Critique of Violence in Ender’s Game

Abstract

At heart of the film thus is the loss of innocence in Ender who is manipulated from being a child skilled in combat to a ruthless annihilator of an entire alien species. Ender resents his manipulation by the adults to turn him into a cold heartless killer and feels revulsion at himself for having killed Bonzo and Stilson out of defense but nonetheless in cold blood and feels hatred at the adults for turning him into a cold heartless killer and destroyed his childhood. It is out of such repentance of his murderous ways that Ender seeks to repopulate a planet with the Formic species. Ender’s game is thus a film about the brutal ways of war and how it destroys Ender’s conscience and innocence by turning him into a ruthless killer without any compassion like his brother sociopath Peter. Ender’s game is thus about the childhood loss of innocence that comes with the initiation to combat and violence, Ender finds himself manipulated into turning into a heartless and brutal murderer at the end of Combat school, with the blood of Bonzo, Stilson and the Formic race on his hands.