Philotic Web

At the end of Shadow of the Giant, Bean leaves earth with his and Petra's children who have the genetic disease Anton's Key. Against Petra's will, they get a divorce, and Bean leaves her with almost no time to say goodbye. His leaving makes him almost dead to her, but if he had stayed on earth, he wouldve died in a few years from growing too much. Petra wants her and all the normal children to go with Bean to, but Bean refuses. He says he doesnt want the normal children to live a life of isolation and if they stay on earth they can pass on his and Petra's genes. Do you think he shouldve left her?

I think Bean was right. ("Be a man, do the right thing.") He was unselfish, but Pet was too selfish to forgive him for it. Leaving her I mean. I'm pretty sure that if Bean had to leave Pet for her good, without children in the equation, he'd do it too. It's not just their children, it's Bean himself. Yadda yadda.

No, truly, I believe that having him leave makes the ending more interesting and bittersweet. If Bean stayed, and he and Pet blah blah blah, the ending wouldn't be half as interesting. Plus, what hope would we ever have of Shadow's continuation? None. At. All.

Or maybe I am just cruel like that p: Good thing I'm not God, neh.

I love the Bean/Petra relationship, and I was sooo sad when they parted. I'd rather they just lived together forever.

i agree with crazy tom. i cried for 3 hours at the end of shadow of the giant, no joke. yes it is a bittersweet ending. but i think she should at least get to talk to him by ansible again before she dies or something. his leaving was so sudden; if he really loved her, which i believe he did, he would have taken more time to say goodbye

Well, she DID get a chance to see Bean's 9th baby, something that Bean hasn't done in the books yet.

I think it would have been smart to bring her for when he did die. While of course his children would be intelligent to figure out a lot of things, running a spaceship at age 4 still seems a bit out of reach, though it is Bean's children.

However, I think he didn't want to have to bear the burden of knowing he caused her suffering by taking her away from everything she knew just to save himself and their children. And in thinking about their children, I think he made a good decision about leaving the others on Earth.

I still don't know that I believe he loved her romantically. I think he loved her, but not necessarily in the wife/husband relationship that they had. That's just my personal opinion, though.

I still don't know that I believe he loved her romantically. I think he loved her, but not necessarily in the wife/husband relationship that they had. That's just my personal opinion, though.

This exactly. As friends, I believe the love was there.

But I recollect it all feeling forced for me and entirely nonsensical. It sort of went like this in my head:

Petra loved Ender but couldn't have him because he was dealing with his own inner demons. But look, there's Bean!

[quote]Petra loved Ender but couldn't have him because he was dealing with his own inner demons. But look, there's Bean!


[/quote]

i dont agree that Petra only "loved" Bean because she couldnt get to Ender. It's not in Petra's personality to give up just because Ender was "dealing with his own inner demons" If she really wanted Ender, she wouldve had Ender because that's the kind of girl Petra is. I believe that Petra genuinely loved Bean in the way of teenage love. When you think youre in love, but honestly your hormones are just screwing around with your emotions. Bean loved Petra the way he would love a best friend or a sister. And because of this brotherly devotion, he would do anything for Pet. After all, she had taught him how to get along alrite in battle school. i think his main motive for marrying Petra and having her children was doing what Petra wanted for her good. And when it came to leaving Earth, he may not have done what she wanted, but he did what he thought was best for her which is what any good brother would do.

I quite liked the idea that he could stay in orbit and become a massive brain thingy. even if that was suggested by the mad evil scientist guy

I quite liked the idea that he could stay in orbit and become a massive brain thingy. even if that was suggested by the mad evil scientist guy

Whenever I think about how the books will link up, I always think that that's exactly what became of him and now he's the descoladores (?) I think that's what they're called. I haven't read the speaker books in forever, but that suggestion just made me think of his intelligence continually expanding (as well as his body, for that matter) and him becoming a species who is sentient on a totally different level than humans.

I know that's kind of out there.. But that's definitely how I pictured it when I first heard that.

If she really wanted Ender, she wouldve had Ender because that's the kind of girl Petra is.

I disagree. She could have spent many miserable years following him around while he dealt with bugger issues, with no life of her own -much like Valentine- but in the end, I'm not convinced that would have gotten her any closer to Ender. I think the kind of girl she really was was the intelligent kind.

It's been however many years since the books came out that I read any of the Shadow series (they didn't stick with me or impact me emotionally enough for me to want to reread them) but I seem to recall her giving him an exasperated "I love(d) you, you idiot" sort of comment that also implied to me that she knew that wasn't enough for him or her and she was going to move on. I admit, I may be misremembering that. Either way, I think it's more accurate to say "If she really thought she could have Ender, she would've because that's the kind of girl Petra is."


I'm not surprised that she ended up with Peter after Bean was gone. There is something to be said for being attracted to people who are like you (intelligence, personality, looks) or those who experience the same things you do, so I'm not doubting that she could have loved Bean. I'm just trying to express that the relationship was entirely unbelievable and forced to me. Poorly written, maybe. Just wrong/off.

wow....the idea about Bean becoming the descoladores is far fetched but in a certain way it would bring the story full circle. the only problem with that is that Bean was always there to help humanity and get rid of his own species. it would not have been in Bean's personality to want his species to be dominant, and the descoladores obviously wanted their species to be dominant because they had adapted so well that the piggies couldnt live without the descoleda. Bean wanted his species to die out completely and as soon as possible. but, it could be one of his children created descoleda....

i dont think bean becomes the descoladores: if he did, they wouldnt need to be sent the human genome. plus i dont think bean would want to destroy humanity

Bean wouldn't want to destroy humanity,in fact he help Peter in ending all wars. What i think happened was that Volescu had some connnection to the desclorades.

So, I was posting this last night and I fell asleep while doing so, but...

Like I said, that was just the first thing that came to mind when I had finished Shadow of the Giant. And honestly it's kind of an amusing thought..

To me, Petra seemed like more of a child to Bean. Like.. she was someone who he deeply cared for and who he needed to protect, so not in a creepy way to where he would feel bad having kids with her. Bean had been unable to save Poke from Achilles, and later he can't save Carlotta, either. He loved these women, and Petra had been abducted by Achilles. She had been taken, and was in great danger from the kid who had killed Poke, and would later kill Carlotta. I feel like Bean had such a great desire to save her from Achilles that he felt like he was her protector and he couldn't fail because he had already failed once.

But what I'm trying to say is that I feel like Bean loved her, but in a less SO way than as her protector, and friend of course.

I always got the feeling that Bean felt that he had failed so many times with the other woman he loved, that he had no choice but to stay with Petra. The only way he could always stay with her is if he had children with her.

Okay, first of all. Bean loved Petra. I can't remember the exact quote but it was something like this "If you don't get pregnant, we'll have kids the old fashioned way" been actually loved Petra enough to have kids with her. Everything he is points to not having kids, but Bean did it anyways because he knew Petra wanted it.

Also, Bean being the desclorades is a silly idea. How far away was that plant from earth? How would evolution turn a humaniod into a virus? Would beans kids ever inbreed? ... I doubt it.

I just never got the feeling that he loved her in a romantic way. Though when I think back to the Shadow books, mostly I remember the Chopin chapter, so maybe I don't remember the relationship well enough. That's just the way I perceived it. Someone said earlier that they said it seemed forced. I feel that Bean was slightly reluctant.

And.. to reiterate, the Bean being the descoladores was just the first thing that came to mind. The first mental picture after finishing the books. And you have to admit it's slightly amusing to think about!

Volescu becoming the descoledores is very possible....

[quote]Okay, first of all. Bean loved Petra. I can't remember the exact quote but it was something like this "If you don't get pregnant, we'll have kids the old fashioned way" been actually loved Petra enough to have kids with her. Everything he is points to not having kids, but Bean did it anyways because he knew Petra wanted it.
[/quote]

i agree totally with that too

I think the Descoladores have to remain anonymous just because I think they came before The Bugger wars. I cannot remember the exact quote, But I seem to remember in SftD that one of the zenadors estimated that the Descolada had existed for possibly millions of years (Ela?). She might have said "mellinia" in which case Volescu or Anton would be really cool.

I hope OSC visits this site every now and then just to see some ideas we make.

Ela couldnt have known for sure how old the virus was because the zenologist never really found a way to communicate with it. Volescu already wanted to replace the human race with a smarter, shorter-living species like Bean. it wouldnt be suprising at all if he had created the descolada.

Volescu created the Descolda.

Volescu created the Descolda.

You seem very confident in this! Please, enlighten us with how you know this? Also, nice username! I never finished that book, but I liked what I read nonetheless.

Well I was rereading the Shadow books because it had been a while and I didn't want to miss anything in Exile.

And at the end of Giant, Volescu was sentenced to research on a colony world.

He had been working on an imperfect Descolada type virus. Which wasn't perfect.

Instead of executing him, Graff thought to use him (*cough Achilles *cough*) first to further research into a cure for Bean, and then as a useful scientific expert on a colony world.

Famous last words: "After all, there really isn't anything he could use to harm people on a colony."n

It must be noted that all colonies were founded by military ships. And, as we see in Exile, all had genetic engeneeering equipment of at least a rudimentary level, if not better.

And Volescu is a scientific genius.

Too much has been laid out for Volescu to vanish into the night, and for the Descolada to be an eerie coincidence.

That's really interesting. I didn't pick up on any of that, at all. Haha, shows how well I recognize small things. (I'm still saying I totally called the locket in Book 5 being the horcrux after reading book six).

wow, that is extremely interesting. volescu probably did create descoleda if that is true. but volescu's original plan was to replace the human species with a smarter form of humans like Bean, why did he create descoleda? Descoleda did not take over and change humans like it did to the piggies and other life forms on Lusitania. the humans died because of it, and an anti-virus had to be created by the xenologists to stop the humans from being completely wiped out. that wasnt Volescu's plan in the shadow series..

But isn't it the whole thing about survival of the fittest? Like how bugs that eat plants become immune to pesticides after generations of exposure. So the descolada could have changed the humans, eventually, without killing them all off. It just depends on whether it would have killed them before they evolved to something that could live with it.

true, but then are they even human anymore?

like Bean for example. he believed that he wasnt really human because of anton's key. if that is how we define humanity, humans who adapted to descoleda would no longer be human

I think he made the right decision by a narrow margin.

On an equally important question of whether Card made the right decision in writing it that way? Absolutely!

Handled great! Gave the ending more than one of those unbelievably powerful Card moments! Brilliant! No clichéd or simple "happily ever after" bits.

And at the end of Giant, Volescu was sentenced to research on a colony world.

He had been working on an imperfect Descolada type virus. Which wasn't perfect.

Instead of executing him, Graff thought to use him (*cough Achilles *cough*) first to further research into a cure for Bean, and then as a useful scientific expert on a colony world.

Famous last words: "After all, there really isn't anything he could use to harm people on a colony."

It must be noted that all colonies were founded by military ships. And, as we see in Exile, all had genetic engeneeering equipment of at least a rudimentary level, if not better.

And Volescu is a scientific genius.

Too much has been laid out for Volescu to vanish into the night, and for the Descolada to be an eerie coincidence.

Hold on.
Was it not the case that the world from which the Descolada came was one ridiculously more distant than any plain Earth colony ships could reach, visited only via the instantaneous travel Jane made possible during the survey of planets so widely dispersed as to keep Starways Congress from encountering them.

Still possible but it would take some serious plot twisting.

Having the Descoladores (Google says that's the correct spelling.) turn out to be the product of something else from the Enderverse's past (Bean, his engineer, or anything else) makes no sense.

Were the piggies the product of something from humanity's past? Were the Buggers? No. They're all alien species -- that is, a culture with literally no shared history with Humans before first contact. Connecting them wouldn't bring the story to a heightened state of reality or karmic justice, but would be shallow, unrealistic, and manipulative of the author to force it into such a mold. That's the stuff of fanfiction or pulp sci-fi or the nuts on Coast To Coast AM who think angels and demons are explainable as extraterrestrial encounters.

OSC wouldn't do that. Or, if he would, I would stop following his writing and start saying of him "His new stuff is crap."

Having the Descoladores (Google says that's the correct spelling.) turn out to be the product of something else from the Enderverse's past (Bean, his engineer, or anything else) makes no sense.

Were the piggies the product of something from humanity's past? Were the Buggers? No. They're all alien species -- that is, a culture with literally no shared history with Humans before first contact. Connecting them wouldn't bring the story to a heightened state of reality or karmic justice, but would be shallow, unrealistic, and manipulative of the author to force it into such a mold. That's the stuff of fanfiction or pulp sci-fi or the nuts on Coast To Coast AM who think angels and demons are explainable as extraterrestrial encounters.

OSC wouldn't do that. Or, if he would, I would stop following his writing and start saying of him "His new stuff is crap."

This exactly.

Also, I think Bean wanted to think he was making the right and noble decision, but in doing so he denied Petra the free will to choose for herself what her fate would be, and took the cowardly way out.

Also, I think Bean wanted to think he was making the right and noble decision, but in doing so he denied Petra the free will to choose for herself what her fate would be, and took the cowardly way out.

Cowardly?!
Wrong word altogether. "Wanted to think.."?

He believed it absolutely. He knew it was likely she would sacrifice a broad, meaningful life for a very constricted one aboard the starship, and therefore did the truly noble thing.

He knew it was likely she would sacrifice a broad, meaningful life for a very constricted one aboard the starship, and therefore did the truly noble thing.

He denied her the right of self-determination.

That's silly.
He only denied her the right to choose in one decision.

Such actions are taken all the time, even by those in loving relationships. Or how about in ending them. The way you're looking at it, someone who decides on divorce is denying the right of self determination to the spouse.

Looking at it that way virtually any decision taken on someone else's behalf for their own good is denying their right to self determination.