I've Decided To Give Orson Scott Card The Benefit of the Doubt

> On the phone and in his incoherent published reply, Card repeatedly shows ignorance of what he himself purportedly wrote. I simply cannot imagine how you could write such a stunningly well crafted piece of work (inasmuch as it is wildly popular and deeply affects people) without being aware of every fibre and splinter of its composition. About the third or fourth time I heard Card say something wasn't in his book that I knew was, I began to suspect that it was more of a committee effort.

> Notice that even John Kessel distances himself from the Hitler Hypothesis even though he draws many of the same conclusions Elaine does. Card manages to sound very convincing when he says Hitler was never on his mind and that it's Elaine who has the Hitler obsession; I think he's so convincing because he wasn't in on the joke himself. Elaine's essay may have been as much a revelation to him as it was to anyone else.

> I've seen Elaine's notes and heard Card on the phone, and there is no doubt in my mind that the Hitler Hypothesis is correct; it is simply impossible that Ender's Game and Speaker were written by someone who did not have a very detailed knowledge of Adolph Hitler's life. There are very exact parallels in there that you wouldn't even notice unless you read the footnotes to the most detailed Hitler biographies. I also tend to believe that Card does not have that level of knowledge about Hitler. Ergo, it is very hard for me to believe that he wrote the books. The assumption that he did not explains a great many otherwise mysterious things.

It's the story of an abused kid, and his adult mentors, who grows up to accept abuse and cover up that abuse behind the cover of "good intentions" or "neccessity". Look at Ender's treatment of Bean - becoming the enemy he hated because he feels its neccessary.

The book was radically good at convincing me Ender was reasonable and moral - but that doesn't mean he was. If you haven't read those essays minikite linked too I suggest you do. Particularly Ender's simple dismissal of the student's disgust at Ender's murder of the Formic is telling. "You should see it from Ender's perspective, not the perspective of the destroyed race," is silly victim-blaming. It's odd how I missed it up until today.