@c0dec0dec0de@pluralistic Ender's Game kept me from suicide when I was a kid behind the Iron Curtain. It was for the first time it have occurred to little me a gifted, bullied child could be valued. It is easy to pontificate from the armchair of a professor in a free country.
@chx neither I nor the author of this critique say that there is no value or appeal to the book. It captures well the feelings of childhood victimhood and powerlessness. There’s a cathartic element to seeing surrogates for one’s tormentors or oppressors laid low by a victim figure. The issue is that the use of overwhelming and lethal force is presented as somehow literally perfectly moral and blameless based on Ender’s status as a victim of abuse and his intention to prevent abuse. @pluralistic
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