Ender’s Game Ch. 13 Annotation
Directions: The following passage is excerpted from Ch. 13 in Ender’s Game. Ender and Colonel Graff have just
spent several months on a transport ship to the abandoned Bugger colony of Eros where Ender will train in
Command school in order to lead the Third Invasion of the Bugger home world. Ender and Graff have used this
journey to discuss important ideas of tactics, propaganda and morals.
Read the following excerpt and annotate it, specifically looking for how Graff and Ender are both expressing
views of morality, community, duty, and a political credo. Answer the questions on the back when you finish.
The tug reached Eros before they could see it. The captain showed them the visual scan, then
superimposed the heat scan on the same screen. They were practically on top of it - only four thousand
kilometers out - but Eros, only twenty-four kilometers long, was invisible if it didn't shine with reflected sunlight.
The captain docked the ship on one of the three landing platforms that circled Eros. It could not land
directly because Eros had enhanced gravity, and the tug, designed for towing cargos, could never escape the
gravity well. He bade them an irritable goodbye, but Ender and Graff remained cheerful. The captain was bitter
at having to leave his tug; Ender and Graff felt like prisoners finally paroled from jail. When they boarded the
shuttle that would take them to the surface of Eros they repeated perverse misquotations of lines from the
videos that the captain had endlessly watched, and laughed like madmen. The captain grew surly and withdrew
by pretending to go to sleep. Then, almost as an afterthought, Ender asked Graff one last question.
"Why are we fighting the buggers?"
"I've heard all kinds of reasons," said Graff. "Because they have an overcrowded system and they've got to
colonize. Because they can't stand the thought of other intelligent life in the universe. Because they don't think
we are intelligent life. Because they have some weird religion. Because they watched our old video broadcasts
and decided we were hopelessly violent. All kinds of reasons."
"What do you believe?"
"It doesn't matter what I believe."
“I want to know anyway."
"They must talk to each other directly, Ender, mind to mind. What one thinks, another can also think;
what one remembers, another can also remember. Why would they ever develop language? Why would they
ever learn to read and write? How would they know what reading and writing were if they saw them? Or
signals? Or numbers? Or anything that we use to communicate? This isn't just a matter of translating from one
language to another. They don't have a language at all. We used every means we could think of to communicate
with them, but they don't even have the machinery to know we're signaling. And maybe they've been trying to
think to us, and they can't understand why we don't respond."
"So the whole war is because we can't talk to each other."
"If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you."
"What if we just left them alone?"
"Ender, we didn't go to them first, they came to us. If they were going to leave us alone, they could have
done it a hundred years ago, before the First Invasion."
"Maybe they didn't know we were intelligent life. Maybe--"
"Ender, believe me, there's a century of discussion on this very subject. Nobody knows the answer.
When it comes down to it, though, the real decision is inevitable: if one of us has to be destroyed, let's make
damn sure we're the ones alive at the end. 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. So if we can, we'll kill every last one of the buggers, and if they can they'll kill
every last one of us."
"As for me," said Ender, "I'm in favor of surviving."
“I know,” said Graff. “That’s why you’re here.”
Ender’s Game Ch. 13 Response Questions
Directions: Use your knowledge of the book Ender’s Game, as well as the previous passage in answering the
following questions. Please answer the questions in fully developed thoughts/paragraphs on a separate sheet of
paper. You may work with a partner to discuss the ideas but EACH person must have their own answers.
1. How does the Bugger communication differ from our own? What would be the advantages and the
disadvantages to this kind of communication?
2. Read the following quote from earlier in Ch. 13 when Valentine and Ender are debating whether or
not he should return to Command School. Valentine tells Ender "I'll tell you something. If you try
and lose then it isn't your fault. But if you don't try and we lose, then it's all your fault. You killed us
all,” to which Ender responds, “I’m a killer no matter what." What do you think Valentine means
when she says "What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around
on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers
would own the Earth." (241)? Do you agree with Valentine? How does this contrast to what Colonel
Graff is saying in the passage you just annotated? Is there a time and place for killing others?
Explain by using an example from your own life or modern society.
3. If you couldn’t communicate with another group – or race of people – what would you do to try and
make them understand you, your position and your culture?
T-BEAR Paragraph:
Now that you have reviewed and studied the end of Ch. 13, and have answered the subsequent study questions,
answer the following question in a well-developed T-BEAR paragraph. Remember to treat this as if it is a body
paragraph in an essay, and to use direct evidence – quotes and paraphrase – from the book. Keep in mind that
this will be graded on the 1-4 scale that we have reviewed in class.
Describe what Graff is actually arguing in this passage, and how this relates to today’s society.
What am I being asked to do? ___________________________________________________________________
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Guiding Questions?
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2. _______________________________________________________________________
Thesis: _____________________________________________________________________________________
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