Quote 4
“Our genes won't let us decide any other way. Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't a will to survive. Individuals might be bred to sacrifice themselves, but the race as a whole can never decide to cease to exist.” (13.286)
This is Graff’s theory of the species and the individual. What’s important, according to Graff, is that genes live on. Again we get a notion of something like a community – here we have individuals sacrificing themselves for the species, which those individuals can never know in a direct way. Seriously: can you meet all humans? You’d have to have a lot of free time. Yet, even without meeting everyone in the species, Graff seems to think that the species makes some demands on the individual. This sounds a little bit like a community. As you can see, this book covers many different kinds of communities, from the small (the family) to the large (the species).
Quote 5
“Nowhere in that does it say I have to make friends with children.” (4.75)
Graff will pretty soon reverse himself on this statement and tell Anderson that he is Ender’s friend (4.98). But as far as Ender knows, this is it – Graff isn’t his bud and, frankly, none of the kids are either. (Especially after Ender broke that one kid’s arm.) But here’s one thing that we know that Ender doesn’t, which is that Graff really is his friend. So, while Ender thinks he’s all alone in the world, we know that he secretly has support.
Quote 6
“There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you. I told them you were the best. Now you damn well better be." (4.77)
Ender later says pretty much the same thing to Bean, but here Ender is hearing it from Graff. Ender might have thought that Battle School was a chance to start over and become friends with kids who are as smart as he is. But Graff has other plans: he wants to isolate Ender, and here he says the only way out of that is for Ender to be the best. OK, so being the best isn’t necessarily the best way to make friends, but that’s another issue that Ender will face. (Though it’s interesting that the issue of skill and social position are so connected.)