There’s a slight trick here that Card pulls by talking about Bean’s battles; that is, Bean has been through pretend battles, in which his army was his team, and the other soldiers were his teammates. Looked at that way, Bean actually hasn’t been through real war. (Not yet.) So is it fair to say he’s had no childhood? Maybe it’s because the games that these kids play are treated super-seriously? Then again, didn’t you ever take a game seriously?

Here’s a philosophy that Ender tries out for a while – that the power to kill is the only real source of power. In other words, war (in some form) is the ultimate basis for all relationships. This might be a momentary position of Ender’s, but it seems to match up with a lot of his relationships – even the one with himself. But does he hold onto this thought?

To drive home that idea of competition and fairness, here’s Pol Slattery commenting on his loss to Ender when Pol's team had a ridiculous unfair advantage. (His team’s frozen players were becoming unfrozen – which doesn’t seem like a good model for anything that Ender actually faces when he fights the buggers.) Now, Ender is so good that some people think playing against him will never be fair (see 12.177), but there’s still the hope that these competitions could be fair. Except these competitions are meant to be education for dealing with an unfair life (see the previous quote).