Disclaimer: Premise, characters belong to Orson Scott Card, who is a genius.
Author's Note: I have fallen in love with _Ender's Game_. Not to mention Ender himself. Did I think Frodo had angst? Anyway, reading _Speaker for the Dead_, I would almost start to cry every time someone called Ender "the Xenocide" or "the monstrous Ender." When the Speaker told Olhado to try 'Ender' as his password, and Olhado said he didn't think computers accepted dirty words like that. When the piggies exposed to Miro and Ouanda who the Speaker really was, and they only believed it was possible for such a kind person to be such a monstrous slaughterer because of Ender's tears of guilt. When Olhado observed, "It's funny. Before you got here, the Bishop tried to tell us all that you were Satan...But if the Bishop had told us you were Ender, we would have stoned you to death in the praça the day you arrived." But if I was in agony, what must Ender himself have felt? I decided to address that in this poem.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ender:
Ender means murderer.
Ender means the severing of billions of lives
in one blow, in cold blood.
Ender means one who lived
only to bring death, so much death.
Ender means blood, so much blood on the hands
of a child, born for nothing but murder.
I want to ask them, all of them who say this,
I want to ask them, everyone in all the worlds:
Who is the murderer,
the child who killed or the men who taught him to kill?
And what of those who killed the child,
murdered his childhood with lies,
murdered his soul with lies,
murdered his name with lies?
They told him it was only a game,
then you pointed at him and said 'murderer.'
But only lies ever made him a murderer -
the child, and the name.
I want to say to them,
my name is Ender.
And I never wanted to be a murderer.
I am not like my brother.
Ender:
Ender means monster.
Ender means cruel apathy as with a word,
he ended a people, a culture, a world.
Ender means one who did not flinch to kill,
for whom murder was no more than a game.
Ender means inhuman, below the name of 'human,'
an animal who delighted in the taste of blood,
a cold machine that never had a heart,
could never know anything of pity or love.
I want to ask them, all of them who say this:
Who is the monster,
the monstrous child or the men who shaped him into a monster?
They took his humanity with isolation,
they nurtured his ruthlessness in solitude,
they taught him calculated savagery.
I want to say to them,
my name is Ender,
and my guilt destroys me every day,
my heart's love and pity for those my hand destroyed.
I want to say to them,
my name is Ender.
Look at me. Touch me.
Am I a monster?
I am not like my brother.
Ender:
Ender means hated.
Ender means the basest of all that is evil;
of all those who smile to kill, the cruelest.
Ender means a word that people spit from their mouths
as if they cannot stand the dirtied taste.
Ender means whom children grow up taught to hate,
whose crime makes all crimes before it mean nothing.
I want to ask them who teach their children this:
Did you not once hate those I slaughtered as well,
think they were cold-blooded, far-from-human monsters?
Do you not now love them because you know them,
and know them because you love them?
And who was it that taught you enough to love them,
loved them enough to teach you of them?
And who, by teaching you to love them,
led you to your hatred of their destroyer?
I want to say to them who teach their children
that Ender means all that is hateful,
my name is the Speaker for the Dead.
My name is Ender.
I taught you to love, and you learned to hate.
You have murdered my childhood with your lies,
murdered my soul with your lies,
murdered my name with your lies,
murdered Ender the vile murderer.
Who, then, will speak for the Speaker when he is dead?
I spoke for the ones you hated,
I spoke for a murderer. My brother.
I taught you to weep for them, taught you to love.
Who will speak for me?
Who will speak for Ender?
Author's Note: I have fallen in love with _Ender's Game_. Not to mention Ender himself. Did I think Frodo had angst? Anyway, reading _Speaker for the Dead_, I would almost start to cry every time someone called Ender "the Xenocide" or "the monstrous Ender." When the Speaker told Olhado to try 'Ender' as his password, and Olhado said he didn't think computers accepted dirty words like that. When the piggies exposed to Miro and Ouanda who the Speaker really was, and they only believed it was possible for such a kind person to be such a monstrous slaughterer because of Ender's tears of guilt. When Olhado observed, "It's funny. Before you got here, the Bishop tried to tell us all that you were Satan...But if the Bishop had told us you were Ender, we would have stoned you to death in the praça the day you arrived." But if I was in agony, what must Ender himself have felt? I decided to address that in this poem.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ender:
Ender means murderer.
Ender means the severing of billions of lives
in one blow, in cold blood.
Ender means one who lived
only to bring death, so much death.
Ender means blood, so much blood on the hands
of a child, born for nothing but murder.
I want to ask them, all of them who say this,
I want to ask them, everyone in all the worlds:
Who is the murderer,
the child who killed or the men who taught him to kill?
And what of those who killed the child,
murdered his childhood with lies,
murdered his soul with lies,
murdered his name with lies?
They told him it was only a game,
then you pointed at him and said 'murderer.'
But only lies ever made him a murderer -
the child, and the name.
I want to say to them,
my name is Ender.
And I never wanted to be a murderer.
I am not like my brother.
Ender:
Ender means monster.
Ender means cruel apathy as with a word,
he ended a people, a culture, a world.
Ender means one who did not flinch to kill,
for whom murder was no more than a game.
Ender means inhuman, below the name of 'human,'
an animal who delighted in the taste of blood,
a cold machine that never had a heart,
could never know anything of pity or love.
I want to ask them, all of them who say this:
Who is the monster,
the monstrous child or the men who shaped him into a monster?
They took his humanity with isolation,
they nurtured his ruthlessness in solitude,
they taught him calculated savagery.
I want to say to them,
my name is Ender,
and my guilt destroys me every day,
my heart's love and pity for those my hand destroyed.
I want to say to them,
my name is Ender.
Look at me. Touch me.
Am I a monster?
I am not like my brother.
Ender:
Ender means hated.
Ender means the basest of all that is evil;
of all those who smile to kill, the cruelest.
Ender means a word that people spit from their mouths
as if they cannot stand the dirtied taste.
Ender means whom children grow up taught to hate,
whose crime makes all crimes before it mean nothing.
I want to ask them who teach their children this:
Did you not once hate those I slaughtered as well,
think they were cold-blooded, far-from-human monsters?
Do you not now love them because you know them,
and know them because you love them?
And who was it that taught you enough to love them,
loved them enough to teach you of them?
And who, by teaching you to love them,
led you to your hatred of their destroyer?
I want to say to them who teach their children
that Ender means all that is hateful,
my name is the Speaker for the Dead.
My name is Ender.
I taught you to love, and you learned to hate.
You have murdered my childhood with your lies,
murdered my soul with your lies,
murdered my name with your lies,
murdered Ender the vile murderer.
Who, then, will speak for the Speaker when he is dead?
I spoke for the ones you hated,
I spoke for a murderer. My brother.
I taught you to weep for them, taught you to love.
Who will speak for me?
Who will speak for Ender?