Quote 7
"I'll carry you," said Ender, "I'll go from world to world until I find a time and a place where you can come awake in safety. And I'll tell your story to my people, so that perhaps in time they can forgive you, too. The way that you've forgiven me." (15.176)
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?
Quote 8
"I didn't want to kill them all. I didn't want to kill anybody! I'm not a killer!” (14.391)
What’s the difference between killing someone and being a killer? Ender admits to killing but keeps asserting that he’s “not a killer.” Basically, it seems like Ender is asserting that the difference between killing and being a killer is because he didn’t “want to kill them all.” Or is the distinction something else – is it a question of identity that Ender is refusing? (Like, what if you type – does that make you a typist? Well, maybe for the time that you’re typing it does, but what about after?) This is the major issue in the book, and it’s a question that we can’t answer.