anyways, I think the good ole US of gol-durn A was still resisting assimilation to the collective at the end.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Thats because they were stuborn and controling the IF.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
and it's not uniformity, it's called PEACE.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Very well said Monroe.

And p.s. WntrMute check your spelling its getting worse as the night goes on.
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
I only wonder if the moment when Peter (talking to Val somewhere in Ender's Game) says that he knows he was a terrible brother to E&V and that he really loved them is true or just a sham.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
I think it was true, after all on the night Enders monitor was removed Peter sat beside Enders bed and cried about how he was sorry to Ender.
 

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Posted by BlueBambue (Member # 8656) on :
 
I think that wether or not Peter is a good person boils down to what his reasons for uniting the world are. If he actually wants to help people then his past bad actions are lessened because in his mind the end would justify the means.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
umm... why else would he want to unite the world? are there really any valid ulterior motives other than peace?? If so, please point them out to me.
 

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Posted by sarcare (Member # 8736) on :
 
Power trip, to rectify some percieved injustice, to continue with his scheme to enrich himself on the work of others, out of some religious desire to issue in the millenium...
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Or maybe he just had parent issues.
 

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Posted by Zenox (Member # 8987) on :
 
The reason because Peter was so different in Xenocide/CotM is because he wan't peter. He was all of Ender's bad side, and all of what Ender knew of Peter best - his bad side, which was the main part he was exposed to while he was with Peter.
 

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Posted by Lucky_Sean (Member # 6223) on :
 
Back to the more interesting then Bean comment I'm gonna say no. Bean is the only pure person in existance, he was given the tree of knowledge at the price of the tree of life and his actions and thoughts are so deep and meaningful into the core of human nature that to say he is a boring character means you are the superficial type and love the razzle dazzle that holywood gives you. I'm not saying im not similar and I meant no offence, it's just the most accurate way that I could put it.

Back to Peter: Peter to me is like the personification of humanistic charactersitics. Very selfish, very controling. Wait I take that back because he is far too intellegent to let anything on that he IS so selfish and IS so controling. He can smile to your face and say the sweetest things while having nothing but hate for you underneath, then like Ender love beneath that. Much like Iago in Shakespeares Othello, Peter is a version as such if Iago was more intellegent, more human. Peter has the potential to learn, even in his self conceited view of how life should obey him.

I think Peter is a truly great man stuck in a time when he is not really wanted. Needed yes but wanted no, there are enough people on the climb to power already that they need not a truly great man to actually take it - so he does just that because of his ambition. I haven't yet read Shadow of the Giant so I am unsure if that changes him much - i'll soon find out though.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
Fine sarcare. you win lol
 

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Posted by sarcare (Member # 8736) on :
 
It is more exciting for its rarity! Winning, that is!
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
Lol... don't get used to it. I plan to beat you from now on.
 

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Posted by Gansura (Member # 8420) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by BlueBambue:
I think that wether or not Peter is a good person boils down to what his reasons for uniting the world are. If he actually wants to help people then his past bad actions are lessened because in his mind the end would justify the means.

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quote:

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If Peter's so good and democratic, why does Ender need to write a book about him along with the Hive Queen to explain his actions? Why an interstellar religion to be spawned if Peter was so squeaky clean?

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quote:

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If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy his own heart?
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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quote:

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And p.s. WntrMute check your spelling its getting worse as the night goes on

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quote:

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Originally posted by El JT de Spang:
I think Peter was a flawed, but great, human being.

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As you say: he was great _because_ he was flawed. No credit in being born perfect He realised he had to change and did it. That's not an easy thing to do

Also, I think it's great that while we know that Peter is extremely intelligent, we can also see him in situations where he, let's say, makes a fool of himself, precisely because he thinks he's so much smarter (eg. in the beginning, he thinks his parents are dumb, when in fact it's he who misjudges their true abilities). I mean: how true is that? We don't get the 'oh-I'm-brilliant-so-I-can-read-other-people's-minds' stuff, which is great.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
In Ender's POV, Peter was a form of fear to him until the end; Ender and Peter felt that he (Peter) needed a so-called redemption because of the bad things he did as a kid. I believe that's why Ender wrote the Hegemon.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Bravo oolung, bravo.

:slow clapping:
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
:joins clapping with Advent:
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
is there an icon for bowing with gratitude?

Are you clapping because of this dumb-thing? I know it's true, I did that myself
 

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Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
 
This is about as close as is available here:


 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
oolung we were praising your well thought out statement, not your use of smilling faces and no I won't bow before your skills.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
i concur with advent
 

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Posted by JoeH (Member # 5958) on :
 
I think Peter is like Satan or maybe Lex Luthor.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Thank you Monroe its nice to know that someone agrees with me every once and a while.

And JoeH, Peter is not that bad!

Monroe would you be willing to explain this to him, I'm tired of repeating myself. Please.
 

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Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
 
Whoah, this thread got away from me! If you don't mind me returning to a previous subject ...

Yes, Advent, I'm Card's son. No, that doesn't make me special, except insofar as I'm one of those rare people with a really awesome childhood, since I had a really awesome dad growing up

My dad definitely believes that he based Ender on me. Not the original Ender from the short story (since I wasn't born yet), but the more-developed Ender from the novel.

The problem is, when he wrote the novel, I was six years old, and had not yet become the person I am today. He couldn't know that I would grow up to be a person who is extremely uncomfortable with leadership, feels inadequate in his understanding of politics and war, and would rather be the guy in the back of the room heckling than to be the responsible guy in the front of the room setting the direction for the meeting. I hate taking the bid in Rook, I hate making decisions that affect other people, and I'd much rather spend the rest of my life in exactly the position I have now (game designer) than to ever be promoted to management.

So on whom is Ender really based? He's based on Card's idealization of me when I was young, which (since I was unknowably young at the time) is in turn based on his ideal conception of himself — the person he wants to be. It was Card, not me, who lay in bed every night as a child, staring at maps, and imagining wars and political struggles that might redefine those boundaries in the future. It was Card who grew up fearing an older brother and idealizing an older sister. It's Card who has a mind for politics, who has the confidence of a bellwether, to go out on a limb, initiate projects, enlist other people, and provide the strength of will it takes for the entire group to succeed. It is he who, despite being shy and introspective, comes alive when he stands in front of a group, and commands the attention of the entire room. And it is also he that is so heart-breakingly compassionate that he cannot turn down a cry for help, no matter how desperate or inconvenient.

Basically, when you read Ender Wiggin and fall in love with that character, you really are falling for the author — or at least, for the kind of individual he idealizes and strives to become.

And I'm left to deal with the intimidating pressure of realizing that when my father writes a story about the perfect child, he thinks he's basing him on me

EDIT: Actually, if I were to pick a character from Ender's Game who most reminded me of myself in his ideals, and whom I most looked up to, I'd pick Dink Meeker. He's the one who loves just doing his job much more than he loves the idea of leadership. He's the one who sees through the crap and chooses his own way to go. He also isn't made to come across like he's a perfect human being

[ January 07, 2006, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: A Rat Named Dog ]
 

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Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
 
Reminds me of Olhado. The only one in the family who didn't become a famous chemist or biologist or whatever. He didn't want glory, just a job that would pay the bills so he could be with his family. And was more successful at having a happy family than any of his more famous & professionally successful siblings.

Or maybe Olhado doesn't remind me of you, he really just reminds me of me.
 

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Posted by Monroe by Warhol (Member # 8999) on :
 
To JoeH--

Peter is not like Satan, because he doesn't have the tail or horns.

Why do you think of Peter as evil? Have you been reading the posts done by the people in support of Peter? What evidence do you have that Peter is simply pure evil? The books, in fact, support the point that he is but a flawed human, both good and bad in some way or another. No man is perfect; that's what makes him human.

Also, see my post on Ender associating fear with Peter in the book Ender's Game.

To Advent:

Hope that's good enough .
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
A thousand thanks Monroe.

And A Rat Named Dog It is a plesure to know that there are truely inteligent individuals responding to my stupid questions.

p.s. Was growing up in the Card house really that great?
 

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Posted by tmservo (Member # 8552) on :
 

quote:

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If Peter's so good and democratic, why does Ender need to write a book about him along with the Hive Queen to explain his actions? Why an interstellar religion to be spawned if Peter was so squeaky clean?

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Who says a Speaking of a Death has to be about white washing the dead to make them seem "good". I always took it as just "telling the truth". As the Shadow Series tended to point out, several had an overly-glorified image of Peter, some had a seriously negative version of Peter.. they blamed him for this and that, and credited him with too much, etc. etc.

Ender's speaking of "The Hegemon" was not about whitewashing Peter, but reconciling the two different views of Peter which are noted within the Shadow Series, those who saw Peter as the machinery behind disasters, and those who overly praised him. Rather then taking a single viewpoint, Ender homogenized both of them to give a better rounded out image of Peter, "The Truth"
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
Mmmm... I always liked Dink Meeker

Peter can't be that bad as to be called the Devil, if only because he realises he behaves badly. If he were really, truly corrupted, he wouldn't have cared about it at all, and he wouldn't have thought of himself as bad. And he _did_ (the scene when he cries at Ender's bed when he thinks Ender is asleep, and later when he talks to Val. I think the fact that he 'dismissed' his bad behaviour in some moments was a kind of defense. He didn't want to let other people get to him, so he himself became auto-ironic and cynical).
 

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Posted by A Rat Named Dog (Member # 699) on :
 

quote:

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p.s. Was growing up in the Card house really that great?

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Definitely. I mean, every family has its quirks, and it's impossible to raise a kid without giving him a few neuroses, but looking around at other people's childhoods, I have to say, mine was in the 99th percentile for goodness.

... At least as far as parenting goes. Still hated school and felt like an outcast, of course But there are severe limits to what parents can do about that.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Its good to know that OSC is as good a parent as he is a writer, but I'm getting off topic again.

And oolung thankyou for making my point on why Peter is not the Devil or the AntiChrist.
 

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Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
 
Rat Named Dog nailed what I envisioned Peter as during the writing of Ender's Game. It was only fifteen years later, writing Shadow, that I found him to be quite different and more complicated. But I agree with Rat/Dog ... the original Peter would also be interesting. The trouble is, I wouldn't have liked spending enough time inside his head to write a book.

There are precedents - like Augustus, for instance, and perhaps Charlemagne. Ambitious, ruthless powerseekers, once they achieve power (or perhaps once they get old enough that the testosterone flow lessens) they mellow a little and seek to do good.
 

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Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
 

quote:

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I never liked Peter, but I did feel sympathy for him when he was so empowered by his parents finally telling him that they were proud of him. That scene showed me both his strength and how very broken he is.

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Bolding mine. As early as the first hundred pages of Ender's Game I get the sense that Peter had the potential to be who Ender was very early on in life, but ultimately was perverted through the extremely complicated family life he had: parents who concealed themselves on many levels from their children, a younger brother who was publicly recognized as being better than Peter over and over again. We see him stand over Ender's bed when he thinks Ender is asleep and allow himself to be the big brother he is inside.

I think it would be easy to misinterpret a lot of what Peter does as a kid as a precedent for evil (torturing Ender, torturing animals, making death threats to both his siblings), but I think children - even children as brilliant as the Wiggins - live in worlds where the implicit innocence goes in two directions, and your actions have unimaginable consequences. Children are capable of such wonderful, delightful things - and the same children are capable of pointing out an overweight teenage girl on the street and saying, "Mommy, that girl is so fat!" I don't claim Peter didn't know exactly how he was hurting Valentine & Ender, but I don't think it had the same sort of permanence in his mind that it would in the mind of an adult.

We also see the same ruthless Peter in the Shadow series: his purposeful delays of revealing Achilles' plan in order to ensure the world was in enough turmoil for him to take over, his straight forward retalliation to Bean's redirection of Ender's pension, etc. etc. etc. He's simply driven to one goal, and doesn't care how he gets there.

It'd be like rolling a "Chaotic Good" character in AD&D. Or something.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
OSC I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy
.

(though it is good to know he agrees with my understanding of Peter)

I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy

 

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Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Advent 115:
OSC I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy

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Oh, please.
OSC is just a normal guy. When he wakes up in morning, he has that crusty eye gunk -- just like a normal guy. When he eats a pulled-pork BBQ sandwich, some of the meat falls into his lap -- just like a normal guy. When he goes to the bathroom, he makes a stinky -- just like a normal guy.
He just writes well, that's it. It isn't like he's writing books while writing a screenplay, while teaching collage, while writing a comic book, while publishing an internet magazine, while signing books, while writing a couple of web-reviews each month, while occasionally visiting some of his more rabid fans on an online forum, while maintaining some degree of a personal life.

Ummmm, hold on.

Nevermind.
 

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Posted by tmservo (Member # 8552) on :
 

quote:

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When he wakes up in morning, he has that crusty eye gunk -- just like a normal guy.

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You know, if you're getting good intake of Vitamin B-12, you greatly lower your ammount of eye gunk, whereas if you have a vitamin deficiency in several vitamins, you get more? Interesting but worthless fact of the day.
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
Why worthless? I'm sure Peter hot it too... he must've been a normal guy after all

Maybe those Peter-like rulers and the others mellow only later because now that they've finally achieved power, they can finally do what they would like. If they didn't got the power in the first place, they wouldn't have been able to do anything, and they surely wouldn't _get_ the power by being mellow in the first place.
As I said before, I think the two motivations (ambition and doing good) may be there at the same time (to a degree, of course ): that's what people really are, and nobody plans to get the power _in order_ to become the Evil One

Or maybe it's _just_ the testosterone
 

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Posted by tms (Member # 9017) on :
 
When I first read Ender's Game I was Peter's age, and have long followed the scraps of his life with desperate hunger for more. I always cast myself in his role when reading, and re-reading, not because of my phisique, or even the fact that I'm an actor, but becaused even in the first novel I sensed the very human, Machiavellian air in Peter that is being traced on this forum (a place I have long admired and now may visit as I please), a confusion over pride and reaching one's potential that always sounded a very identifiable alarm me.

Ender's ability to distance himself is to be admired and even emulated (although we know it has it's own perils), Peter's choices, in the face of greatness feel like the choices we too might just possibly face one day.

To be wallowing, recently, in so much Peter Wiggin lately is a rare joy.

I feel there's something very potent afoot in his mother's admission to Bean that Peter may be more a product of his education system. Despite having played the rules and 'behind the rules' as it were with Locke and Demonsthenes, they were still the rules set down by the institutions of America, Common, the I.F, Bugger War propoganda and so on. His definition, which healways rallies against, was always narrower than Battle School.

The ability to step back doesn't come easily for poor Pete, or indeed for many of us.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Thank you for making my point WntrMute, OSC is not quite like everyone else. I mean how many people do you know that have written Nebulla and Hugo award winning books? And how many people do you know that have written such great science fiction that their books have affected an entire generation of sci-fi readers.

NEED I SAY MORE?!?!?
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
But don't you sometimes think that such posts may actually make him feel a bit... self-conscious?

MAYBE YOU SCARE HIM OFF!!!!!
 

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Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
 
EXACTLY!!!!!

WHY ARE WE ALL SHOUTING!!??!!??!! AND SMILING SO BROADLY!!??!!??!!
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
I'M NOT SHOUTING!!!!!! I'M JUST SPEAKING WITH_MY_TONE_RAISED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND IT'S NOT A BROAD SMILE, IT'S JUST MY REALLY BIG TEETH!!!


 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Bring it down a notch you guys. I was just... a little over whelmed to have OSC respond to one of my topics.

But I'm calm now. But let us get back on the original topic of Peter.

p.s. oolung, just how big are your teeth? And why did you have to raise your voice to respond to me? I was just excited, whats your excuse
 

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Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
 
Man, I was getting ready to get rowdy, and everything.


Partypooper.

 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Hey I just want to be on topic or this is going to end up being a forum on nothing.

Though I do encourage your enthusiasm guys.
 

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Posted by WntrMute (Member # 7556) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Advent 115:
Hey I just want to be on topic or this is going to end up being a forum on nothing.

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You mean this ISN'T the Seinfeld forum?
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Ha, ha, ha... No this is a forum on Peter Wiggin. Or did you forget.
 

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Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
 
I always saw the shadow books as a more unbiased view of Peter. Ender and Peter had a very bad relationship as children, and I think that colored Ender's view of him. After his childhood, Ender never saw Peter again...so everything that Peter did, Ender saw through the lense of their previous relationship.

Peter was not perfect, nor did he claim to be perfect in the Shadow books. Though, one thing that really stood out is one line from Shadow of the giant

*warning spoiler ahead*


Near the end, when Rackham told Peter that they had found Bean's children, and wanted to know how long Peter would need Bean, so they could know how long to hold off giving him his children. Peter responded:
"Give Bean and Petra their babies. And save his life, if you can. He's a good man who deserves better than to have you toy with him any longer."


I think this line more than anything else shows Peter's goodness. Yes, he will use people when he thinks that he should...but he has his limits.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
YES!! Another has seen the light! Peter wasn't evil, he was what Graff (or was it Mazer) called their Gengis Khan, their unifier of Nations. Not through force (even though Peter could of carried that out), but through peacful elections.

p.s. Lupus welcome to the winning side of this forum.
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Advent 115:
Bring it down a notch you guys. I was just... a little over whelmed to have OSC respond to one of my topics.

But I'm calm now. But let us get back on the original topic of Peter.

p.s. oolung, just how big are your teeth? And why did you have to raise your voice to respond to me? I was just excited, whats your excuse

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....
Weeellll....
I got excited too No offence
My teeth are of normal size, I just like to show them off a lot in various ways (people say I have a very... expressive... face

Hmmm, I think I have to read SotG at last, I'm missing too much of Peter

I wonder how Ender's relation with Peter influenced his book about him (if it did). Sure, Ender tried to be impartial, but he couldn't just shake off his feelings about Peter, could he?
 

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Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
 
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that i always not only liked peter but could sympathize with him. And im talking about the EG peter not just the more reformed shadow series peter. I always saw some of my own darker atributes reflected in peter. i have a younger brother who i love terribly but i was often a real ass to him when we were little kids. I never threatened to kill him or destroy everything he made or anything like that but i did always have to have control like peter. I was the boss the older brother. We both grew out of it but it was actually reading of Peter that made me recognize much of that in myself and work to change it. Remember Graff says he can't decide to be an older brother or a jackel, he doesnt just flat out call him a jackel.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
I'm not trying to spoil anything for you oolung, but Ender communicated with an elderly Peter to get the real facts behind Peters life work using the Ansible. So though Ender did not make Peter out to be a monster in The Hegemon, he did show Peters faults as well as his strengths. And that is why after the Hegemon is written, people on Earth and throughout the new colonies see the Hegemon as a story of humanity. That is because we sympathize with Peter, when we look at him we see both the best and worst in ourselves. That is why we love Peter.
 

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Posted by tms (Member # 9017) on :
 
Heh heh, spot on Orange; Peter, The Saint of Overachieving Elder brothers everywhere.

I betcha Pete pulls off a good suit better than his brother.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
tms, what are you talking about?!?!

You have just entirely lost me, will someone tell me if he's speaking english!?!?
 

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Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
 
maybe tms stands for "too much sugar"

Actually, I understand what tms is saying.

tms,

Do you usually think in pictures? I recognize myself writing in the style you used above when I'm in a "picture" frame of mind.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
LadyDove can you explain to me a little better what the heck he's talking about? Please.
 

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Posted by LadyDove (Member # 3000) on :
 
Orange wrote:

quote:

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i have a younger brother who i love terribly but i was often a real ass to him when we were little kids. I never threatened to kill him or destroy everything he made or anything like that but i did always have to have control like peter. I was the boss the older brother. We both grew out of it but it was actually reading of Peter that made me recognize much of that in myself and work to change it. Remember Graff says he can't decide to be an older brother or a jackel,

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quote:

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I betcha Pete pulls off a good suit better than his brother.

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This is a visual. It's both bravado and the result of the inner drive to succeed. It's also saying that even though everyone may love the little brother better, Peter is better suited to the role of leader/bureaucrat.

At least that's how I read tms' post.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Thank you for the promt explination LadyDove.
 

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Posted by Reticulum (Member # 8776) on :
 
I love Peter, he is awesome, evil...

People say I am a lot like him, evil and all.

Also, my family says I'll probably be dictator of a third world country one day...


 

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Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
 
I betcha Pete pulls off a good suit better than his brother. -originally posted by tms.

Well I pull of a good suit better than my brother...
 

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Posted by tms (Member # 9017) on :
 
Please excuse my delay, I'm antipodean in placement and sporadic in terminal access.

If I am to remain a 'racker' this delay may have to be taken on board, and my posts may lack a little back and forth.

My thread was precisely what lucky 3000 surmised, my breed of Americana Rat Pack and colonial slang (welcome to Australia) wasn't meant to be confusing, simply the way I talk, I'll concede to being heavily image based.

Peter touches a fat old older bro complex in me and that's really what I was saying.

I grew up on these books and am pretty excited to be here. And want to save all my Wiggin questions and hell-yes anecdotes for reasonable and unfortunately, until I am nearer the nets, rationed talk.

I am also a relative newbie to this talking to people on the other side of this rock thing so if raising new topics is something that should be done elsewhere please lemmie know:

I oft wonder about Australia's potential role in the Enderverse. Such a ripe nation, refusing to believe it has a 'real' history. In Peter's time, a hypothetic game of Risk realises Oz doesn't need occupying but definately knocking out if an enemy is to win.

I doubt a colinized planet of Australians. God forbid, but boy have they been good at producing soldiers in the past.

Salutations all.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
tms, please speak understandable or at least passable english from now on. Your last post gave me a headache. And as far as a response delay, thats not a problem, so don't worry about it.

And to Reticulum, at least you have set your goals high. Better than dreaming of being a janitor.
 

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Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
 
I understood 90% of what he said. *shrug*
 

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Posted by tms (Member # 9017) on :
 
I'll try to tone it down.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
Thank you. But your response certainly added an air of humor to the thread just now.
 

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Posted by Cory688 (Member # 9096) on :
 
How can you hate Peter, let alone anyone, after reading the Ender series?

"But when it comes to human beings, the only type of cause that matters is final cause, the purpose. What a person had in mind. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart."

"I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves."

Maybe this is because I relate to Peter, but I've found that both of these quotes are true. If you really try to understand what people want, you will learn that you want the same things. Many people that know me would say I relate to Peter in many ways, which is scary for some, and intriguing to others. I just hope someday I can be a political power like Peter Wiggin.

Cory Persson
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
Advent: thanks for the 'spoiler' (haven't read the last shadow book yet, but you're not spoiling anything anyway)

Cory: I completely agree. OSC once said he doesn't agree with the evil-heroes-are-so-much-more-interesting notion and those quotes just hit the bull's eye. I mean, I don't think anyone EVER thinks their motives are bad. So, in a way, no one IS that bad, either, and it's hard to hate them when you really get to know them (I was trying to make it short, so please feel free to comment on the inadequacy of the last sentence)
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
The Peter I expected was more or less a lighter shade of Achilles. Sneaky, manipulative, exteremly ambitious, and ruthless - enough to be kept out of Battle School and enough to commit the atrocities (though mostly in the service of a good cause) that he did in the EG and Speaker timeline.

For example, the kidnapping/murder/otherwise taking out of circulation of the best battle schoolers was something I thought he'd have to do. My vision of how he rose to true Hegemon was by first sitting back a bit and letting some of the big boys battle it out, giving them time to realize that having top battle schoolers was really the only way to win. Thus, getting everyone addicted to the battle schoolers, to the point where going to war without them is almost unthinkable. Then, somehow or another, taking them away, except that he's got the best ones and is hinting around that he's got his brother, The Battle Schooler, helping him out. He'd have to crush a few armies and likely slaughter significant portions of the enthusiastic and supportive populace, but he'd reach a point where no one would have the guts to take him on. Unifcation by force, with really good stuff for the people who go along and death, destruction, and mayhem (and thus, the atrocities) for those who resist.

And mostly this was for a good cause, although the ambition plays a healthy role as well. I thought that would be a really interesting character and a really interesting story. It would also fit into the Hive Queen and the Hegemon motif, where Ender gets people inside what Peter was doing and shows the light and the dark and the humanity of it all.
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
But I hope you were dissapointed in your expectations I would never have thought Peter was like Achilles. For one thing, I can't imagine him killing just because someone had helped him. Maybe I could agree with a notion that Achilles would be a more evil version of Peter (if he hadn't been mental), but not the other way round. For me, that's a big difference
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
Sorry, forgot to include the whole minus the psychopthy in my description. That was my thinking before the Shadow series came out, so the whole "I'm a crazy killer guy." wasn't really something I was thinking about not being part of it.

To give another example, Peter (my Peter anyway) would have played countries off against each other and turned on the people who thought he was helping them when it served his purpose.

I did wonder, not much really, but a little, if Achilles and his actions were remnants, darkened up a whole lot, of how OSC may have seen the story going at one point.
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
The example with playing the countries off against each other: it would be very... machiavellian I think it would agree with the picture of Peter we haev after reading Ender's Game. And that's why it feels so great to watch Peter later evolve into a much more moral being, don't you think? This is what makes him a proper human: he is capable of getting mature.

Hmmm, yeah, the psychopathy IS a rather important issue, isn't it...
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
(Warning: The following is uncomplimentary of the Shadow series books. If you're the type to get offended by something like this, I suggest you don't read it.)

See, I don't agree. First, I don't necessarily think that machiavellian behavior is a bad thing. It's particularly that quality of ruthlessness that makes Peter someone you can picture gaining power over the world. This isn't something that can be done while keeping your hands clean and your conscience clear. It requires hard decisions. And, in the pre-Shadow books, we're told that it requires Peter committing atrocities. That fundamental paradox of Peter, that he's willing to do the dark things necessary to both save the world and feed his ambition, was the main thing that made him an interesting character to me and what made The Hegemon not just another biography on a political leader, but a work of such deep exploration of the human character that it merited placement alongside The Hive Queen.

Peter doesn't evolve as a character. He's just replaced with a weaker, dumber, hippy version. It's not like we get a view of how the experiences he goes through tempers his prior characteristics. He just doesn't have these characteristics anymore, as if someone waved a magic wand over him and made them go away. Peter, in the Shadow series, is pretty firmly a Good Guy.

I was hoping for the moral ambiguity both necessary for a world-conqueror and explictly described in the pre-Shadow books. I was hoping for glimpses into what would make up the Hegemon, where we see Peter acting on both dark and light impulses, and come to understand why he acts this way and to see him as fundamentally human.

The after-school special version of Peter we got, I really wasn't interested in.
 

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Posted by JohnWithAnH (Member # 9112) on :
 
With all due respect to OSC, I've always been more concerned with how the characters of a story are drawn, rather than what the author has to say about those characters. In my experience our intuitions and feelings can be far more probing and accurate reflections of reality than our intellectual calculations. Based on the "above calculating" survival mechanisms OSC draw in Bean, I'd guess he'd be inclined to agree with me.

For those of you who think that Peter's character in Ender's Game was incongruous with his character in the Shadow books, just you wait for your first reunions with old friends and enemies after a decade or so of seperation. Bear with me and let me flesh out my interpretation of things before you make a judgement on them.

Peter's character in ender's game is that of an almost cartoonishly malicious creature. Peter's creulty and it's impacts on ender are illustrated frequently throughout the entire novel. From the torturing of squirrels to the constant reminders that ender lived in a climate of fear, Peter is portrayed as being malevolent to his very soul. What's really striking and disturbing, though, is that the reality of the pain Peter causes is considered completely unreasonable to the rest of the world. The world Ender and Valentine see apart from themselves is so unreconcilable to the terror that is their young lives, that they fear their earthly creators, their parents, would be powerless to aid them. In short, Peter is established as being an unmitigatingly bad dude.

When Peter appears in "Shadow of the Hedgemon", we're not exactly presented with an angel, but an undisciplined and even petulant and whiny child? What happened to the hellian who tormented fragile ender in his youth? OSC gives us several clues to work with. A look into Peter's mind gives us several rational-sounding reasons why he keeps company with his parents, even though it's made perfectly clear that Peter's capable of making an independent life for himself. There are several aspects of the same point made, but basically they provide him with an excellent cover. That may well be the case, but I doubt it's the whole story. Even Peter tells himself that he needs his parents to keep the real him out of the public eye, we know that several major political players have already unmasked the great locke. At the same time, you've got Bean making it on his own in extremely similar circumstances. The only significant differences are that Bean has just met his blood relatives, Bean has a trusted childhood companion (which means a lot, considering the circumstances Bean arose from), and Bean's political power and danger comes from his real identify, rather than his not identity. Right up to the point where Sister Carollatta dies and Achilles is enabled to expose Peter, Peter and Bean bear their period of percolation in anonymity with the people who love them the most, whether or not they admit to themselves that it's the case. Later with Bean, we see the tension between needing the one he loves the most and making the most critically rational choices come into the light and bloom with his relationship with Petra. Peter's story line is provided with no such vehicle for demonstrating Peter's maturity is provided, in all honesty because he's already too complex a character to completely flesh out without taking the spotlight away from Bean, who's the focus of the novels. Nevertheless, when we take into consideration Peter's almost obsessive frustration with his parents, his "oh so reasonable" arguements for binding himself to his parents lean heavily towards denial. Bean's successful survival and anonymity out in the world at large; in spite of having a trained genius killer hounding him, demonstrates that any argument neccesitating that a person of Peter's resources be kept under lock and key in his parents home does not hold water. Though Locke and Demontheses may move mountains and re-draw maps, the world's eye is not focused on the actions of a single teenage undergrad. Apparently, there are other motives that drive Peter which are not readily apparent to the reader or himself, as demonstrated by the self-induced crisis of living his parents.

If we are willing to believe that there are forces driving Peter that he's unwilling to face, we can follow the breadcrumbs and establish some reasonable guesses as to what those drives are. Hopefully we're not biased from whatever it is that keeps Peter for facing off with some of these gut level motives.

Let's consider the lense through which we see "Peter the Terrible" from Ender's game, and see if we can't shed some light on this one-dimensional evil. I presume that age on this forum varies considerably, so some of you may not like to hear this, but Ender's a child and sees the world through relatively naieve eyes. This is an extremely sublte thing to detect in this story, because it's made extremely clear that children feel they live in real danger and the truth would seem so incredulous to anyone in the self-deluded world, that they have no hope whatsoever in external aide. You'll notice, however, that Peter never actually carried out any of this death threats against Ender. In fact, rather than actually harming Ender's person, it appears that he strives to terrorize him in any way he can concieve. Every one of Peter's barbs is co-signed by Ender's reactions. Peter demonstrates an extrodinary creativity and ruthlessness for undermining Ender's sense of well-being, despite any defense that Ender's genius might spare him from. Despite this incredible drive, Peter maintains this drive only as long as Ender is present. Once Ender has been removed to Battle school, things change rather dramatically, if slowly. Instead of playing on Valentine's worst fears while she's now totally without ally, he conscripts her aide. It's said that the country mellows Peter, but that move happens to correspond with the removal of his nemesis, Ender. The astute reader will notice that I declared Ender Peter's nemesis without justification. Be assured, that will come in a moment. I believe it is now apparent, however, the wrath of "Peter the Terrible" was uniquely energized and focused against ender, and that the source of this wrath was totally beyond Ender. I can only presume that if there was something Ender could have done to escape the wrath his brother brought down on him, he would have done it. I believe this because faced with a situation impossible the master (Giant's Drink), her persued doggedly, regardless of the reality of the situation. He has been faced by this situation before in his brother, and knows that though the outcome was determined before he arrived, giving up was not a viable option. It is only by surpassing one impossible task that he can admit the truely impossible task he cannot remove from his heart: That he wants Peter to love him. Ender's encounters with his brother's violent, unmoving heart in many ways downplay the impossibility of other challenges presented in Ender's life. Of himself, Peter's love is completely and utterly inaccessible to Ender. The horror of this is balanced only by Ender's need for Peter's love. If Ender truely believed that God had established his brother's love as inaccessible to Ender, why did he presume to rebel against God's law regardless of the apparent truth. I believe that at some level Ender knew a truth deeper than that apparent to him. I propose that on some deep, fundamental level, Ender knew his brother wasn't the devil, but simply a human tool the devil magnified, so that the devil could temporarily pretend that love was powerless in this world existing of unmitigated hate.

Please forgive my verbosity, this will all come to a point, God willing.

Now we have to ask ourselves what it is about Ender that uniquely encurred the full attention and wrath of Peter. This is where the Shadow series fleshes things out we might not otherwise know. It's almost obvious to say that Peter was jealous of Ender. Peter's whole character is crafted to be above such pettyness, and not without reason: he wasn't. Peter was clearly dealing with some pretty rough questions. Why did his parents need to have a second male child; why was he so unacceptable? Why did they need a replacement so bad that they'd break and bend the law to get him. What was so special about him that Battle school kept the monitor in Ender longer than they did Peter?

What's astonishing here is not that Peter would ask these questions, it's that he's unwilling to accept the answers. Intellectually Peter knows the score. He knows why battle school didn't accept him, he knows why his parents were allowed to have a third. What he's really asking is why did the answers to those questions have to be things he couldn't accept? Why was the answer, at the end of the day, that it was he wasn't unacceptable on all accounts. And what does he do about this? He turns around and hands his cross to Ender. He ruthlessly attacks the soul of the "chosen one", with every ounce of energy that he has. Having been judged completed unacceptable in his own eyes, he imposes the same harsh judgement on Ender before he could speak his first word, as though incriminating Ender in some way redeemed him. Peter's problem with Ender was just that, it was Peter's problem. It does not, however, identify him as a evil demon feeding only on the pain of others. Peter just took on that persona to escape himself, the self that was so unacceptable.

A quick word to the propogations of Peter's malfuncion: He was provoked. For two extremely intelligent people trying desperately to reconcile their beliefs with themselves and the politicla atmosphere they lived in, their first child definitely had to be uncharted territory for them. Peter was born to parents consciously choosing an environment of duplicity and fear. Is it really any shock that Peter became completely unempathetic? What childhood model does he have? I'm not trying to acquit him, here, but only point out that his mistake was a very human one. Conversely, the misery he imposed on valentine and ender neccesitated empathy, as they had no other means of emotional survival beyond cherishing a love for one another. Nothing else would have survived the terror in their lives, and in a way, evil driving Peter would have won.

Peter trys to sell his soul to the devil because he feels that he's damned from the get go. His parents blame themselves and demonstrate an irrational loyalty to make up for it. Whether that's reasonable or not is a different arguement. It's clear story it's clear that despite Peter's commitment to evil, God's not willing to let Peter go. Needs for love and fellowship prove greater than Peter's irrational whims. His parents constantcey is a testament to a love for him that was lacking during his childhood, and it's one gift he's uncomfortable with but can't refuse (because he needs it). He goes to his parents to reveal who he truely is under the illusion that they cannot know who he really is, and that this changes nothing. They show him what is the truth really is by revealing the nature of their unreasonable love for him. They revealed the self-sacrafice Peter considered himself unworthy of, and it floored him. Peter the Terrible wept like a child needing his mom and pappa. He doesn't transform into a different person, but the rudder of his life is clearly and definitively turned. His parents love, demonstrated in their action before their words, had already turned it, as visible in subtle ways.

At the end of the series, Peter insists of providing Bean with his services. He does this in spite of Bean's negative opinion of him. It may not be a perfect self sacrafice, but it's completely contrary to the heartless and villainous character Peter was attempting to hide behind.

I've got more things I could say about Peter and the other characters, of course, but I feel like I've already written too many words.

too long; didn't read "version":
Peter's character is extremely realistic and there are no discontinuities between the books in regards to his character. Do some detective work and you'll probably figure that out.

tl;dr:
Peter's made of flesh and blood.
 

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Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
 
Welcome to Hatrack, JohnWithAnH.
 

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Posted by tms (Member # 9017) on :
 
'breadcrumbs', JoHn. exactly!

although Mr S highlights all my concerns about the character continuity surrounding Peter, I have found that the method of following OSC's character breadcrumbs, aligned with the notion that his novels come PREDOMINANTLY from the perspective of one character, always seems to sound out realistic and consistent, character motivations, habits, even syntax.

the third factor to differing viewpoints of various characters is, as H-John mentioned, that we visit them at different ages. some mature, some don't. the fact that Enderverse children are often more adult in their synaptic abilities than us only enrichens the breacrumb mix. yum.

when we have a novel seen predominantly through Pete's eyes we may find ourselves at the gingerbread house for character groupies.

information is a Wiggin weapon. i always wondered if in the crucible of this character lay a grand disappointment in Peter that his monitoring implant's results, alongside his own pressuirized situation as first-born to brilliant minds, didn't cut it. could this crisis of confidence, compounded by Ender's success be a major characterizing factor? i've said it before but i love the breadcrumb his Mother drops to Bean about the fact that Peter is far more a product of the education system than Ender.

we know it was Peter's 'nature' not his capacity for lateral thought that Battle School rejected, Peter may never have known or faced this and thus we will not be hearing it (yet) in his first person narrative.

another thought, and that's all these are: could Peter's fear of Bugger War propaganda have moulded him more than Ender (perhaps too concerned with the fear of Peter, and his classmates, his marginalisantion as a Third)? when I think of Peter and his family i think of Martin Amis huddling under his school desk in rigid fear of nuclear war, then having to go home and intellectually defend disarmament with Kingsley over dinner.
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
I know it doesn't bring much into the discussion, but I have to say it:
JohnWithAnH:
(what I really wanted was an icon for clapping, but I couldn't find it, so I chose a more 'subservient' version
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
I know it doesn't bring much into the discussion, but I have to say it:
JohnWithAnH:
(what I really wanted was an icon for clapping, but I couldn't find it, so I chose a more 'subservient' version
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
John,
Interesting, but I'm not sure you understand the nature of my complaint. I'm not saying that Peter's character is inconsistent from Ender's view of him in EG to the Shadow books but rather 1) It's inconsistent with the history given (both in it's absence of atrocities and with The Hegemon being a work on par with The Hive Queen) 2) It's unrealistic for the Shadow version of Peter to be able to conquer the world or to hold that position for well-near his entire natural life.

Peter needed to be dark to be believable and interesting as a character. He needed to be active and forceful and canny and manipulative. Instead, he's a nice guy and he (for all that the books focus on him) doesn't really do much of anything throughout the series. Most of the Peter scenes are small ones. We get him interacting with his parents and with Bean and Petra, but very little with him acting on the world stage. Even his "democracy as the ultimate panacea" strategy is a basically passive thing. The Peter we get is no once in a eon uniter of humanity world leader. He's barely even a politician. He doesn't solve his problems. They just sort of melt away.
 

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Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
I'd bump it, but I think that would be against Ian's wishes, but we had a discussion a while back related to this somewhat that I really appreciated.
 

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Posted by oolung (Member # 8995) on :
 
But then the shadow series isn't all about Peter. No one said Peter got to be the main character, so OSC didn't have to concentrate so much on him and his dark side. And maybe (as is often the case) Peter was regarded by other people as the manipulative power-yearning manipulator: it was them that created his legend, and not himself. So maybe the Peter we see is the Peter Ender actually described in the Hegemon. Of course, I haven't read the last book so I may lack some vital information but I don't think the Peter we see wouldn't be able to get control over the Earth. Another matter is that his gaining control didn't necessarily have to be due to his ruthless ambition. The circumstances also matter a lot. So if Peter found himself in the right circumstances (and he did), then it would be much easier for him to get to rule the Earth even without any evil ruses On the other hand, if those circumstances had never arisen, he might have never get hold of the power, no matter how much he tried.

Still, I think I'm beginning to see your point. Hmmm, the Peter question is not a problem for me since Bean is so much more important, but a few more posts and you'll have me convinced
 

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Posted by tms (Member # 9017) on :
 
if we are questioning supposed inconsistency, it may be wothwhile reflecting on oolung and Adbent's earlier observations of Peter crying over his treatment of Ender and the charged moment when he apparently apologises to Valentine (this is one of my favorite paragraphs.) Does Peter know what he means when he says it? Whatever the case his psycopathy is laid out in all it's ugly bumpiness from the first novel. The human traits of Peter seem much discussed here, his paradox, his inconsistency, quite consistently.

The atrocity, Mr S, MAY either be through the eyes of the beholder, or yet to come. Peter's observation at Achille's funeral still has room to be fufilled methinks, and mehopes.

I'd love to read the sequence when Peter decided to send Ender away in detail. That's gotta cost a guy, no matter how cold he was when he acted on it. Those Wiggin's don't sleep too well do they?
 

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Posted by JohnWithAnH (Member # 9112) on :
 
Responses occur in order of appearance.

Claudia Therese: Thank you. Hi.

tms: I'm afraid that I'll need your help to appreciate continuity of habit and syntax across time. Enlighten me, if you would.

What does "We may find ourselves at a gingerbread house for character groupies" mean?

We know it was Peter's nature rather than his intellectual ability that kept him from battle school. I would propose that Peter knew this as well, but was unreconciled to it. When circumstance forces Peter to interact with his Parents, we see a judgement on Peter's character that preceded the judgement made by the battle school. Peter knows this is the case, and points at it subltely, but frequently. For example, he comments to his father that "well, there's always someone who they like better". The reason that that's caustic is because, like battle school, he's saying "Yes, it's not a good thing to be second best. You already pidgeon-holed me as second best, and I've learned to deal with it." His non-chalant callousness is a defense. His father's mercy is the only thing keeping this defense in tact. His father feels the compulsion to say "yes", to affirm the judgement on Peter. He's merciful because Peter is NOT reconciled to his shortcomings as he pretends, and would be anihilated. This demonstrates that "knowing" about yourself in an intellectual sense does not imply, in Peter's case at least, that you have the power to remake yourself. Peter is at an impasse.

I do not understand your last comment.

oolung Praise me not. Praise God for gifting OSC and us for being able to appreciate it.

Mr. Squicky You'll have to forgive me, I was being self-serving. The contrast between Peter as he's understood in Ender's game and in the Shaddow series was a very large hurdle for me, and I found uncovering the whole story to reconcile this percieved problem very satisfying.

Concerning point 1)
-What atrocities are given? (I haven't read "Shadow of the Giant" yet, and am still working on "Children of the Mind".
-At what point in Peter's life do they take place? A man can only cause harm in proportion to the amount of power he's been alotted. The human (and thus fallible) leader of an entire species is going to inevitably cause serious harms in the microscopic (say, township) level, regardless of their effort to do good. That's exactly why the world is broken up into so many smaller, more digestable chunks - to prevent that kind of thing from happening. The American republic lends itself to encapulation, allowing irreconcilable peoples and points of view to stay irreconcilable on the federal level. I'm afraid this isn't terribly visible in America today, visible as we are now. The Peter Wiggin we're exposed to in the Shaddow series is a boy who would be a man to be the Hedgemon, but is a boy regardless. He does not yet "play for keeps". Rigging the games so he'll show up the winner, not actually risking anything yet. His power is through influence, and the responsibility for the actions taken ultimately belong to the influenced.

-"The Hedgemon", as I understood it, revealed the "darkness that lurked within the great man", or something ot that effect. The Hive Queen was the story of a completely foreign creature that Ender translated for humanity. The Hedgemon was the man who united the entire world, a man of unprecedented greatness. Again, Ender took a completely inaccessible icon and translated it for humanity, revealed the humanity of the Hedgemon. If you go to Washington DC and view the statues there, they are immense. The words of men have been etched in marble 30 feet high. And they are noble words. The image of these men are carved from marble dozens of feet high. They're not people - they're ideas. What we forget is that greatness is a mantle they undertook, not themselves. Ender restored humanity to the Hedgemon, the man who united the world. How is this so petty when compared to the Hive Queen?

2) I haven't read "Shaddow of the Giant", so I'll have to get back to you on that one. I'm also not a historian or general, so I'm not sure I can say anything either way. It is the story that we're given, though. Are you suggesting that it is necceary that Peter be evil for him to be successful?

I disagree, I thought Peter was a very interesting character, angels of good and evil and all. I cite the fact that we're having this conversation as evidence. A few points, though:
-We're not shown him doing much. There are limits to how much a book can accomplish. If I recall correctly, it's called Shaddow of the Hedgemon, not "The Hedgemon", and is a sequel to a novel called "Ender's Shaddow", a book not about Ender. Would you say that Ender "doesn't do anything" because he's not the focus for that book? If your complaint is about a story as of yet unwritten, I'm afraid that OSC is the person to take that up with.

I'm not sure I understand your arguement. It seems to be that conscious wrong-doing is necceary for greatness. I seem to recall there being some degree of irony in discovering that Peter was the great Locke, who made "the Locke Proposal", which united humanity under peace and prosperity. This is completely unreasonable?

Alai is revealed to be a person of great power matched by great character. Is the loyalty of the Islamic world under him unreasonable?

My intention isn't to ridicule, I simply don't understand. Bear with me, if you would, and explain what exactly the problem with Peter's character and his interface with the story is, and why.

oolung You made some good points.

edit: I'd just like to throw out there the beautifully well made point that was the heart of ender's game: Despite all that is natural and rational to us, Ender was only able to defeat a threat to humanity's survival by loving them.

This is completely counter-intuitive without OSC's narrative paving the way. It's counter-intuitive to Bean, who served under Ender. Great then Ender in every way, but inexplicably below ender. This is reiterated and resolved in his conflict with Achilles.

I bring this up to point out that it just because it may appear that power comes from lies and deciet and treachery, ultimately this appearance is decietful and the opposite is true.

Peter admits openly that he sees something off himself in Achilles at Achilles funeral. They're not the same, however. The crucial difference is that at the core of Achilles, he believed the lie and at the core of Peter (in spite of all appearances!), he did not. Achilles died at the hands of those he hurt, and Peter became Hedgemon. It's not that unreasonable to me.
 

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Posted by Cover of Darkness (Member # 9145) on :
 
I thought the Hedgemon was a book about how peter had mellowed over time and that does fit in with the two contrasting views of Peter we get in Enders game and the shadow series. However I would have liked it if he was fractionally more Evil. Just a tiny bit. I did find that I liked peter, i found him more interesting that Bean who i felt that up until after Shadow of the hedgemon was just "mind" but when he begins to look into his humanity he becomes more interesting.
 

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Posted by clod (Member # 9084) on :
 
Can someone recommend a good toaster (brand and design - the kitchen is sorta yellow)? Years ago I became enamored with a breakfast of toasted garlic bagel with orange-marmalade spread. I don't currently own a toaster.
 

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Posted by cheiros do ender (Member # 8849) on :
 
If nothing else, but it for comic value.
 

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Posted by clod (Member # 9084) on :
 
thanks cheiros.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
I never thought that this thread would last this long. Well just goes to show me how often I'm wrong about these things.
 

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Posted by tms (Member # 9017) on :
 
JoHn,

a) I was implying that certain people covet character details more than others, abnd that a tome heavily weighed to Peter's story might prove a treasure chest of sorts.

b) My last comment was posed as a question because it's a feeling I have about these super-children's nocturnal habits. Peter and Ender seem continually contemplating, often alone, seemingly often at night. OSC details other character's night musings too. I always wondered about the Wiggin's abilities to cope with little sleep and how they may have to turn their brains off sometimes to let their bodies rest. Does OSC often make detail Enderverse characters drift off, and how, or is that my own imposition?

I wonder how important, powerful people sleep.
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
I'm not sure that the smart ones sleep at all.


Now if only we could wake up president Bush from his afternoon nap.
 

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Posted by JohnWithAnH (Member # 9112) on :
 
tms
a) I had to look at it like, 3 times, but I finally got it. Breadcrumbs:gingerbreadhouse::peter's supporting role:hedgemon books

The last horse finally crosses the finish line, sorry to be slow.

b) When I was younger I couldn't sleep because I couldn't shut my brain off. Now it's just noise, so I play music. I'd imagine "enderverse" characters drop off to sleep the way a lot of us do - without noticing.
 

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Posted by CalvinandThomasHobbes (Member # 9158) on :
 
Today in my U.S. history class we got into an odd discussion about what makes a leader, and global unity. Most people said the obvious answers, so I then described Peter Wiggin. (I used a lot of what ifs) I told the teacher what he was like, and how he might unite the world. After I explained, he said no such leader would ever exist. And that it sounded too sugar-coated. I think a person with Peter-like characteristics would be an ideal leader. Do you agree/disagree?
 

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Posted by Advent 115 (Member # 8914) on :
 
I agree, but he might not be viewed as kindly as he was in Shadow of the Giant.
 

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