Title: Ender's Game: Main Ideas | SparkNotes
Headings: Ender's Game
Ender's Game
Games
The relationship between adults and children
Compassion
Ruthlessness
Friends and Enemies
Humanity
Ender
Peter

Content: Peter's humanity is questioned, while Ender's is what saves the planet. In the end, the buggers themselves suggest to Ender that if things had gone differently both races could have celebrated the other's humanity. Their compassion for the humans they killed and their sorrow over the war means that they are human, and this is why Ender feels the need to do something to help them and why he so keenly mourns his destruction of their race. Ender
Ender is very much a representative of all that is good. He is filled with sorrow for any destruction he causes and wishes no ill to any other creature. He is good because he is kind, but he is also good because he makes the sacrifices that he has to make. It is good to do what is needed, even if what is needed does not seem right. Ender does not hate Graff or Rackham for what they did to him, because he realizes that they did what had to be done. At the same time, he is crushed by the thought that he wiped out an entire race. He is good because he is forgiving—he understands even those who hate him.