Colonel Graff is a demon in the radioplay. In the source material his purpose in the narrative is to personify the governments lack of care for the children of battle school. This is simple enough in the book because we can read about how his actions affect Enders psyche. In the radioplay however we don’t hear Enders internal monologue nor do we hear descriptions of his mental state. The solution the radioplay developed to solve this problem of graff’s actions not having audible consequences was to externalize the well being of the children into a character and have Graff directly antagonise her.
Major Jayadi is a child healthcare professional of somekind. It’s not specified what her actual specialty is but her job is to maintain the wellbeing of the children of battle school. She is in essence a school councillor. As such she by necessity is not directly under the authority of colonel graff who is ofcourse the commandant of battle school. This grants her a bit of power that wouldn’t otherwise be possible, for example she is the only person on battleschool who could overide the orders of graff. If she deemed those orders to pose an unnecessary risk to a child. This does come to a head more than once. The first example being her blocking Enders graduation from being a launchy because his launch group had become too fragmented. The second being when she unsuccessfully tries to get surgery preformed to remove pieces of the bird left in his neck. She argues because it has to do with surgery it is a medical decision and so under her authority. Graff argues the material is biologically inert and so poses no chance of infection, if it poses no threat to a child then major jayadi has no right to make orders. Evidently graff wins this argument but only because major jayadi backs off. But why does she back off?
We can infer that major jayadi IS under the employment of the international fleet. So while graff might not be her direct superior, her direct superiors might just be old military men who know quite a bit about the current formic mission. So when it comes to using her authority to halt the progress of that mission she Bette have a damn good reason. That’s why she backs off when the discussion is wether to start cutting into the brain of maybe our only hope against the formics but not when it comes to keeping ender on the scheduled syllabus. So for now keep in mind that wether graff or jayadi have authority is based on who’s side sounds best to the top brass at the international fleet.
The second thing to note is she is overtly responsible for giving phycological reports on Atleast Ender. These reports are what the top breast will use to determine if ender is mentally fit for command. Taking these two things into account we can now truely appreciate how cruel graff is in the radioplay.
Ender kills stilson. It’s brutal. Later graff finds out it was not cruelty or brutishness but in the radioplay he is in an observation room sitting next to major jayadi after having just ordered medical personnel not to move until he says so. When stilson is motionless on the ground the Situation that could be presented to the International fleet higher ups would be this: “Colonel Graff intentionally left earths greats chance to fend of the formics defenceless and half drugged at the mercy of older boys who’s stated intention was the hurt the boy, when he was made aware of the fact he stopped me from getting medical personel involved. A fight occurred where Ender seriously injured another boy and continued to attack him while he was unconscious”
Graff In the moment needs to find a reason why he had not just become an accomplice to infanticide. He needs to show two things. One that he is not responsible for stilsons death and two that ender was both not in serious danger and is not a psychopath. So let’s walk through the actual steps graff takes before leaving the room. First thing is he shouts for medical attention for stilson before jayadi can. Second is he uses phycology therapist speak that jayadi would be familiar with to give a moral justification for what ender did. “Primate male display” which is bad science and was at the time of the books publishing but sounds legit enough to pass in conversation. String these together with the right words and suddenly the report to the international fleet sounds like this “A fight broke out between ender and a gang of boys, ender used superior strategy to isolate the groups leadership and subdue him while also neutralizing the rest of the gang. Colonel graff then ordered medical staff to attend to the boy who had been beaten by ender”
Suddenly the story is no longer about graff’s failure as a teach but Enders ability to overcome great odds. Major jayadi could have written up the original report, it’s still true after all but remember what I said about the people reading the report. These are not psychologist these are military men. Jayadi might be able to pick out what’s wrong with the “primate male display” but they won’t. They also won’t be swayed that graff only called for doctors after a kid was hurt.
When graff waxes elegant about primate male display and how “didn’t know ender would do that” he isint trying to convince her. She can clearly see through that bullshit. He’s threatening her. “Go on make that report but when I refute it with this they’ll take my side and when I petition to have you fired and replaced with someone more amicable they’ll take my side too”
And so major Jayadi has no choice but to write up a report that shows ender as being the perfect fit for battle school. Even though as a children’s healthcare specialist she would be overtly aware of how harmful it would be to ender specifically graff forces her to become a part of the plot to being ender to battle school.
The same thing happens every time they meet. Jayadi tries to save Ender from some hare graff wants to do him and she becomes an unwilling participant in his torment as a result of graffs manipulations. All the way until she gives the green light for him to be graduated. She never even speaks to him.
I think Jayadi is a perfect example of how being complicit in a tyrannical system serves only to help those in power.
