When Val tries to convince Ender to go with her to a colony world, she contrasts two ways of being: “grown up and tired and jaded with everything” vs. “in your heart you’re a kid.” Now, we know Ender isn’t grown up in some ways (see 14.312), but in what ways is he a kid at heart?

After Ender’s relationship with Val (which is probably his most important), Ender’s fullest friendship might be his relationship with the species that he nearly drove to extinction. (Wow, and you thought his relationships with Dink and Petra were complex.) Although it only comes up in the last five pages, this relationship seems totally open. Ender and the bugger's relationship gives us an interesting model for friendship: the idea of one friend carrying the other. Is that a good model for friendship?

And we’ve come full circle (at least in the quotes we pulled for this theme). If being human means having no full freedom, then… Well, what does it mean? Even if humans are confined by lots of different things – school, army, society, family, genetics, feelings – that doesn't mean all of those things are equal. (As in, school can limit your options and your genetics can limit your options, but they don’t limit your options the same ways.) So, Ender can’t escape who he is and can’t escape his memories, but he can leave Earth and go somewhere where he might be free to do other things. According to Val, even if you’re not in total control of your own life, you have some freedom to choose among the options that are open to you. Maybe this is what goes wrong for Ender: he has total freedom and doesn’t know what to do with it. Whereas if he recognized that he had a few options to choose from, he would’ve been able to decide more easily.