Enders Game Thread

[OldGreyEagle]

For Kudu (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

[Kudu]

 

Thanks, OGE! Can this Thread be moved to the Wood Badge Forum, as "Ender's Game & Young Leaders"?

 

I've been re-reading Ender's Game, the Shadow series, and Ender in Exile, in anticipation of the film's November 2013 release:

 

http://endersgameblog.tumblr.com/

 

I'm sure the next edition of Guide to Safe Scouting will include a prohibition against Boy Scout units viewing the movie, because of the graphic scenes of laser tag in zero-gravity.

 

Tampa Turtle writes:

 

"Ah Enders Game. One of the great ones. I tried to turn my son on to it but no luck thus far..."

 

dg98adams writes:

 

"Wanna start him on Enders Game... there is a Comic book series too... but that can be like a bad habit with the cost of comics these days."

 

Yes! The Enders comic books are works of art, but they are expensive. To show how old I am, I had NO idea that such comic "books" are actually hard-cover books!

 

Tampa Turtle writes:

 

"I got him Enders Game in Paperback and e-book. So far no biting."

 

Tell him to skip the Introduction. My Scouts complain that it goes on forever, written for adults who first read it 20 years ago.

 

Like the comic books, Orson Scott Card was was also involved in the production of the excellent audio book version of Ender's Game. It includes a generous postscript in which he talks about the process of writing some of the screenplays for the movie.

 

If the film turns out as good as "Master and Commander," it will be perfect for Troop Leader Training weekends:

 

"The U.S. Marine Corps Professional Reading List makes the novel recommended reading at several lower ranks, and again at Officer Candidate/Midshipman. The book was placed on the reading list by Captain John F. Schmitt, author of FMFM-1 (Fleet Marine Fighting Manual, on maneuver doctrine) for 'provid[ing] useful allegories to explain why militaries do what they do in a particularly effective shorthand way.' In introducing the novel for use in leadership training, Marine Corps University's Lejeune program opines that it offers 'lessons in training methodology, leadership, and ethics as well [....] Enders Game has been a stalwart item on the Marine Corps Reading List since its inception'."

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game

 

So if none of the Ender's Game media appeal to your son, Tampa, then sign him up for the Marines

 

Speaking of midshipmen, see also "Master & Commander" and leadership training:

 

http://inquiry.net/patrol/training/movies.htm

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Kudu, you were trying to set up the thread titled as:

 

Ender's Game Thread"

 

The fatal flaw was the ' between the r and s of Ender's. I took it out and it worked

[Tampa Turtle]

I might tell my son that. Maybe I should just read it to him. I got him to read a bit of Bradbury's Illustrated Man. He thought it was a bit creepy. The syntax of some of the older books I think cause some difficulty.

 

Of course Hunger Game mania has swept the house.

 

I have reread Ender's game about 4 times. I thought Speaker for the Dead was rather good. Others not so much.

 

Interesting both my boys LOVED Master and Commander. Got them interested enough to watch the BBC series Longitude.

 

It is always hard to introduce a beloved classic to your children to have them be disinterested. Philistines.

 

My wife has never forgiven me for "Santa" giving them Monty Python and the Holy Grail and avoiding the wifely Python embargo. They loved that--must be a mail thing.

 

Yeah my younger one wants to be a Marine but he is built like Ender and very sweet. I think it is the snappy uniforms.

[sailingpj]

I love the Ender books. I read them first when I was 11, and reread them every so often.

[BDPT00]

OK, I give up.

This has something to do with Wood Badge?

BDPT00

[Gunny2862]

I have no idea on WB but Ender's Game was awesome.

[MoosetheItalianBlacksmith]

No clue what it has to do with Woodbadge but it was an amazing book and was one of the ones that i kept after reading so i could reread it. I might actual do that this summer this thread resparked my intrest.

[Kudu]

 

What does this thread have to do with Wood Badge?

 

As the title implies, "Master and Commander" is about leadership: How an adult leader trains thirteen-year-old (13yo) midshipmen to command patrols of grown men in the fog of war.

 

Likewise, the U.S. Marine Corps uses Ender's Game to train midshipmen.

 

As Baden-Powell makes clear in the opening of Scouting for Boys, his Patrol System was inspired by the courage and competency of boys in war: "These boys didn't seem to mind the bullets one bit; they were always ready to carry out orders, though it meant risk to their life every time" (Baden-Powell, "Camp Fire Yarn No.1: Mafeking Boy Scouts").

 

Baden-Powell invented Wood Badge to teach indoor volunteers how to think like outdoorsmen and train Patrol Leaders how to lead a Patrol of boys into the backwoods at least once a month without adult supervision.

 

Perhaps if Wood Badge participants left the course with the understanding that the unsupervised Wood Badge Patrol Hike is THE primary leadership skill that Baden-Powell intended them to take back to their Patrol Leaders, the connection with war fiction that portrays some (not all) boys as remarkably competent leaders under stress, would be more obvious.

 

I know that even with 50 years of experience, sending a Patrol of boys out without "adult association" is still a daunting responsibility.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

(This message has been edited by Kudu)

[Eagle92]

I admit I got in late on Ender's Game as I first heard it in audo book about 5 years ago. IT WAS AWESOME! I admit I haven't read any of the other books in the series, but I am looking forward to the movie.

 

And if Card get's his way with the movie, which he said he has rejected previous screen rights offers b/c of clauses to modify to too much, then i'll probably be first in line withthe kids to see it.

 

Just won't be wearing a costume to see like I will for THE HOBBIT.

 

 

[OldGreyEagle]

wearing a costume to go to a movie? Last time I did that I was Riff Raff...

 

[Kudu]

 

If your hair is short enough, you could wear a copy of Ender's electronic surveillance implant:

 

http://endersgameblog.tumblr.com/

 

 

[Eagle92]

OGE,

 

I can relate. I'm a "very tender subject" when it comes to that movie.

 

When you marry into a LotR and DW fanatic family, they wear on ya.

 

Kinda interesting when your 11 month old son goes to his first Sci Fi convention in Gondorian armour.

 

Hopefully the boys won't turn their bedroom into a T.A.R.D.I.S. as their mom and aunt did when they grew up.

[Kudu]

 

Eagle92,

 

The audio book version of Ender's Shadow is equally awesome.

 

Something that I did not notice until Orson Scott Card pointed it out: All of the text in the audio books is read in the voice of the character from whose point of view that section of the chapter is written. In other words, if it is from Ender's point of view, then Ender's voice reads not only his side of the dialogue, but Colonel Graff's side of the conversation as well, along with all the "he saids" and the rest of the unabridged text.

 

Ender's Shadow is the same story as Ender's Game, but from the point of view of the younger supporting character, Bean, the tiny Dutch street urchin who becomes Commander of Rabbit Army. His size reminds me of one of my toughest "hooligan" Patrol Leaders.

 

Aramis Knight will portray Bean in the "Ender's Game" film, with Asa Butterfield ("Hugo") as Ender, Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff, and Ben Kingsley as Mazer Rackham:

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1731141/

 

Ender's Shadow is the first book of the "Shadow Saga" consisting of Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant. The Shadow books are based more on action than the "Speaker for the Dead" series. As Card explains in the Ender's Game audio book postscript, including Ender's Shadow in the film's screenplay brings the story out of Ender's head and into the genre of buddy action films.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

 

One of our methods in the Scout movement for taming a hooligan is to appoint him head of a Patrol. He has all the necessary initiative, the spirit and the magnetism for leadership, and when responsibility is thus put upon him it gives him the outlet he needs for his exuberance of activity, but gives it in a right direction http://inquiry.net/patrol/index.htm

 

 

[Kahuna]

I guess I have to weigh in on this thread, since I have rather strong feelings about Enders Game.

 

As a sci-fi fan since my early teens, I loved the book and am eagerly awaiting the movie. I thought Asa Butterfield will be great as Ender and I really don't know the other youth actors, but I'm sure Card made sure they're a good match.

 

However, I cannot imagine the book as a guide to youth leadership (or for adult leadership of youth). I'm not sure what the Marines are using it to develop, but that's an entirely different matter.

 

I should also mention that Master and Commander, books and movie, are excellent youth leadership training materials and would certainly use them if I were a Boy Scout unit leader or trainer.

 

On the other hand, I would not want my son or the neighborhood boys, for that matter, in a troop guided by the principles of Enders Game.

 

- Enders is science fiction. It takes place in a future time and under circumstances not imaginable in any Scout setting.

 

- The story is not about leadership; it is about selection and survival of the fittest. The adults do not lead: they manage and create situations in which boys will rise to the level required or die. The boys are pre-selected for the type of leadership abilities required by a specific set of circumstances. They are then left to their own devices, even allowed to kill each other in the quest.

 

- Ender is not an example for youth leadership in Scouting. He is perfect for his situation and turns out to be the "chosen one," but he is not even told that the battle against the Buggers is the real thing. In short, he is picked for certain abilities, thrown into a meat grinder and manipulated to succeed. Nowhere in the novel is there an example of adult leadership, other than to set up the grueling and exploitative games the kids must play.

 

- Finally, the ending is absolutely devastating to Ender. His discovery on the alien planet and the revelations that come with it would completely destroy most young people.

 

A fine book. A great story for youth or adults. A moral lesson for adults (that most boys would not grasp). But a leadership tool for Scouts? No, not under any circumstances. In fact, if anything, it would be something I would discuss with boys who have read it to make sure they really got the point that what was done to Ender was evil. A necessary evil, they believed, but evil none the less.

 

Strong letter to follow.