There’s a slight trick here that Card pulls by talking about Bean’s battles; that is, Bean has been through pretend battles, in which his army was his team, and the other soldiers were his teammates. Looked at that way, Bean actually hasn’t been through real war. (Not yet.) So is it fair to say he’s had no childhood? Maybe it’s because the games that these kids play are treated super-seriously? Then again, didn’t you ever take a game seriously?

Here’s a philosophy that Ender tries out for a while – that the power to kill is the only real source of power. In other words, war (in some form) is the ultimate basis for all relationships. This might be a momentary position of Ender’s, but it seems to match up with a lot of his relationships – even the one with himself. But does he hold onto this thought?

To drive home that idea of competition and fairness, here’s Pol Slattery commenting on his loss to Ender when Pol's team had a ridiculous unfair advantage. (His team’s frozen players were becoming unfrozen – which doesn’t seem like a good model for anything that Ender actually faces when he fights the buggers.) Now, Ender is so good that some people think playing against him will never be fair (see 12.177), but there’s still the hope that these competitions could be fair. Except these competitions are meant to be education for dealing with an unfair life (see the previous quote).

Here’s one of the clearest statements of an issue that bothers Ender (and will continue to bother him): that even though he’s competing against the other boys, the school administrators are screwing with him. They make Dragon Army fight earlier and more often than any other team. Ender feels like his competition isn’t just against the other boys – it’s against the whole school.

What does this mean? Anderson tries to tell Imbu that Ender isn’t really scary (at least not to people) because he’s not a killer, just a winner. This seems like a slight cheat since what Ender is winning (and will continue to win) is a competition to the death. It’s like saying of a gladiator that he’s not a killer, he just wins… by killing the other guy. By putting this into terms of winning, Anderson seems to hide the dangerous aspect of competition here – that competition is about war.

After all the torture that Ender endures at Battle School, it's surprising to hear him think this about that place. Sure, being in zero gravity is cool, but being isolated and attacked by bullies is the dictionary definition of <em>not</em> cool. So why does Ender suddenly feel like the Battle School is the place he belongs? Is it just an issue of the physical environment? (After all, Ender is used to the weird gravity of the Battle School, which is pretty different from Earth.) Or is Ender missing something of the social community as well? Does he miss living in a place where people share some feelings and hobby? Is that enough to form a community?