tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post6639738029363622721..comments2023-11-05T04:09:53.857-05:00Comments on Something Short and Snappy: Speaker for the Dead, chapter five, in which loving siblings trying to destroy each otherErika The Over Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03649072707709302370noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-20395200618474285772014-02-09T11:05:19.714-05:002014-02-09T11:05:19.714-05:00"Fantastic, welcome to Lusitania, please park...<i>"Fantastic, welcome to Lusitania, please park your seal carcasses in a pile by the landing strip and ignore the bulldozer. We encourage you to sample all the alien plant life and go on long walks in the forest by yourself. If you see any piggies ask them to lead you to their native women, they love that joke."</i><br /><br /><br />*resurrects self in order to die laughing again*Ana Mardollhttp://www.anamardoll.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-75141420915620615622014-02-09T10:58:26.128-05:002014-02-09T10:58:26.128-05:00Trondheim's very Norse.
Many fine eateries her...<i>Trondheim's very Norse.<br />Many fine eateries here!<br />Avoid the lutefisk.</i><br /><br />*literally dies laughing*Ana Mardollhttp://www.anamardoll.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-51192881222425738232014-01-31T10:57:58.488-05:002014-01-31T10:57:58.488-05:00Oh, I think that after they actually experience hi...Oh, I think that after they actually experience his teaching they're probably all "Oh, you have to go? Right now? Can't even make your Friday class? Well, normally that would be a problem but I think we can make an exception in your case." Followed by a wild party in the professor's lounge.Ledasmomnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-46797324262261414672014-01-31T01:29:32.594-05:002014-01-31T01:29:32.594-05:00He doesn't have to keep updated. The only thin...He doesn't have to keep updated. The only things that ever change, that ever happen at all are the things that the narrator pays attention to. Which is to say, the things that directly affect Ender. Which makes him the default expert on all things every anywhere.boutetnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-25882217046944122582014-01-30T11:42:28.162-05:002014-01-30T11:42:28.162-05:00Historically, it's more often been their oppon...Historically, it's more often been their opponents who called it "Calvinism." (Christian polemicists often refer to philosophies/sects they're attacking as "Famouspersonism," to emphasize that they come from mortal thinkers rather than from God and Scripture. E.g., creationists prefer to call evolutionary theory "Darwinism.")Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-66024476743404439482014-01-30T10:06:32.290-05:002014-01-30T10:06:32.290-05:00I guess I just haven't heard it referred to as...I guess I just haven't heard it referred to as "Calvinism," then--I'm familiar with the names of the denominations you mentioned, but not many details. Like I said, though, I started wandering away from religion as a teenager, and don't even remember much about the specifics of what my church believed, let alone the other branches.Lady Viridisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-12220157794680705352014-01-30T06:17:51.793-05:002014-01-30T06:17:51.793-05:00Yes, this. Thank you. I've being trying to com...Yes, this. Thank you. I've being trying to compose something like this since this book began. Even when I first read this book, giving it all the benefit of the doubt I could, I was baffled because Card has been to Brazil. Yet his brazilians sound like something he would pick from a one paragraph pamphlet.<br />Lookin now, his Brazilians have the same relation to real Brazilians that Ender's empathy has to empathy as we know it on Earth, it's the most sense I can make of it.Patricia Motanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-2942000415592373332014-01-30T01:36:58.166-05:002014-01-30T01:36:58.166-05:00Calvinist-influenced sects include the Reformed ch...Calvinist-influenced sects include the Reformed churches (including Reformed Baptists), Presbyterians and Congregationalists. They're pretty common. I don't know why Card dislikes them so much; historically they've had a fairly antagonistic relationship with Mormons, but then so have the other Christian churches. In the last few decades they've often allied themselves with Mormons on various social issues.<br /><br /><br /><br />Putting only one religion on each planet sounds like a great recipe for interplanetary hostility to me, which is probably a bad idea when humans have developed interstellar planet-busting artillery.Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-29576843025538199782014-01-29T21:55:37.545-05:002014-01-29T21:55:37.545-05:00"And you can wear the pelts! Very popular on ..."<i>And you can wear the pelts! Very popular on Planet Russia Cyrillia. Rich people pay many pesos for them. People much richer than you.</i>"<br /><br />"Sure thing, <i>amigo</i>; it's a powerful meme in our culture that we try to keep up with <i>os Russos</i>; that, and we always try to spend more money than people who are richer than us. It's part of the singing and dancing thing. (We also are excellent peelers of grapes.) But, are you sure you've come to the right place? I think you might be looking for Planet Nunavut, which orbits the second star to the right on the way to the Frozen Dimension. Right over there, see where I'm pointing? You might want to get in contact with them instead. Nobody has asked you? We have the solution to that; would it be enough if we asked you? If we asked you very politely, because we are polite people. Besides, you say your job is to speak people's deaths, and surely someone will die on Nunavut between the time you leave here and you arrive there — it's almost a certainty, <i>na verdade</i>, because conditions on Nunavut are harsh. Oh, and we have an extra idea, which we think is a good one. You know we're trying to get our industry started up here and that we have a limited population, no? Well, we have recently opened a factory which produces iceboxes, and our problem is that we produced too many. I can't exactly tell you how, but we happen to be suffering from an icebox glut. We would be heavily obliged to you (we are very polite people) if you would relieve us of our icebox overplus, special for you at a knock-down price. That way, your departure will be expedited and you'll have even more wares to offer the fine people of Nunavut. What's that? You don't know how you're going to sell iceboxes to Yupiks? But that is no trouble at all, my friend!! Last time I checked, most of the inhabitants of Nunavut were Inuit and besides that, any man who thinks that people who are sweltering away on a tropical Amazonian planet will go out of their way to buy seal pelts is surely clever enough to sell refrigerators to <i>Esquimaux</i>. You must have faith, my friend, you must have faith."<br /><br /><br />(All the anachronisms are deliberate and are included as aphorisms which <i>could</i> occur in a Card novel but didn't occur in this one. The Portuguese grammar is catch-as-catch-can.)bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-76925745156940643502014-01-29T21:39:28.611-05:002014-01-29T21:39:28.611-05:00Is he a person or a Swiss Army knife? He slices, ...Is he a person or a Swiss Army knife? He slices, he dices, he does julienne fries!<br /><br /><br />*hem*<br /><br /><br />In any event, this would be a lot less WTF if Card had had the good sense to give him a new identity rather than just have him use his given name of Andrew and magically somehow be both able to teach (qualifications?????). Unless he's just supposed to have gotten his qualifications enough after Andrew Ender Xenocide Wiggins's time. (In as much as one can say something's after someone's time in the world Card has given us.)<br /><br /><br />Or maybe he just shows up at universities and geniuses at them and they fall all over themselves to get genius boy to share some of his profundity with their students.<br /><br /><br />I'm beginning to think Card doesn't like fanfic because your average 15 year old can write less obvious self-insert wish-fulfillment fic.depizannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-74883541773970790052014-01-29T20:24:27.480-05:002014-01-29T20:24:27.480-05:00I'm not sure if that's government-classifi...I'm not sure if that's government-classified or Ender-classified. Given that we know he's also got super hacking skills, I halfway suspect that Ender is supposed to have locked away his own files so that no one (including governments) can access them.Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-72545904953217087372014-01-29T19:11:43.630-05:002014-01-29T19:11:43.630-05:00Also a major theme I'm seeing is that Ender...Also a major theme I'm seeing is that Ender's super empathy in no way resembles our earth empathy.<br />I find everything becomes much more acceptable if you preface everything with "space". So Ender doesn't have empathy, he has space-empathy, which, as you've pointed out, has no relation to our earth empathy.Skemonohttp://skemono.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-50001509355345943922014-01-29T19:10:04.488-05:002014-01-29T19:10:04.488-05:00And of course, even if his identity was classified...And of course, even if his identity was classified afterwards, 3000 years on the documents would be unclassified and easily accessible.<br /><br /><a href="http://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/2014/01/speaker-for-dead-chapter-two-part-one.html" rel="nofollow">Not according to chapter 2.</a> Because space-governments last three thousand years and can keep things classified for that long.Skemonohttp://skemono.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-21279629460153155012014-01-29T17:52:12.409-05:002014-01-29T17:52:12.409-05:00How widespread is Calvinism, anyway? I'd never...How widespread <i>is</i> Calvinism, anyway? I'd never even heard of it in this context, and I grew up in a Lutheran church. Granted from what wikipedia tells me the Calvinist ideas are fairly extreme, and I'm not that familiar even with my own congregation's positions since I drifted away from religion at about age 13, but... it's really weird that Card is making such a point of denouncing this one branch of religion over all others. <br /><br /><br />And of course: putting only one religion on a planet is a terrible guarantee of keeping a homogenous culture. Religions change over time, which usually means splitting into different groups as new interpretations emerge. And there's no guarantee that other visiting priests won't show up and convert your population or merge their religion with your own into something new. <br />:/Lady Viridisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-47694449552451944372014-01-29T17:40:55.396-05:002014-01-29T17:40:55.396-05:00I think the army covered up Ender's identity a...I think the army covered up Ender's identity at the end of Ender's Game. So, the general public knows that "Ender" is the one who killed all the Formics, but no one knows that Ender = Andrew Wiggin. Which is itself stupid-- why was his official identity at a <i>military school</i> his childhood nickname, and not his legal name? And of course, even if his identity was classified afterwards, 3000 years on the documents would be unclassified and easily accessible. Unless they were "mysteriously destroyed" or Jane has basically buried them somewhere and done covering up of her own? I guess Jane could also theoretically be forging a new identity and appropriate documents for Ender, since she seems to be an all-powerful AI. Though he never seems to go by any other name.<br /><br />As for the teaching position-- the only thing I can think of is that maybe Ender's position as a Speaker gives him some kind of prestige that the university would hire him on as a visiting lecturer doing private seminars. So he could show up, talk philosophy with whoever signs up for his classes, and maybe the school gives those students an elective credit or something. In that case the school could just pay his speaking fees (which might be quite low, or free, since he doesn't need the money) and he wouldn't need the background check or contract that an actual professor would.Lady Viridisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-10391806022271703572014-01-29T17:40:42.171-05:002014-01-29T17:40:42.171-05:00I read it long ago, when I was wee; now I'm sk...I read it long ago, when I was wee; now I'm skimming along to refresh my memory.<br /><br /><br />Spanish is certainly helpful for learning Portuguese, or puzzling it out from scratch for that matter, and a gifted Spanish-speaker could definitely be able to make themselves understood with a few days of practice. I just like that Ender basically figures out <i>one very easy word</i> in Portuguese and Jane's like "You know Portuguese! You're brilliant, you brilliant man," and Ender's like, "Well, I did learn Spanish in five minutes a while ago so I could visit yet another planet and instantly become their greatest poet/detective/investigative journalist, so y'know, no big D." The <i>egos</i> on these people.Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-63810199803065591722014-01-29T17:30:36.173-05:002014-01-29T17:30:36.173-05:00Hmmm. Years ago I was on a foreign exchange trip a...Hmmm. Years ago I was on a foreign exchange trip and we had a few people from Mexico and a few people from Brazil, and they carried on whole conversations that were (mostly) mutually intelligible, even though one side was speaking Spanish and the other Portuguese. So the situation seems... possible*. I'm not an expert by any means, though; I know a handful of Spanish 101 stuff and not much else.<br /><br />Learning a language completely in eight days is ridiculous either way, but <br />fluency in the basic everyday stuff might not be that farfetched. <br />(Especially for Ender, Instant Expert at Everything.) Though I do question why he waited until he arrived on the planet to start studying. Why not do intensive language classes during the couple weeks of travel time?<br /><br />Doesn't he also have Jane translating stuff in his ear to fall back on?<br /><br />(*I would imagine that 3000 years into the future, with the languages separated onto individual planets, there would be a LOT more linguistic drift and this would not be the case, but Card clearly is not playing by those rules. There's no linguistic drift Because Internet and cultures are all weirdly frozen in antiquated setups with no change over millennia. And of course there are no NEW human cultures or languages, either.)Lady Viridisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-65805884034899951312014-01-29T14:38:29.041-05:002014-01-29T14:38:29.041-05:00The book has already shown Ender using his milleni...The book has <a href="http://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/2014/01/speaker-for-dead-chapter-four-in-which.html" rel="nofollow">already shown</a> Ender using his millenia-old Spanish expertise as an aid in Portuguese.Skemonohttp://skemono.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-43671663949474104522014-01-29T12:27:10.148-05:002014-01-29T12:27:10.148-05:00I learned Portuguese last week, convenient how it&...I learned Portuguese last week, convenient how it's just like Spanish with a broken nose.<br />Have you… read this book already? Because Ender actually does learn Portuguese in eight days, helped by his prior knowledge of Spanish – and I <i>wish</i> I were kidding.Steve Morrisonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-55866495145246122512014-01-29T11:53:57.073-05:002014-01-29T11:53:57.073-05:00Also happened with black howler monkeys. Only the ...Also happened with black howler monkeys. Only the adult males are black, while the young & adult females are yellowish. It was initially assumed they were separate species, the females being Mycetes stramineus and the males Mycetes caraya.Skemonohttp://skemono.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-86927772075431219132014-01-29T10:28:40.286-05:002014-01-29T10:28:40.286-05:00Clownfish and barnacles also have interesting setu...Clownfish and barnacles also have interesting setups. Also of course anglerfish.<br />Pipo has not even, it occurs to me, verified that what the Little Ones meant by male and female was the same as what he meant. He could have been making a huge mistake simply by assuming that these categories exist in their society/species.Ledasmomnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-73702195689292398472014-01-29T07:51:22.330-05:002014-01-29T07:51:22.330-05:00Oh, and they sure as hell aren't going to ship...Oh, and they sure as hell aren't going to ship all the black people to a place called Lusitania.<br /><br /><br />There, yes, thank you; I <i>knew</i> there was something logical still bothering me about what we'd been told about this planet's demographics, but I couldn't quite find it. That's it. They named their planet for ancient Portugal, but their introduction to Portuguese language and culture, as ethnic Africans or South Americans, would have been European imperialism and genocide. How does that make sense? The only option that makes any sense to me is that the planet was named by the whiter majority of Baía before the colony launched, but then the ship was filled with the darker-skinned underclass. I am desperately open to alternatives, because that's just wretched.Will Wildmanhttp://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-39361596361953336962014-01-29T04:03:35.684-05:002014-01-29T04:03:35.684-05:00With the caveat that I am neither Brazilian or a s...With the caveat that I am neither Brazilian or a sociologist, "black Brazilians" are <i>so incredibly</i> non-monolithic. Here's the thing: barring the isolated cultures in the Amazon, Brazil has one of the most integrationist multiracial societies on the planet. I don't mean that they don't have <i>racism</i>, or severe racial inequality--they do. But it's generally of the "Everyone has their place; yours is just at the bottom" variety. Racial separatism and segregationism have never been nearly as popular as they have in the US, among both white racists and black activists.<br /><br />Plus, racial categories are very fluid, fine-grained and cut through half the families in Brazil. It's understood that almost everyone is of mixed ancestry, and white and black are simply ends on a continuum. I might be labeled as "brown" (there's like a dozen different shades of "brown" and "mixed" and "sorta yellow") while my father or brother is labeled as "black", because his skin color's a little darker than mine and he acts a little more culturally native or African. If I'm brown, I can potentially "whiten" my family by marrying a lighter-skinned person and raising our kids properly. (This package of racial attitudes is particularly strong in Brazil, but you can find it to some degree across Latin America, as well as in the New Orleans region.)<br /><br />So pretty much nobody would respond to population pressure in an ethnically Brazilian society by trying to separate out the black people and shipping them away. It wouldn't be desirable, it wouldn't be politically or socially feasible. (They're also not that numerous--"black" Brazilians make up less than 10% of the populace--so it's not like getting rid of them would particularly <i>help</i> with overpopulation.) <br /><br />Oh, and they sure as hell aren't going to ship all the black people to a place called <i>Lusitania</i>. Culturally, that has about the same resonance as if we deported a bunch of Native Americans to a planet called New New England.<br /><br />I <i>can</i> imagine a Brazilian colony world ending up much darker than their parent country, mostly because black Brazilians are poorer on average and it's probably the poor people who get shipped into space. And who knows how ethnicities would fluctuate over the millennia. But as long as Card's playing the Epcot Galaxy game, I get to grouse about how badly he's misrepresented modern Brazilians, let alone future ones.Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-32379796064196285572014-01-29T03:29:47.542-05:002014-01-29T03:29:47.542-05:00and then, once hired, he'd have to be paid.
...and then, once hired, he'd have to be paid. <br /><br /> Actually, I think you've hit upon it. Ender <i>doesn't</i> need to be paid--he's independently wealthy, and he only calls in his medical benefits once every couple of centuries. Sure, he can't make it through a conversation with a teenager without belittling their most cherished religious figures, bursting into tears, or trying to beat them to death, but I'm pretty sure a lot of deans would consider that a perfectly acceptable tradeoff in an adjunct faculty member they're getting for free.<br /><br />Come to think of it, Jane probably bribes each university with a fat endowment while he's en route to the planet. She never tells Ender, of course.<br /><br /> Unless he's kept up on whatever subject he's supposed to be teaching over the 3000 years...<br /><br />The subject he's teaching is apparently "Pop Philosophy, History and Sociology, with an emphasis on whatever Demosthenes wrote this year." If anything, he's overqualified.Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-87983606127782940262014-01-29T00:11:01.317-05:002014-01-29T00:11:01.317-05:00JMO, but I definitely think this is the point at w...JMO, but I definitely think this is the point at which he has to choose between Valentine and the Hive Queen, and when the <i>impasse</i> comes up Ender chooses the Hive Queen. I'm not sure what that's supposed to indicate, though. Ender's alienation? His status as the Flying Dutchman? His status as the Wandering Jew? His status as a Really Smart Guy in a universe where genius is always misunderstood? Is this supposed to be understood as some kind of test which Ender passes? There does seem to be an element of deliberate martyrdom involved.bekabotnoreply@blogger.com