#Achilles deflandre

[theonlyendersgamefan]

I hate that it takes 4 books for the bean saga to go from “guys it’s he’s just like ender I promise. Remember ender? You liked him right? He’s just like ender” to genuinely good well written political thriller.

Orson Scott card developed this chronic illness sometime in the early 1990s which rendered him unable to write more than one compelling story line in a book at a time. There were experimental treatments done while he was writting shadow of the giant but they had to stop due to funding issues. His books weren’t selling very well.

Best example of this is actually outside of the bean saga entirely. Children of the mind, universally considered to be the worst of the original quartet and I would argue that it’s one of his weakest books of all time. Children of the mind actually has several compelling premises. 4 to be exact. Way to many for any to be well developed enough as to be compelling. You have Jane trying to find a new body, and peter and wang-wu planet hoping to influence government, and ender trying to get back with novinha, and everyone else trying to find thé descoladorians.

Only the intergalactic odyssey feels like it was given any real care. The other story lines feel thrown together like they exist purely to finish up the series and put a bow on top and say “here publishing house I did the thing” which ofcourse, is the case. In the post script of the children of the mind audiobook there is an extra from orson Scott card, he says that xenocide and children of the mind were originally going to be one book but it ended up being too long. He offered his publishers to make it into two books and the publishing house seeing an opportunity to sell twice Samantha books, readily agreed. Now this is immediately visible in the actual book. For one children of the mind does not have a large time skip like the other two sequels do. The story takes place immediately after the end of the xenocide. For another thing, after a certain point about half way through the book you notice and realize that this is the end of the series, even if you haven’t already known, and your think to yourself “why is this still going on”. And the answer is because Scott card hasint bothered making this one story. He thought “what haven’t I wrapped up” and tossed it all together.

I liked all the “moments” in children of the mind. I don’t think there are any chapters you can point to and say “this was poorly written”. I cried at some parts there was no lack of passion and emotion in the moments problem is there’s no narrative for the moments to hang on to and so unlike Enders game and speaker for the dead and yes to some extent xenocide the moments don’t blend together to form a story but rather the story has to hold the moments up to cover all of its holes.

What was a talking about? Oh right SHADOW OF THE GIANT IS SO PEAK. The bean saga had the same issues children of the mind had. Yes, bean growing up and his experience with battle school is an interesting idea but so much of the book left me thinking “so what?” Too much of it exists purely to retroactively justify beans position in Enders game. Then the next two books consist of the characters just doing incredible things without any explanation. Peter keeps talking about “his contacts” and graffs resources are seemingly endless unless of course it deals with anything plot related in which case “minister of colonization” is an empty title.

I would much rather read the bean saga from Achilles or alai or hot soups perspective. Why? Because orson Scott car abuses the fact that they are not POV characters to totally disregard any semblance of plausibility. Sure s story of a bunch of child geniuses ruling the world won’t be realistic but Jesus he just pulls whatever to get Achilles out of trouble until suddenly he’s stupid enough to trust one guy, who has known been ten times longer than he has know Achilles, to actually be loyal. Achilles de flandre, the most paranoid boy on planet earth, shot dead because he invited bean to come in with a gun. I would pay good money for a book on Achilles but it would have the same issues as Enders shadow there’d be to much shifting as Orson Scott card tries to fit Achilles where he is supposed to be in Enders shadow. But still it would be worth it just to hear his internal monologue, we really only get 4-5 moments where Achilles is interacting with Petra and I need to know what he was thinking every time. Why did he bring her to the India Pakistan meeting? Why open the plane door? Ajirodndej

This problem goes away entirely in shadow of the giant even a bit before. In shadow puppets we actually get important internal monologue from a character which is not bean or Petra. It’s hot soup, navigating Chinese bureaucracy. It’s boring and clever and I love it. It’s the kind of stuff you saw in Enders game small but totally reasonable conclusion based on real relevant information that existed before this very moment. In the actual book shadow of the giant, we see that alai hadn’t actually maneuvered his way into ruling the entire Islamic world, he was being used as a figure head, presumably by one of the high rankers who had formed the original caliphate. We are shown that the Islamic countries had a loose alliance and that alai, when brought back from Russia, was a mediator between these countries, eventually his prestige as one of Enders gishe and also having proved his unbiasedness, was pronounced caliph. This back tracks on the vague insinuation that alai had done what Peter did but just in a couple of years. We also get to see the bridge goddess thing with virlomi play out and the people that hot soup rule over as emperor act differently than the people that virlomi rules over as goddess of India and they act differently than the people alai rules over as caliph. The fact that we get to seem more of other people help’s this book out so much. We get a wider view of the world and so it doesn’t feel out of nowhere when they world Changes. It feels like an intelligent move made by competent people and not characters who exist purely to get the last page as quickly as possible. It’s genuinely like a different person wrote this book. Or like orson Scott card sent the bean saga back in time 2 decades and let his 40yo self write it.

[theonlyendersgamefan]

Achilles (DeFlandre) could not do this. He was not, strictly speaking, anything at all. All of his power was apparent, a reflection of the people around him. He wasn’t incredibly strong or a genius military mind. His only power over anyone was his ability to do things so cruel that no one could possibly expect (and therefore foresee) them. So when his depravity is exposed and the people around him stop expecting him to behave with even an iota of humanity, he loses all of his power.

It’s why he has to jump from ally to ally constantly, because he will only ever have power in a country for a short while after he’s helped them by spying or sabotage. But once he’s inside there’s nothing he can do for them. He has Russia and India use the battle school kids to print out military strategy because he wasn’t at battle school long enough to learn any. He has to stage a kidnapping from china because once they realized he was nothing at all without outside information, they were keeping him in the same loop of bureaucracy that hot soup was in.

Achilles can’t walk away because no one is worse off with him gone. So he has to escape and run to the enemy until there’s nowhere left to run. There’s no one who you can seduce, you’ve used up every last bit of surprise the would can spare you. So he’s put up against a wall and shot. And then he’s dead.

Achilles (the illiad) was able to walk away because he knew he was needed.

he was powerful enough, useful enough, important enough, that the most harmful and powerful thing he could do was say no.

and no one could stop him, no one could punish him.

they could be angry, and tell him he was a fool, but he had the power and he knew that.

so when he was broken, when his whole paradigm of trust was crushed, he walked away.

he didnt try to kill the person who was doing the injustice, he didn't need to

and honestly it was a better move, a more harmful thing to remove himself, to simply say no.

Ender did the same thing, he was so broken after battle school.

he did not care anymore and he was angry and hurt and betrayed and lied to.

so what did he do?

he walked away, he said no, he built a raff and laid on a lake and refused to do anything.

because he was important, he was necessary.

so the thing he could do, was walk away and what could they do about it?

nothing, cause it was him they needed his mind, his skill, his passion.

he was nessisary to them so the worst thing he could do, the most powerful thing he could do was walk away.