Ender's Game : Was Ender in love with this sister? *Serious question

Why was he always writing to her, dreaming about her and seeing her in his visions? I found it very odd and disturbing how he talked to her like he was in love with her.

Was she adopted? Was he close to her because they were twins?

These children were aware that they were among the persons who might have been chosen for battle school. Val always tried to protect Ender especially from Peter, who was a bully. They were physically immature kids, and although they were very intelligent, they did not have the sexual feelings of attraction. The emotion that they shared was familial love. There are times in your life that you become aligned with the feelings of your brother or sister either because of a tragedy or event shared that draws you into a state of mind where you aren't judgmental of what that person says or does. Two things were going on in Ender and Val's lives: The dread of the buggers coming back to finish off the earth, and the realization that maybe one of them was going to have something to do with it. It really doesn't go any further than that. What I got out of the author's characterization of them was that they were very much aligned with each other. They shared so many things together it was only natural to open up to each other. This has been a much discussed topic on this board, and usually the comments are from people who dismiss the possibility of familial love because they don't understand the concept. I urge you to read "Speaker For The Dead". It doesn't have Val in it except for a mention, but it is a far better story. Totally different than Enders Game. I have read all the books in the series, and thoroughly enjoyed them. My favorite in the series is Xenocide. I found it to be a tightly knit story. I couldn't put it down.

It has been years since I read the books, but in one of them both Val and Peter create secret personas online to influence government policy and help out Ender. By the way, Orson Scott Card wrote this years before even AOL, so he was very forward thinking about technology. Was that in Ender's Game?

You are completely wrong about AOL's founding date.

AOL (originally named Q-Link) was created the SAME YEAR as the book's publication (1985). More importantly email has been around since the 1970s, and public forums since 1980, so the author was not forward thinking. He was merely putting into book form the online communications that already existed among computer users.

Just because it existed, did not mean everyone was aware of it. Email was NOT in widespread use by any stretch in the 1980s. I would have loved to have email available when I was stationed in Japan in 1987, but our computers were primitive and the networks were for official use only. AOL, CompuServe, and other forums did not become mainstream until the mid 1990s. Remember when they gave away all those CDs in the checkout line at the grocery store? It was the World Wide Web that made the Internet (previously ARPANet) a household term.

It would be like a science fiction author writing about people flying airplanes from city to city as a routine thing in 1903. Yes, the Wright Brothers flew their plane that year. But who had heard of it?

It's kind of sad peoples minds go to these places when 2 individuals are close, it just shows the mistrust in todays society

This may not have come through clearly in the movie, but in the books it's more like he saw his sister as his savior. She was really the only protection he had growing up from his brother. She was also his only confidant for many years, and the only person who really understood him for pretty much his whole childhood, plus the first decade at least of his adult life. As a result, he idolized her. Not in any sort of a sexual way, but just as an older sibling. Really, her character could've been male and it still would've worked in terms of their relationship. I think she was made female more to explain the IF's thinking in why they asked the Wiggins to have a third child, ntm because making her a male character might've made her too close to being physically the equal of Peter, which would've changed the dynamic between her and him, ntm Ender and him by extension.

No, Violet was the only person on Earth that Ender ever felt a connection with. He was a "third" child, and was treated somewhat differently by his parents than his siblings were, and his brother Peter was always bullying him and beating him up. Violet was the one person in his world who protected him and loved him for who he was (in the brother-sister sense, nothing else).

No, he was just close to his sister, it happens in many healthy families.



Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived. -Isaac Asimov

It's sometimes called sororal love and is not odd considering the manner he was raised, as outlined by the posters above.

The first time I saw the movie, my impression was that it was an okay action film, but that the story would make little to no sense to anyone who hadn't read the book.

Questions like the one raised by the OP convince me that my initial impression was correct.

It's an okay action film, but it is a very poor adaptation of the source material because virtually nothing is adequately explained.

The relationship between the siblings was the best part of the book and sorely lacking in the film.

Ender loved Valentine the most because she was the person he wanted to be. She was only capable of love and kindness. He hated himself for being like his brother Peter who was only ruthless and dominating. Peter wasn't evil, he was just a kid who used fear and violence because that was all he had and he was jealous of his siblings, and he grew up to be a decent person. Ender was able to do the things he did because he possessed both the qualities of his siblings in equal measure.

*Here's a ****in' spoiler: Everybody dies.*