I've realized, after the five or so books that we've read so far, that all of the books in a certain way focus on a super-human character. It's as if structurally they'd fall apart if they didn't have this element -- something that supercedes human limits, and perhaps provides human legitimacy for the fantastic heights that the novels' plots and themes always reach.
Paul, the Messiah and greatest human ever to live. Yod, the greatest cyborg ever built. Ender, the brightest boy, chosen from birth to lead his people to victory in a galactic war (wow, sounds sorta like another book we've read...). So on and so forth.
So why is this treatment necessary? It does sort of seem to be integral to science fiction, at least to the science fiction we've read. There's just something about the narrative structure.. I guess, as I said, it helps us to buy into all the scientifically fictitious stuff we read about, seeing it from the point of view of someone who as far exceeds our own limitations as the futuristic technology exceeds that of the present. Paul's probably the best example of this, the one that's made me think most about it (along with Ender). Paul is as epic as the story that weaves itself around him. We want to believe that a being such as Paul is possible, and this desire colors our willingness to buy into the world of Dune and Herbert's themes.
That's how it seems to me, at least.
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I'm not sure I buy Ender as a super-hero, insofar as Ender has absolutely no free will in choosing his own destiny as Paul did. Every measure of free will that Ender has is an illusion, and he himself admits as much. Every time I've read Ender's Game it strikes me more that for the vast majority of the story, Ender is a tool and is well aware of it, and despite constantly wondering whether he would be able to decline the role in which he was cast, he never really comes all that close. This is not to say that Ender's character is in any way shallow, quite the opposite, but rather that he is something of a willing tool of the system.
I'm really just using the term "superhero" to describe someone who is above and beyond what we expect from a normal human being. Ender is talking about complicated war strategies and the best ways to become a respected leader when he's seven years old. I feel like he and Paul share a lot in this regard and it's that kind of pretty-much-impossible character that I'm referring to here.
Is it so unbelievable though? Obviously, it is stressed throughout the book that Ender is by far the most advanced child ever to pass through either the Battle School or the Command School. Even today we have child prodigies in nearly every discipline from advanced calculus to the viola. Since Ender is apparently even more rare than your typical prodigy (the rest of the kids at Battle school), I don't find it really implausible or impossible at all.
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