Ender's Parents; Which is the Military Genius?
Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:01 am
I was reading through the Ender's Shadow series this week and noticed a couple of discrepancies between them and the short stories 'Teacher's Pest' and 'The Polish Boy.'
In the short stories, John Paul is carefully noted by Graff to have an impressive ability to read and control people, qualifying in Graff's mind as a prodigy of sorts in the field of Command.
In Teacher's Pest, Theresa is noted to be the daughter of a famously brilliant military strategist, and a careful yet brilliant researcher in her own right.
However, in the Shadow series, the skill sets are almost flip flopped. John Paul is noted as a logistics guy in Shadow Puppets, capable of making sure every t is crossed and i dotted, while his interpersonal skills are fairly commonplace, relying on reflex. This isn't necessarily in contradiction with the earlier assessment, I just thought it was interesting that his character is no longer so good at adapting to and understanding everyone that he waves his hand and they do what he wants.
Theresa, on the other hand, is noted by Bean (undoubtedly the most observant character in the series) to have the skill at understanding people which allows Ender, Peter, and Valentine alike to be so clever at what they do. This is shown when she speaks with Bean in Shadow of the Hegemon about how they raised their children and who Peter is, as well as whether he's worth allying with as a person. This is an interesting contradiction to her self in Teacher's Pest, where she's a stubborn genius who can't get along very well with her associate faculty members and has been marginalized as a result of that and her father's unpopular policies.
I was curious if anyone else noticed these things, whether I'm making mountains out of molehills, or if anyone has any idea of which IFF eugenics programs yielded which attributes of the Wiggin kids.
In the short stories, John Paul is carefully noted by Graff to have an impressive ability to read and control people, qualifying in Graff's mind as a prodigy of sorts in the field of Command.
In Teacher's Pest, Theresa is noted to be the daughter of a famously brilliant military strategist, and a careful yet brilliant researcher in her own right.
However, in the Shadow series, the skill sets are almost flip flopped. John Paul is noted as a logistics guy in Shadow Puppets, capable of making sure every t is crossed and i dotted, while his interpersonal skills are fairly commonplace, relying on reflex. This isn't necessarily in contradiction with the earlier assessment, I just thought it was interesting that his character is no longer so good at adapting to and understanding everyone that he waves his hand and they do what he wants.
Theresa, on the other hand, is noted by Bean (undoubtedly the most observant character in the series) to have the skill at understanding people which allows Ender, Peter, and Valentine alike to be so clever at what they do. This is shown when she speaks with Bean in Shadow of the Hegemon about how they raised their children and who Peter is, as well as whether he's worth allying with as a person. This is an interesting contradiction to her self in Teacher's Pest, where she's a stubborn genius who can't get along very well with her associate faculty members and has been marginalized as a result of that and her father's unpopular policies.
I was curious if anyone else noticed these things, whether I'm making mountains out of molehills, or if anyone has any idea of which IFF eugenics programs yielded which attributes of the Wiggin kids.