Journal 5

The mood of this novel changes throughout the story. The battle game scenes mostly give tense feelings (by describing the battle scenes and letting Ender win in a remarkable way). The mood is happy when Ender gains victory in the games because the author described how the team cheered when Ender wins. Like I said in the previous entry, the novel saddens me. It saddens me because Ender only finds happiness when he wins a game, which tells me that he totally became a soldier that the adults wanted him to become, a machine-like being. This novel seems like our society decades later. People picking out best and young for wrong uses and the young ones knowing nothing about what they are doing… giving up youth for something you do not know is not a fair deal. Soon our world will become like that, a world that does not allow weak people, and there will not be any solution. Was not the world’s goal to live happily? I do not understand how picking the best people and making them work makes the world happy. Somehow, the world’s goal has changed into having the most power.

Journal 4

The climax of Ender’s Game is when Ender and his army fights in a war, which they thought as a game. It is interesting how the author managed to write down all the actions and not bore the readers. In the climax, Ender eventually succeeds of getting rid of the main hive of the buggers. When he takes his headphones off, he sees people cheering and praying. Rackham tells Ender that he was the actual commander for the army, and Ender notices what is going on. I was kind of sad from the beginning to the end of the story. The way Ender was treated made me think that he was only a tool for defeating lives that are not favored by the world. The saddest part for me is the end of the novel where Ender blames himself for killing buggers, who have done nothing wrong. This part of the story also made me a little angry. Because of the adults, a child had to be used as a weapon in the war. One of the saddest types of people to see is teenagers with their youths taken away. It is important to meet the world’s criteria, but it is more, much more important to develop during youth. Why give up such important time in life for the world? What has the world done for us except for poisoning children and teenagers with messages from media that does not make sense? This book is a book that has numerous actions, but also with numerous messages.

Journal 3

The main characters of this novel are Peter, Valentine, and Ender. I do not have a character I favor or hate, but I did not like it when the main characters fought, especially when Peter threatens and bothers Ender. I still do not know why Peter threatened Ender so much when he loved him (after Peter plays buggers and astronauts with Ender, he tells Ender that he loves him and that he is sorry). I could not decide if I liked the characters or not. They were either too violent or too emotional. These three main characters are special because they know and do things ordinary children cannot do. Ender wins a battle for the world by leading an army, and Peter and Valentine fools the world by pretending to be people who criticize politics. Their intelligence is extraordinary, and not many children have such intelligence. They are like the “powerful” people in this world. They, especially Peter, know what the world needs and know what the world fears. By using the two points, Peter actually succeeds in having the government listen to him. Leaders in ancient history and today use these facts too, by bringing out what the country fears the most and what the country is in need of. People like Peter (or people who are less violent than him) could have been or have been great leaders, knowing when to use their power and what they know about their people.

Journal 2

There are no current situations related to the novel, but there are cases that are similar. Young children are exhibiting their superior intelligence, and parents are trying to make their children smarter and smarter by sending them to hagwons or having a tutor (mostly in Korea). Many people describe such students’ countenance as “dark,” “exhausted,” or “experienced in pain.” It seems that they have forgotten about youth. This is the battle for the “best,” just like a student in Battle School trying to be the best so that he would not be “iced.” The novel does not suggest any solutions, and no one can. The whole world is battling for the “best,” and who can change the mind of the world? This is 2007, a part of the period where technology is improving. The world will look for the best of the best people to think of a brilliant solution for the problems we have in this world, which will make the battle harder. Just like other organisms, we humans look only for the best. Those who do not meet the world’s criteria have to suffer in some way. It is humans’ nature to look for what we call the best, which is why no solutions are brought up. Who can beat humans’ nature or habit and change it?

Journal 1

One of the major themes of this novel is the difference and the relationship between children and adults. In this book, every child in Battle School has to act like adults. They are treated as soldiers, trained like soldiers, and taught like soldiers. The students in Battle School are taught how to kill, or how to take control of other “weak” people (Ender having to listen to Bonzo when he first goes into Salamander Army). The only difference between adults and the children in the novel is the physical appearance and strength. The children have forgotten that they are children because of the adults’ control. This theme is important to teenagers in this year because they have to know that they are not adults and that they should not be exactly like them. If a child is treated and trained like an adult, his mind will become uncomfortable someday when he becomes a teenager. Teenage is only the beginning of learning how to become a successful, “good” adult. A child should not be taken away from his youth, a period where the child can learn and grow. Trained or not trained harshly like adults, the child will affect the world. Training children or teenagers this way is not the best way. Youth is a chance to live the world, and taking that chance away is the same as taking a child’s life away.