Some of the kids in <em>Ender’s Game</em> comment on how they’re not allowed to live normal kid lives (see below for an example of that), and some of the adults notice the same thing (like here). This is a very particular view on what makes a normal childhood – fun and games and whatever else it is that kids do. But even if we can argue about whether that sort of childhood is “normal,” we also should recognize that something is going on here with these kids.

This image will come back to haunt Ender in real life, but the game seems to be saying something serious about children here: they’re like wolves. (Actually, notice how many of Ender’s bullies hunt in packs, like wolves.) There goes our cherished notion of childhood innocence.

Every once in a while, Ender will say something that sounds like he’s a budding serial killer, like this. (That is, once you imagine that other people aren’t even human, it’s kind of easier to kill them; and in this case, Ender might think he’s killing them out of self-defense since they’re the dangerous animals.) We could also look at this quote and note how isolated Ender is – after all, if he’s the only human in the place, not only does he not have friends, but he couldn’t really make friends who were his equals even if he tried.

Going along with our last quote, we can see that Ender’s friendships are still complicated: Graff may be his friend (in some way), yet he can’t, you know, go out and see a movie with him. Meanwhile, Alai may be Ender’s friend for ever, but they’re still separated here. So even when Ender has friends, those friendships are complicated.

Here’s a curious thing: Ender is a super smart and super skilled kid but most of this book details how he destroys things. (And by “things” we mean people and an entire alien species.) At least Peter (maybe with some help from Val) comes up with a peace treaty, the Locke Proposal. It’s interesting to keep in mind that, for most of the book, all of Ender’s smarts and skills – all stored in his own head and hands – are used to take things apart. Maybe that's one reason why he doesn’t need to take anything with him when he goes to Rat Army – because he hasn’t actually made anything.

This is a complex thought here, so let’s break down what’s going on: Bonzo gave Ender an order that he couldn’t give – he tried to tell Ender what to do during free play. But why is that order not allowed? Because the school administrators made it so. So, Bonzo tries to confine Ender, but Bonzo himself is confined by the school rules, which means Ender has to challenge Bonzo’s authority. Also notice how Ender thinks about his action: “he had no choice.” There’s some way in which Ender himself feels constrained here – he’s not free to challenge his commander, but he <em>has to</em> challenge his commander. It’s like no one is free here.

The major institutions that Ender has to deal with are school and the army, so we had to throw in at least one example of this. Ender is confined by his promise to obey orders. Of course, pretty soon Ender disobeys Bonzo’s stupid orders (7.279), so we might have to ask how confining these things really are.