Speaking for the Dead

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12 points·NaOH··9 comments

I thought this would at least mention 'Speaker for the Dead' by Orson Scott Card somewhere?

Same here. I just read SftD (and the rest of Ender’s Saga) for the first time after bouncing off it when I was younger. I loved Ender’s game and The Shadow series but never made it any deeper into Ender’s Saga as a kid. As an adult, I greatly enjoyed all of the followup books to Ender’s game and the whole concept of “speaking for the dead”.

the Ender saga series of books is foundational scifi for me, right up there with the Foundation and Dune series

have you read any of OSC's fantasy? i've been meaning to start his Alvin series

I have not tried OSC's fantasy, I'll have to add that to my list of books to read. I've read the Foundation series but bounced off the Dune books, I think I mostly didn't like the narrator for the audiobook and now that I'm reading more on my Kindle I should give it another shot. Wheel of Time is my favorite fantasy series.

Thought so as well

This is not speaking "for". It is speaking "about". About is always someone else's job to perform. "For" would be writing it up yourself, and handing it someone else to read.

If an activist speaks up about a group of people being marginalized, they're speaking 'for' those people. 'About' would be if it was descriptive speaking (perhaps an anthropologist's article) but if it's in support of those people than 'for' is the right word.

BTW the object doesn't need to be people, it could also be animals or the environment or even abstract ideas like liberty or justice.

That‘s wrong. Speaking for someone means from their point of view, and it ususally implies a moral permission to do so.

Speak for yourself.

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