50 Fun Facts About Ender's Game

In Ender's Game, what does Ender Wiggin learn about his simulator tests only after the final examination?

They were real battles: each test relayed his orders to human ships already closing on the bugger worlds. The adults cheering behind him had let a child win the war without knowing it.

In Ender's Game, which insulting label marks Ender Wiggin as a child his parents needed government permission to have?

A Third is a child born beyond the two-child limit, and other children treat the word as a mark of shame. Ender was requested only because his brother and sister had both shown such promise.

In Ender's Game, which direction does Ender Wiggin teach his soldiers to assign to the enemy's gate in zero gravity?

Down is the direction Ender picks, so an attack becomes a feet-first fall toward the target. Other soldiers still clung to the corridor's sense of up and floor, which Ender saw meant nothing without gravity.

In Ender's Game, which half-Māori hero of the Second Invasion reappears decades later as Ender Wiggin's final teacher?

Mazer Rackham was kept alive by a voyage at near light speed, so fifty years on Earth cost him only eight. He introduces himself to Ender with a surprise attack.

In Ender's Game, which schoolyard bully does six-year-old Ender Wiggin beat so badly that the boy later dies?

Stilson and his gang corner Ender on the day the fleet stops watching over him. Ender keeps kicking after the boy has fallen so that nobody will try again, and learns only years later that the boy died.

In Ender's Game, which Salamander Army commander bars Ender Wiggin from fighting in battles and later trades him away?

Bonzo Madrid resents being handed an untrained recruit, then strikes Ender for disobeying, even though the disobedience saved a draw. Their feud ends in a shower fight that Bonzo does not survive.

In Ender's Game, under which philosopher's name does Peter Wiggin post calm, statesmanlike essays to win influence?

Locke is the calm, reasonable mask Peter invents to hide his own cruelty. It works: the truce that later stops a war on Earth is known by that name.

Which actor plays Colonel Graff, the officer who recruits Ender Wiggin, in the 2013 film of Ender's Game?

Harrison Ford plays Graff in a film that opened at number one in North America yet still lost money for its studio.

In Ender's Game, Ender is only a nickname; what is the given first name of the boy sent to Battle School?

Andrew is the name he was born with. Orson Scott Card has said he picked the nickname Ender partly because it sounds like endgame, the closing phase of a chess match.

In the 2013 film of Ender's Game and later novels, what are the insect-like aliens called instead of buggers?

Formics comes from formica, the Latin word for ant. The name first appeared in a 1999 companion novel, fourteen years after the original book called the invaders buggers.

In Ender's Game, which device does the fleet remove from six-year-old Ender Wiggin as the story opens?

A monitor let the fleet see and hear everything Ender did. Its removal looks like rejection, but the watchers are still judging how he handles bullies without it.

In Ender's Game, which boy's arm does Ender Wiggin break on the flight to Battle School after being hit on the head?

Bernard goes flying across the weightless cabin when Ender tugs his arm. The injured boy soon gathers a gang of the bigger recruits against him.

In Ender's Game, why did the International Fleet reject Ender's sister Valentine Wiggin for Battle School?

She was too sensitive, while Peter was judged too violent, so the fleet asked the Wiggins for one more child who might fall between the two.

In Ender's Game, what nickname do Battle School students give Ender Wiggin's group of brand-new arrivals?

Launchies are the members of a newly arrived launch group. Ender keeps training with his after he joins an army, and older boys try to bully the practices out of existence.

In Ender's Game, how does Ender Wiggin finally beat the mind game's Giant, who offers two deadly drinks?

He digs into its eye after kicking the glasses over, winning a puzzle that was supposed to be unwinnable. The prize is Fairyland, and a nagging fear that he kills as easily as Peter.

In Ender's Game, which boy becomes Ender Wiggin's friend while they work out weightless movement in the battleroom?

Alai had been the best friend of Ender's chief tormentor, so the new friendship quietly merges two rival cliques. The new boys later elect him their leader.

In Ender's Game, what gives the students of the orbiting Battle School their everyday feeling of gravity?

The station spins, as the new boys' minder explains on their first day. The battleroom is the exception: it has no gravity at all, so every soldier must relearn how to move.

How does almost every chapter of Ender's Game open before the story returns to Ender Wiggin's point of view?

Two unnamed voices, often revealed to be Graff and Major Anderson, discuss how to push the boy next. The reader therefore always knows more about the plan than Ender does.

In Ender's Game, how does Colonel Graff turn the other recruits against Ender Wiggin on the flight to Battle School?

By praising him alone, calling Ender the only bright boy aboard, Graff guarantees the others will resent him. The isolation is deliberate: a commander must learn that no adult will come to help.

In Ender's Game, how does Ender Wiggin break a fellow recruit's bullying hold over the other new boys?

Anonymous prank messages, sent to every desk after Ender cracks the school's computer system, turn the bully into a joke. One of them is signed with the name God.

In Ender's Game, Petra Arkanian, who taught Ender Wiggin to shoot, later commands which army against him?

Phoenix is also where Ender served under Petra as a junior leader before he was given an army of his own. She takes the loss to her former pupil badly.

In Ender's Game, which army, led by the boastful Rose de Nose, takes Ender Wiggin after Salamander trades him?

Rat is a messy, undisciplined army that still stands second in the rankings. There Ender is at last allowed to fight.

In Ender's Game, which veteran asks for Ender Wiggin in his own unit and teaches him that the teachers are the enemy?

Dink Meeker has twice refused promotion to commander because he distrusts the whole system. He even doubts that the bugger war is still going on, yet he loves the battleroom too much to leave.

In Ender's Game, a friend whispers the word salaam as Ender Wiggin leaves for his first army; what does it mean?

Peace is the meaning, which Ender learns only after he has an army and the two friends must meet as opponents. The word had come with a kiss on the cheek.

In Ender's Game, which ancient Greek's name does Valentine Wiggin borrow for her fiery online essays?

Demosthenes is the rabble-rousing voice Valentine writes in, though she dislikes most of what it says. Her own father quotes the essays at breakfast without knowing who wrote them.

In Ender's Game, what does Ender Wiggin finally do to the mind game's snake to escape the tower room?

He kisses it, and the snake turns into Valentine, who leads him out past the mirror. Until then he had killed it every time, only to see Peter's face staring back.

In Ender's Game, what are the smaller units inside each Battle School army called, each with its own leader?

Toons is probably clipped from platoon. Most armies run four of ten soldiers each, but Ender splits his into five smaller ones so that each can act without waiting for orders.

In Ender's Game, Valentine Wiggin's warlike online persona stirs up public fear of which country's ambitions?

Russia is the target: her essays warn that it will grab for power the moment the bugger threat is gone. The warning proves right, and fighting breaks out on Earth as soon as the war ends.

In Ender's Game, why does Ender Wiggin teach soldiers to attack with their knees tucked up in front of them?

Their legs take the hits, so the rest of the body stays mobile and the soldier is scored as only damaged. Ender found the trick by instinct when he was shot during the first battle he watched as a Salamander.

In Ender's Game, which animals does Peter Wiggin skin in the woods after the family moves to the country?

Squirrels are his victims, and Valentine comes across one of the bodies. The move to the country was meant to calm Peter, yet he only learns to hide his cruelty and flatter his teachers.

In Ender's Game, which newly formed army of raw recruits and cast-offs is Ender Wiggin given to command?

Dragon wins every battle it fights, including seven in a single week, even though it was built from untested new boys and veterans who had not done well elsewhere.

In Ender's Game, which tiny, outspoken soldier does Ender Wiggin single out for teasing at his army's first practice?

Bean is the smallest boy in the army and one of its quickest learners. Ender soon trusts him with a special squad for wild ideas, and admits he is treating him the way Graff had treated Ender.

In Ender's Game, what unfair match-up does Ender Wiggin's army face in its final fight at Battle School?

Two armies at once are waiting, hidden from view by obstacles at his gate. Ender wins anyway, with a formation that distracts both opponents, and then refuses to play again.

In Ender's Game, which commander's device lets Ender Wiggin move freely around the battleroom during army practices?

A hook is handed to Ender by Graff along with his first command, and it works only during his army's scheduled practice sessions.

In Ender's Game, which army, led by the gracious loser Carn Carby, is the first beaten by Ender Wiggin's soldiers?

Rabbit loses easily in a match scheduled two months before Ender's recruits should have been ready. Carby congratulates him at lunch, which earns the older boy a place among the few people Ender respects.

In Ender's Game, Command School is hidden inside which asteroid, where Ender Wiggin trains for the final campaign?

Eros feels wrong to Ender from the moment he lands, and he later learns why: it was originally a bugger colony, taken over by humans as a secret base.

In Ender's Game, which device lets the International Fleet talk instantly with warships many light-years from Earth?

The ansible was built only after humans saw the buggers talk instantly across space and knew it could be done. Ursula K. Le Guin coined the word in a 1966 novel.

In Ender's Game, what does Ender Wiggin build at the lake house during his leave on Earth before Command School?

A raft is where he and Valentine drift and talk after Graff brings her to change his mind. By the time they step off it she has persuaded him to go back.

In Ender's Game, what nickname is given to the MD Device, the weapon whose chain reaction tears molecules apart?

Little Doctor is a pun on the initials of the weapon's formal name. Its field breaks matter apart and jumps to anything close by, so ships flying in tight formation destroy one another.

In Ender's Game, what does Ender Wiggin fire the fleet's deadliest weapon at to win his hopeless final examination?

The planet itself is his target, a move he half hopes will get him failed and sent home. The chain reaction spreads to every ship close by, and the watching officers erupt.

In Ender's Game, what does Ender Wiggin find behind the mirror in a tower the buggers built on a colony world?

A queen pupa, able to restart her whole species, was left for the one human the buggers could reach. They had copied the tower from the mind game he played as a boy, taken from his dreams.

Which actor stars as Ender Wiggin alongside Viola Davis and Abigail Breslin in the 2013 film of Ender's Game?

Asa Butterfield stars in a film that took decades to reach the screen. Orson Scott Card wrote about six scripts of his own before the eventual director started again.

Which pair of science fiction awards did Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game win for best novel in the mid-1980s?

Hugo and Nebula are the genre's two top prizes, and the sequel took both again a year later. That made Orson Scott Card the first author to win the pair in consecutive years.

In Ender's Game, what surprising job is Major Anderson, overseer of the battleroom contests, offered after the war?

Football commissioner suits the officer who cared most about keeping the battleroom contests fair. Graff, tried and acquitted over his methods, moves into government instead.

Ender's Game began as a 1977 short story by Orson Scott Card in which science fiction magazine?

Analog ran it after its editor, who had turned away Card's first submission, asked him for a science fiction piece instead. The novel followed eight years later.

In Ender's Game, the Wiggin family moves to which North Carolina city, the adopted home of author Orson Scott Card?

Greensboro is where Peter and Valentine begin posting essays under false names. Ender later spends his leave at a lake house just outside the city.

In the 2013 film of Ender's Game, author Orson Scott Card has an uncredited voice cameo as which crew member?

A pilot is the part: Card is heard as the man flying the shuttle that carries Ender up to Battle School. He was also one of the film's producers.

Which actor plays the war hero who becomes Ender Wiggin's final teacher in the 2013 film of Ender's Game?

Ben Kingsley plays the veteran in a film shot in New Orleans, where production began in early 2012.

Which 1999 Orson Scott Card novel retells the Battle School story through the eyes of the hero's smallest soldier?

Ender's Shadow covers many of the same events from a different bunk, and it opened a second series about the children who served under the famous commander.

In Ender's Game, which government post is Colonel Graff given after being tried and cleared for his methods?

Minister of Colonization puts Graff in charge of sending settlers to the empty bugger worlds. Ender and Valentine sail with some of the first of them.