Ender’s Empathic Abilities
Orson Scott Card’s work of science fiction, Ender’s Game, is the exciting and poignant tale of a genius, Ender Wiggin, whom the government takes from home at an early age to mold into a military commander.
From his turbulent childhood to his days at the physically and psychologically taxing Battle School, and ultimately his conquest of the buggers and colonization of their world, the most essential aspect of Ender’s genius is his empathic ability. Ender developed this ability as a defense against the truculent characters in his life, such as Stilson and Peter. His empathy helps him defeat his enemies at the battle school, both in and out of the game room. Ender’s empathy takes on universal significance when it allows him to win the war for humanity against the buggers and becomes a “speaker for the dead”. From the beginning of the novel, Ender’s empathic abilities are conspicuous.
The first time the reader encounters Ender, in fact, he is making a very perspicacious observation about the way adults lie to children. A woman in charge of maintaining a monitor attached to the back of Ender’s head since birth had told him that it was time for the monitor to come off, and that it won’t hurt a bit.” Ender’s response is a clear reflection of his empathic abilities. He ruminates, “It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn’t hurt a bit.”
But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than truth. Ender has not only essentially read the mind of the monitor lady but has also demonstrated his personal knowledge of a universal habit of adults lying to children about certain things, such as pain. A short while later in the novel, still before he departs for battle school, Ender demonstrates even more dramatically the expediency of his empathic ability. The very day his monitor is removed, Ender is attacked by the leader of a gang in his school, Stilson. Ender manages to kick Stilson so that he falls down and appears to be unconscious.
Ender comes to the resolution that the only way to ensure that he is never picked on again is to scare Stilson and his gang so much that they never dare touch him. Ender’s words and actions in the following scene are all calculated to make his point quite clear. So Ender walked to Stilson’s supine body and kicked him again… Then Ender looked at the others coldly. ‘You might have some idea of ganging up on me. You could probably beat me up pretty bad. But just remember what I do to people who try to hurt me.’
From then on, you’d be wondering when I’d get you and how bad it would be, Ender said before kicking Stilson in the face. Blood from Stilson’s nose spattered the ground nearby. “It wouldn’t be this bad,” Ender continued. “It would be worse.” Ender’s empathic abilities proved themselves quite clearly by the reaction of the other boys, who did not follow him. He could hear them saying, “Geez, look at him, he’s wasted.”
Perhaps even more than at home, Ender employs his empathic abilities often and with great success at battle school. By the end of his stay, it becomes clear that his empathy is the most useful and necessary of all his extraordinary abilities for his survival. One of the most significant reflections of Ender’s empathy in battle school is his fight with Bonzo in the shower. Bonzo, a Spanish boy of modest ability compared to Ender, had a vicious attack.
