Complex Characterization

In the book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, the characters play a major role in the development of the plot. Ender, the protagonist of the story, is a Third. This means that he was the third child who was only there to be monitored and tested. Because of this, Ender starts out as a little boy who is timid and afraid to face his fears. He is reluctant to do anything against anybody for trepidation that somebody might hurt him or his family. He knows that he is being monitored by the IF, or International Fleet, so he tries to carefully plan his every move. One day, Ender loses it. Some kids had been bullying him for a while so Ender decided to take action and end it. He beats all the kids up with an abundance of wrath. He went from the sweet little boy who always got picked on to a rage monster who shouldn't be messed with in a matter of seconds. This changes the IF's view on everything about Ender.

They choose Ender to go to Battle School, where the most promising recruits from all over the world went to train for the war. The war that Ender, as chosen by the commanders of IF, was supposed to curtail. Every step Ender took was being watched. He was expected to be great, to be the best possible soldier one could be. Ender started training harder and harder, which meant that he was becoming less and less of the kid he used to be. Sometime in the middle of the book, Ender begins to play a virtual game in which the computer bases the game off of Ender's old life. This game brings Ender depression and melancholy. He was made to believe that all of this training and fighting was useless. He began to lose hope of being the soldier he was destined to be. However, he managed to pull through. Once he got his own army, Ender build up confidence after winning battle after battle. The commanders of IF want to test whether Ender could handle true pressure, so they made Ender face multiple armies at a time with severe disadvantages. Ender still handled it, which led the commanders to believe he was ready.

I think that this shows Ender was a very dynamic character. He went from the little boy who was afraid of himself to a young man who could take on armies. He became more of a leader, and somebody to look up to throughout the course of the text.