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Lance Dy Chua

Mr. Ray Albarillo

English Class

15 January 2024

Ender As A Commander

The people that molded Ender to be a commander in Battle school were mainly Colonel

Graff, Major Anderson, and other I.F. officers. All of these people, especially Colonel Graff, had

very aggressive methods to build their hero. Colonel Graff used methods of manipulation in an

attempt to convince Ender to accept his “destiny” to become a military commander at an age so

young he is still literally a child. Before the evaluation, there are a few factors that make a good
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or bad evaluation. There is the moral aspect and how effective it was in training Ender to be that

dream military commander they were hoping for.

Colonel Graff used a means of manipulation and aggressive training that put Ender into

different situations, platoons and positions in a short period of time. I believe that this was the

right decision to make because they had limited time and knew that Ender could probably handle

it as he is not your average nine or ten year old. There is also the ethical dilemma of whether or

not it was worth it to give Ender “unfair” training procedures that were definitely against the

code of Battle School and normal ethics but Graff argued that war isn’t fair. In the end however,

Ender’s battle school program was successful as he defeated the buggers in the third invasion. It

came at the cost of Ender’s entire childhood but it wasn’t like he was going to have a normal one

anyway. It sure was tough but it built Ender to be tough and now that his training is over, he is

capable of doing as he wishes.

The three most effective traits of a commander and soldier at least in Ender’s bugger war

case are exactly the traits that Ender has. One, the ability to manipulate people and your

subordinates in order to cast them to be the efficient weapon desired. We can see this in the army

that Ender led, his platoon leaders were trained to think on their own and manipulated a little bit

to be better than they truly think they are, whether it be through good emotional speaking or

good training. Second, the trait of thinking ahead of time and second guessing seemingly simple

things. For Ender, this was how he came up with his unconventional tactics and it gave him his

glaring aura. He hurt but accidentally killed Bonzo because he knew Bonzo would strike him

hard, for he was bloodthirsty. Lastly, the ability to succeed and fall without mentally breaking

yourself. Ender is just a kid, and being praised with success doesn’t come without predators with
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eyes on you like Bonzo and your older peers. He knew he was being manipulated and his peers

were jealous of his success, this would easily break someone but young Ender only needed a

three month vacation.