Title: Ender’s Game Themes | GradeSaver
Headings: Ender's Game Themes
Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game Themes
Everybody lies
Sometimes, lies are more dependable than the truth
You can't trust anybody
Individual initiative versus central planning
Identity conflict
Individual needs versus the common good
Friends and enemies
Isolation yields individual strength

Content: Among humans, the world alliance is undermined by antagonism between, basically, the Americans and the second Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw alliance is undermined by antagonism between Muslim and non-Muslim allies. In Ender's experience, nobody can be fully trusted, but everyone is basically a friend or an enemy. This does not mean that e is always right in his identifications. He believes that Graff and Mazer are his enemies, mainly because they tell him so, but in reality they both care about him very much. For a while, after Ender becomes a commander, he cannot be sure whether Dink and Petra are still his friends, but they definitely are. In contrast, Ender thinks throughout the novel that the buggers are his enemy, but by the end of the novel, they have become his friends. Isolation yields individual strength
Throughout the novel, Graff and Mazer isolate Ender from all of the other students at Battle School and Command School. Graff explains his reasoning multiple times; in his isolation, Ender will grow strong enough to beat the buggers.