Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

28 reviews

tomel's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

The best thing I can say about Ender's Game is that it is bad in fascinating ways. There are so many intersections of awful in this book that I will probably never stop thinking about it. But it is an extremely bad book about how

a group of naked racist/misogynist children (plus one tomboy) are trained by the Eugenically Perfect War Messiah to commit a genocide but it's okay because they're going to adopt the new generation of the people they killed and raise them as their own.

Imagine if Paul Atreides was really into laser tag and felt the White Man's Burden and gave himself the occasional n-word pass. I strongly suspect that the book must have been significantly changed since the 1991 edition I read, because there's stuff in here that should be at least as notorious as the scene in the sewer in IT and nobody talks about them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Murder, Xenophobia, War, Bullying, Physical abuse, Genocide, Racial slurs, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Cursing, Animal cruelty, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, Antisemitism, and Death

For some reason nobody talks about how the children in this book are constantly naked.

swarmofbees's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs

fi_reads_books's review against another edition

adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Sexism, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Violence

caspian's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War and Violence

Moderate: Child death and Racial slurs

bits_and_pieces_odds_and_ends's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, War, Xenophobia, Violence, and Bullying

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Physical abuse, Animal death, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, and Murder

Minor: Antisemitism, Cannibalism, and Racial slurs

cmccoy13's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really really love this book, it’s definitely one of my favorites. But it’s low score is due to the anti-semitism, misogyny and so on. But otherwise, it’s a beautiful book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Animal death, Child abuse, Medical trauma, War, Ableism, Antisemitism, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Colonisation, Death, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Torture

mar's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, and War

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Colonisation, Genocide, and Violence

Minor: Racial slurs, Sexism, Antisemitism, and Homophobia

shieldbearer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ender's Game is a classic for a reason. While one or two moments are cringy by today's standards, Ender's Game is definitely one of those novels that everyone should read at least once. Exploring such themes as culpability, communication and manipulation, Ender's Game really reads like it was plucked from the minds of its characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Bullying, and Child abuse

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Genocide, Racial slurs, Colonisation, Racism, Violence, and Xenophobia

Bullying- happens very often in the text Child abuse- the premise of the entire book is Ender's emotional abuse at the hands of the government War- while combat itself isnt' described, it's a topic of frequent discussion Child death-

Bonzo and Stilson

both die over the course of the book. Violence- bully encounters and conflict erupt into violence a few times Genocide-

the entire Bugger race is wiped out, or nearly so

Xenophobia- alien Buggers are hated by humans racism/racial slurs- earlier editions of the novel have the N-slur and the K-slur, but it has been edited out of later editions. Confinement-

Ender is unable to leave Eros after winning the war

Animal cruelty/Animal death-

Peter takes to torturing and killing squirrels

oldmanwilson's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racial slurs, Xenophobia, Sexism, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Emotional abuse, and Bullying

stylo_'s review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It's striking that for someone with repellent and destructive beliefs in the real world, Card was able to write a novel so deeply concerned with the question of empathy in darkness. Ender's Game I first read as a child, taken with the verisimilitude of its depiction of children's mentalities and concerns, even if the characters' speech patterns and invulnerability to emotion strains credibility. As Card's introduction in the revised edition points out, adults often criticize the work for its "unrealistic" depiction of childhood, whereas children have the exact opposite reaction, appreciating the work's refusal to dumb down their internal dialogues and concerns for the sake of appeasing adult egos and perceptions. Yes, children are in fact concerned about war; they do think about the meaning of life; they do wonder at the cruelty of their peers and humanity; they do wonder how to atone for their sins. They are whipsmart and know more than you think.

The prose is sparse and utilitarian, the plot straightforward and fast-moving, but all in service of the themes: why are human beings so vicious towards the other? Why is empathy so hard to exercise? What is the point of war, and what does it do to us? And what does redemption look like? Intense cruelty towards the characters only sharpens the point on which these examinations take place. (During one pivotal reveal towards the end of the novel, I pictured Ender's face as none other than Aleksei Kravchenko's in Come and See, the greatest and most tragic war movie ever made.)

The young-adult nature of the book does mean that themes, while mentioned, are not fully explored. Exploration of the themes rests in the realm of allusion; there's an impressionistic character, the way so much is communicated through Ender's dreams, through the fantasy game he plays on the computer, and the all-too-brief conclusion which I still find thrilling and evocative. I look forward to seeing if these themes are expounded on in Speaker for the Dead. 

As a 30-something, this remains a striking, sad, and unique work.

(Caveats: There is some casual sexism in the book, and Card fumbles the ball on racial sensitivity with some of his characterizations - see for example the slang language used by the kids.) 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Violence, and War

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Colonisation, Racial slurs, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, and Xenophobia