tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post7970689416006658201..comments2023-11-05T04:09:53.857-05:00Comments on Something Short and Snappy: Speaker for the Dead, chapter seven, in which Ender is a magical social workerErika The Over Queenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03649072707709302370noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-47738405040834684532014-03-07T12:07:57.805-05:002014-03-07T12:07:57.805-05:00Why the hell would he even WANT to be a part of th...Why the hell would he even WANT to be a part of this dysfunctional family anyway? GRRRRchromesthesianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-68185899261350330972014-02-23T16:16:16.864-05:002014-02-23T16:16:16.864-05:00Demosthenes: "Mostly harmless."
The mas...Demosthenes: "Mostly harmless."<br /><br />The masses: "Brilliant!"cinderkeysnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-90974249391557792542014-02-23T13:12:06.202-05:002014-02-23T13:12:06.202-05:00FWIW, and not to be overly pernickety, I think thi...FWIW, and not to be overly pernickety, I think this passage mirrors something we see in most of Card's fiction and in the Ender books specifically. What it is, is that Card's protagonists can never be in a particle of debt to anyone, for anything, ever. Where there's a pattern of giving versus receiving, Ender always has to be on the giving end (and this holds true for most other Card protagonists although Ender is an exceptionally pure example). IMO that's why Card repeatedly makes the point that Ender's mere physical presence on-scene (in whatever scene he's in) is such an inestimable gift that those who receive it can never hope to pay it back, and it's why Card goes to the extant of having Ender (hilariously) flee outright from a grad student on Trondheim whom he (Ender) fears wants a piece of him. "She will steal from the mana of my glorious presence and I shall derive nothing worthwhile in return!!" Now in terms of mere mortal humanity that's pretty silly, but in terms of Enderics it's supposed to make sense.<br /><br />So here we have a scene in which, in basic common-sensical terms, Ender is indeed in need of something (dry pants) which Miro is perfectly willing to provide. What's more Ender's need is predicated partly on Ender's previous actions — Ender decided to hold Grego on his lap until Grego wet himself, nobody forced Ender to do that. So Ender is in a quandary which he owes, partly, to his own decisions; therefore he owes a bit of gratitude, in a minor way, to Miro, who is willing to help him out of his scrape. But Card can't leave it there because that puts Ender in the position of someone who owes a favor rather than in the position of the person to whom a favor is owed. Consequently <i>Miro</i> has to be put in the position of being willing to do a favor for a dude who doesn't need one — he ends up offering a pair of dry pants to a visiting creepy uncle outworlder whose pants are mysteriously already dry. (Meaning that Ender can accept the favor, but only if he doesn't really need it.)bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-11428881115153881522014-02-22T19:24:09.782-05:002014-02-22T19:24:09.782-05:00Who cares if the pee on your pants has dried? If y...Who cares if the pee on your pants has dried? If your pants have pee on them, the correct response is 'thank you, I would like to change into a different pair.' Not 'thank goodness I wore quick dry polyester today!' <br /><br />Ender is gross.SmilodonMeownoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-39997505980663622692014-02-21T13:36:50.833-05:002014-02-21T13:36:50.833-05:00That's an entirely plausible attitude for a co...That's an entirely plausible attitude for a colonialist power to take. It just doesn't seem to jibe with Starways Congress' naively tolerant "don't displace the piggies or mess with them in any way" policy. I mean, Ayn Rand wouldn't (I think) bother to pretend that the Native Americans were still the rightful occupants and managers of their own lands.<br /><br /><br />If Starways Congress were <i>supposed</i> to be expansionist, exploitative assholes who were hypocritically pretending to be tolerant for PR purposes, it would be different. But it doesn't seem like Card's going that direction.Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-53833295779946584442014-02-21T00:13:14.000-05:002014-02-21T00:13:14.000-05:00I think that since it's emphasized that the pe...I think that since it's emphasized that the <i>pequeninos</i> have no metallurgy themselves, they have no moral claim to the metals on their planet. They aren't <i>using</i> the metals on their planet, at least not in any way the human colonists can recognize, they haven't declared ownership over the metals on their planet, they've got no idea of the value of the metals on their planet, so possibly in the view of the Starways society the field is open and the rush is (justifiably) on. There are quite a few people (Ayn Rand was one) who have argued that the American Natives had no claim to their territory because their culture deprived them of the means of formulating that kind of claim.bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-37862607534909113152014-02-21T00:03:58.206-05:002014-02-21T00:03:58.206-05:00Ender is quick-drying like his pants.Ender is quick-drying like his pants.bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-83053794854583006952014-02-20T23:59:59.187-05:002014-02-20T23:59:59.187-05:00"Miro offers a pair of his own pants to wear ..."<i>Miro offers a pair of his own pants to wear while they clean Ender's, which Ender accepts though his own have '<b>long since dried</b>', reminding us all again that this author has no concept of the passage of linear time. I stepped in a tiny puddle yesterday and my sock was damp for a couple of hours; there is no way Grego let loose on Ender half an hour ago and he's been dry for ages already.</i>"<br /><br />Miracle futuristic textile synthetic. Unnatural fibers on steroids. <i>Of course</i> Ender wears polyester pants to Lusitania, like the Englishman at the outstation who always dressed for dinner, and of course his synthy fibers are <i>the</i> absolute synthiest of all. No other unnatural fibers can match them for sheer synthiness. On Trondheim he wore fake fur. That's how intense he is about these things.<br /><br />"<i>Incidentally, we're told the hologram is in 'bas relief' since it was recorded from a single individual's perspective, not true 3D, but there's still no explanation of how Olhado has any real depth perception.</i>"<br /><br /><br /><br />Olhado doesn't have depth perception; his <i>machinery</i> does (or is sophisticated enough to produce an impression of depth perception in anyone who views an Olhado recording). Just another example of how a well-drawn character's Powers are more interesting than the character him-or-herself. JMO.bekabotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-62555246995035404922014-02-20T16:48:05.540-05:002014-02-20T16:48:05.540-05:00Well, Wikipedia indicates the existence of a coupl...Well, Wikipedia indicates the existence of a couple of Portuguese soccer players who are named Joaquim and called Quim, so he's at least doing better than the fake Scandanavian names.lexicologynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-2922321473532358162014-02-19T10:01:48.324-05:002014-02-19T10:01:48.324-05:00Well, you see the issue with googling it. Linguist...Well, you see the issue with googling it. Linguistics is not likely to feature prominently.Ledasmomnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-28048295140928715332014-02-18T22:05:20.495-05:002014-02-18T22:05:20.495-05:00Ledasmom: I see that you are acquainted with Eliza...Ledasmom: I see that you are acquainted with Elizabethan English too!JReynoldsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-34696400751047162042014-02-18T21:52:04.919-05:002014-02-18T21:52:04.919-05:00Does anyone know if "Quim" is a usual so...Does anyone know if "Quim" is a usual sort of nickname in Portuguese? I would really rather not try to google it, and I feel sort of awful for having to stifle giggles every time I see his name.Ledasmomnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-78488135881794395952014-02-18T21:49:20.317-05:002014-02-18T21:49:20.317-05:00Why do they take him to church? I mean, if your ki...Why do they take him to church? I mean, if your kid is kicking adults in the face, I don't think they'll miss him too much.Ledasmomnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-39887851200557014302014-02-18T16:57:21.460-05:002014-02-18T16:57:21.460-05:00I wouldn't be surprise if Card's host cult...I wouldn't be surprise if Card's host culture had similarly different attitudes toward home decor that Card chauvinistically assumed to imply that no one there had any taste.<br /><br />That seems very plausible. And there are <i>so many</i> options Ender's just ignoring here. Maybe it's cultural. Maybe they recently took down a bunch of the decorations to express mourning over Marcão's death, or maybe it's currently too hard to keep looking at the artwork he chose/created/loved. Maybe Grego's been stealing stuff and hoarding it. Maybe none of them really <i>care</i> about the house that much, since most of the people in the household have centered their lives around the Little One research station or the church or chatroulette.com (or wherever Olhado does whatever the hell he does with the "semi-virgins") instead. But, nope, Ender just intuits his way to the obvious conclusion that they're all mired in self-hatred.<br /><br />Similarly, the detail that it is *farmers and miners* who want vodka, something they've never drank, only heard about, is also quite classist and obviously an outsider observation. First, *of course* the sophisticated sciencey-types (I feign to call Card's characters "scientists", since they are all presented as incompetent autodidact amateurs) aren't into a new source of alcohol.<br /><br />Yup. Meanwhile, exactly the opposite is true in real life. Vodka's currently becoming more popular in Brazil among the urban, clubgoing middle class, but the rural "common man" still tends to prefer cachaça. In fact, many rural Brazilians have this odd thing called "national pride" and feel like consuming and promoting Brazil's signature products is a good thing! Bizarre, I know.<br /><br />And it just hit me--"miners?" There's an ongoing, large-scale mining industry in this colony? They're digging big-ass holes in the ground and removing Lusitania's non-renewable resources? How is <i>that</i> minimizing ecological impact and leaving Lusitania to the Little Ones? Argh. Swear to god, we're going to discover that they've been sewing their boots out of space pig leather or something. "We weren't trying to <i>interfere</i> with the Piggies, honest! We just thought they...wouldn't miss their skin very much! We tried to remove it quietly!" <br /><br /><br />Second, I refuse to believe that no one on Lusitania is currently distilling *anything*, if only for medical and laboratory cleaning purposes (or has Card's "future tech" eliminated the need for rubbing alcohol?)<br /><br />Apparently they tried brewing with the amaranth, but it "doesn't ferment into a very good beverage". Which, aside from being factually false, is kind of irrelevant if your goal is to make <i>distilled</i> alcohol. The whole point of distillation is that it makes "not very good" beverages better by amping the alcohol content and removing impurities. <br /><br />Anyway, instead of trying to improve the distillation process or adding additional flavorings or doing any of the stuff human beings have done for <i>all of recorded history</i> in order to develop regional specialty drinks from the local foodstuffs, they've just given up. Because Brazilians <i>hate</i> developing regional specialty drinks. Apparently it makes far more sense to engineer an entirely new food crop to cope with Lusitania's death viruses, then use it to make Card-approved potato vodka instead.Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-2749012764703865402014-02-18T16:28:15.764-05:002014-02-18T16:28:15.764-05:00Well, if every time Miro comes home he gets abused...Well, if every time Miro comes home he gets abused by his parents I'm not really surprised he hasn't been able to help his little brother. <br /><br />Right, but their dad's been been dead for six weeks (or possibly three weeks, I think there's a dating inconsistency the editors didn't catch) at this point, and Novinha's off being an absentee mom. It just seems like Grego's family members would at some point attempt a strategy other than "When he comes at us with the knife, dodge." Just in their own self-interest.<br /><br />Grego's mother is a scientist, therefore the nuns don't care.<br /><br />But the nuns <i>do</i> care. I mean, not necessarily in any altruistic way, but we saw that at least one nun was willing to use physical force to stop Grego from defacing church property. Again, Grego is sufficiently obnoxious--he's <i>kicking adults in the face in church</i>--that even lazy and uncompassionate people ought to be intervening, just to make their own lives easier.<br /><br />Also, I suppose, Novinha, let run feral, taught herself post-grad level <br />biology between 7 and 14, so presumably Grego is readying himself for <br />his degree in physics.<br /><br /><br />Now <i>that</i> makes sense. He only stole the screwdriver to get his FTL drive started!Anton_Matesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-31334526824869543262014-02-18T12:45:00.760-05:002014-02-18T12:45:00.760-05:00Do not attempt to understand the logic of the Ende...Do not attempt to understand the logic of the Ender. That is impossible. Merely realize the truth: There is no logic.BaseDeltaZeronoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-80093439960670375282014-02-18T10:39:03.051-05:002014-02-18T10:39:03.051-05:00Both the "no decorations=contempt for themsel...Both the "no decorations=contempt for themselves" and "we need potatoes for Vodka"! details strike me as things *Card* found interesting in his mission trip (which this colony is largely based upon) and drew his own conclusions which are batshit wrong. I did Peace Corps for two years, and the general lack of decor, in the Western sense of framed, hung photographs and art, struck me as very odd the first few months. Then I realized that in my host culture, the floor-length curtains and/or carpets and tapestries hung against one wall, leaving the others blank, was considered quite well-decorated and proper. I wouldn't be surprise if Card's host culture had similarly different attitudes toward home decor that Card chauvinistically assumed to imply that no one there had any taste.<br /><br />Similarly, the detail that it is *farmers and miners* who want vodka, something they've never drank, only heard about, is also quite classist and obviously an outsider observation. First, *of course* the sophisticated sciencey-types (I feign to call Card's characters "scientists", since they are all presented as incompetent autodidact amateurs) aren't into a new source of alcohol. Second, I refuse to believe that no one on Lusitania is currently distilling *anything*, if only for medical and laboratory cleaning purposes (or has Card's "future tech" eliminated the need for rubbing alcohol?) Third, this is again an American colonialist observing a cultural preference for "exotic" alcohol and attributing it to some kind of vague moral failing. I suppose Card's being culturally Mormon means he hasn't experienced much of US drinking culture (or didn't prior to his mission), but considering every major social interaction or event of any kind in this country is always supplied with if not founded upon the consumption of wine, beer or spirits, it seems very pot-kettle-shade-judging.<br /><br />Finally, most modern vodka isn't distilled from potatoes, which are more expensive than grains. Russians didn't even have wide access to potatoes until well into the 1800s. Again, even given that this book was written prior to Google, it doesn't excuse the extreme laziness of research and constant reversion to stereotype behind every "look at my WorldBuilding!" detail Card pulls out of his ass.Kesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-84136917993205726142014-02-17T19:40:41.620-05:002014-02-17T19:40:41.620-05:00WTF is wrong with these people?! Or Card, since i...WTF is wrong with these people?! Or Card, since it's all his fault. <br />Given that Ela doesn't seem surprised AT ALL that Grego not only has a knife but tried to use it on someone, Grego must have done this, or something very similar, at least once before. It is not that hard to prevent 6 year olds from accessing knives! As a last resort, you remove the knives from the home. Also, it doesn't take long for news of a 6 year old knife wielder to get around and for people to stop letting said 6 year old into their homes. So he shouldn't have access to other people's knives either. <br />Oh wait, that would require anyone to give a crap either about the 6 year old's serious issues or their own safety. Plus, it would require an actual action, which, as far as I can tell, is not something anyone in this family is willing to do.Kaynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-56197505568632331152014-02-17T14:32:06.693-05:002014-02-17T14:32:06.693-05:00There are only a handful of other species: the cab...There are only a handful of other species: the cabras, the watersnakes, the macios, the suckflies, the puladors, and not many besides. (This turns out to be significant later.)Steve Morrisonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-40951075526247469162014-02-17T13:25:49.405-05:002014-02-17T13:25:49.405-05:00Woof. Seems like the only thing being taught there...Woof. Seems like the only thing being taught there is that people who are bigger and stronger than you are will insist you obey them and physically restrain you until you do. Which is what bullies and bosses want - obey us because we have power.Silver Adeptnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-91549337055149676342014-02-17T13:20:55.760-05:002014-02-17T13:20:55.760-05:00there's still no explanation of how Olhado has...there's still no explanation of how Olhado has any real depth perception. I guess he could have a certain amount of parallax if he had multiple optics all slightly apart<br /><br />Binocular vision is only one way of having depth perception; other methods can be achieved with only one eye, like Olhado has. I know chameleons and jumping spiders have depth perception without binocular vision. But then there's all sorts of questions that could raise: how does Olhado handle that? Does the eye "translate" the feed to stereo and send the information to his nerves? Has his brain just adapted to the sensory input the eye sends him so that he can understand depth in this new way? If the latter, then how does his camcorder-vision actually appear to other people? I'm going to assume that Card neither thought of nor answered any of these questions.Skemonohttp://skemono.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-24764404183393617052014-02-17T13:13:34.499-05:002014-02-17T13:13:34.499-05:00I just... this... Round robin stories told by dru...<i> I just... this... Round robin stories told by drunk college students <br />and sleep deprived grade schoolers make more sense than this and are <br />more coherent!</i><br /><br />I got to play a lengthy round of "No, Really, This is What Happens" about this book with my roommate the other day. She had read Ender's Game, but not Speaker or any of the other books, and out of morbid curiosity last week I ended up skimming and re-reading through the rest of the book. I ended up going on at length about just how bad this book is, and how astonished I am that I didn't notice this fact before. As I described all the various plot points, her only reaction was pretty much "What. What? WHAT?!" She could not believe how utterly nonsensical the worldbuilding was and how unbelievable the characters' actions were. <br /><br />As a history major herself, though, she was most outraged/baffled/insulted about the whole "Demosthenes/Valentine writes the definitive history of every planet they visit in six months" bit. We eventually came up with the headcanon that what Demosthenes is really writing is basically the extended Wikipedia page on each planet, full of broad stereotypes and general facts, that everyone else (including all the REAL historians) eagerly awaits the release of so they can laugh at how woefully incomplete it is. Because that is the only kind of history you are going to pull off in six months about colonies that are a minimum of 100-200 years old and possibly up to 3000 years old. <br /><br /><br /><br />As she pointed out: people today write entire books on one event or person, or one small group of events or people, or one short 10-20 year period in history, and those books are hundreds of pages long and take years to research and years more to write. Valentine is supposedly writing an equivalent of <i>The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire</i> in six months. While also teaching/lecturing. WTF?Lady Viridisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-61838441348670367212014-02-17T13:07:58.177-05:002014-02-17T13:07:58.177-05:00Yes, that would be a wise avenue of investigation,...Yes, that would be a wise avenue of investigation, wouldn't it?<br /><br />Pet-peeve nitpick: 'sentient', 'has senses'. 'sapient', 'has wisdom'. The two words are not synonymous no matter how often they're used synonymously. I'm pretty sure humans are the only sapient species on Earth, though there are arguments in favor of a variety of others, but we are far from the only sentient species. I realize this is probably an argument where the dictionary does or will agree with my opponents a la literally/figuratively, but.AlexSeanchainoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-2763058326963462592014-02-17T12:56:54.200-05:002014-02-17T12:56:54.200-05:00Are there any native fauna on Lusitania other than...Are there any native fauna on Lusitania other than the Little Ones? I mean, given that all animals on the planet presumably share a common ancestry, they ought to be able to figure out a lot about the Little Ones by comparative anatomical analysis of other, nonsentient, species.Scott P.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2946534773407276339.post-75779701609798773602014-02-17T12:30:17.305-05:002014-02-17T12:30:17.305-05:00Just a thought on the 10 cm gesture....that could ...Just a thought on the 10 cm gesture....that could have been nothing related to the actual height. People (although not anyone I know) might say stuff like, "I was knee-high to a grasshopper..." and we wouldn't take that literally.Phil Pottsnoreply@blogger.com