ANDREW "ENDER" WIGGIN

Ender Wiggins is a conflicted, complex character who would fit the definition of a tragic hero.  He is smart, strategic, able to lead others and feels a great deal of empathy, but he also has a violent, brutal streak that he fears.  It is this brutal streak, which only arises when he or others are threatened and in danger, that also leads to his success in destroying the buggers. 

Ender’s greatest fear is that he will end up like his brother, a ruthless, cruel sociopath.  Again and again this fear comes up during the book.  While at Battle School, Ender spends a lot of time playing a video game.  It takes him a few years but he finally succeeds in destroying all the children and creatures that are preventing him from getting to the end of the game, which is a nearly empty room in a castle in Fantasyland.  There is only a rug and mirror.  When Ender looks into the mirror, “he saw a face that he easily recognized.  It was Peter, with blood dripping down his chin and a snake’s tail protruding from a corner of his mouth” (117)  This image of Peter’s face as his face as well as the violence he has commited torments Ender.  He tells himself again and again, “I am not Peter.  I don’t have murder in my heart" (118).

Ender’s relationships are weak and challenged.  His closest relationship is with his sister and a few students from the Battle School  Even before he was brought to the Battle School and kept purposely isolated, he felt alone and afraid.  He was bullied, tormented and taunted by his brother and by other children on earth.  Brought into this world as a “third” (an illegal child; parents were only allowed two), he was bullied over this and was called names: "Hey, Third, hey, Turd" (6).

Ender did not continue to allow himself or others to be bullied.  Instead, he began to strike back.  He killed his first bully at age six and his second, at age ten.  Both times he was anguished by what he had done.  After he killed a fellow student at Battle School, who was trying to kill him, he says, “I didn’t want to hurt him!... Why didn’t he just leave me alone?” (213).

Ultimately, Ender’s flaw of violence when under threat leads to him saving the world from the buggers.  However, it also leads to Ender’s personal torment.  In a conversation between his sister and himself, the irony of the situation is illustrated.  Valentine says, “Funny, isn’t it?  That Peter would save millions of lives.”  Ender answers, “While I have killed billions."  Ender, who wanted to be kind, murdered billions, while Peter, who couldn’t care less about murder or violence, saved the world from a massive civil war.