Ender is a child! Graff and Valentine are both more adult than he is
This dynamic was really nerfed in the film IMO. Part of what made the book so influential to me in my high school years was the dynamic between the "children" and the adults, how they (especially Ender but others too) learn that adults are not trustworthy, and that they can only rely upon themselves, and how in many ways the children are more mature than the adults. My reading of the book had Dink as an older child, a jaded teen, who helps establish in Ender's mind that as unreliable as he thinks other children (including Dink) are, the adults are worse. The film's making Dink into an adult (even if he's supposed to be only college aged-ish, which I'm not even sure of) removed that entirely for me.
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Date: 2013-12-10 03:37 pm (UTC)This dynamic was really nerfed in the film IMO. Part of what made the book so influential to me in my high school years was the dynamic between the "children" and the adults, how they (especially Ender but others too) learn that adults are not trustworthy, and that they can only rely upon themselves, and how in many ways the children are more mature than the adults. My reading of the book had Dink as an older child, a jaded teen, who helps establish in Ender's mind that as unreliable as he thinks other children (including Dink) are, the adults are worse. The film's making Dink into an adult (even if he's supposed to be only college aged-ish, which I'm not even sure of) removed that entirely for me.