#wang-mu

[jodjuya]

Progressing through Orson Scott Card's Ender Saga. Currently up to "Children Of The Mind", and good fucking lord these chapters with Wang-mu and 'Peter' are such an utterly fucking atrocious trainwreck.

Can anyone in the Ender's Game fandom explain this to me please??

Why are these characters in the Sixth fucking Millennium A.D. talking about "Asians", "Europeans", and "Americans"; and their identities thereof, as if those are even REMOTELY meaningful categories of culture to the peoples of a humanity that have been spreading out into and colonising outer space for over three thousand years?????

Like, right now where I'm up to, Wang-mu and 'Peter' are having their first little conversation with Ainmaina Hikari, and Wang-mu is breezily bullshitting about Ancient Egypt/China/Mesopotamia or whatever

And, like, those ancient cultures are as far-removed from me, the reader, as China/Japan/America are from Wang-mu/Hikari/'Peter'!

If you were to squint hard enough, yeah, it could be said that my distant ancestors came from the Roman Empire, but, fuck no there is no way in heaven or hell that the culture of those 3500-years-ago ancestors and their neighbourly relations with other cultures and peoples has ANY kind of bearing on my life or cultural outlooks.

Like, I'm not gunna give the side-eye to some random stranger I meet whose culture mores seem different to mine and start waxing poetic about "oh he's just like that because he's a Carthaginian. 🙄😒 You all know what Carthaginians are like amirite?? "

(I guess 'Peter' is technically an American—or a 'cloned' caricature of one, at least—so he gets a pass on this)

The Doyleist explanation is that Orson Scott Card simply didn't have the sci-fi chops to imbue his creation with coherence; he's just trying to tell a story here and doesn't have the Tolkienian level of galaxy-brain required to convincingly pull off the 3000+ years of history and sociology experienced by his humanity across its umpteen number of colony worlds, so he's just sticking to what he knew and is hand-waving away the shockingly breathtaking levels of cultural stagnation his humanity has wallowed in.

But what's the Watsonian explanation for that cultural stagnation?? Is there a Watsonian explanation??

(also, what's with Miro's latent homophobia?? Is he Like That because of Card's own intense homophobia shining through, or is it simply because Miro grew up on The Catholic Planet?)

[itskindofidontknow]

When you have wisdom that another person knows that he needs, you give it freely. But when the other person doesn't yet know that he needs your wisdom, you keep it to yourself.

Orson Scott Card, Xenocide (Pg. 396)

[speakerunfolding]

“That’s life. It hurts, it’s dirty, and it feels very, very good.”

Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind

[thrallhouse]

I love him, thought Wang-mu, and her heart nearly burst with the intensity of her passion. He will never love me, thought Wang-mu, and her heart broke as it had never broken in all the thousand disappointments in her life.

Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card

[once-a-traya]

Oh, Peter.

Wang-mu: I already miss Han Fei-tzu, and I've been gone scarcely two days. I have known a man of grace and wisdom. He found me interesting. I'm quite comfortable with boring you.

Peter: I'm burning, that stung, oh, how can I stand it. Vicious! You have the breath of a dragon! Men die at your words!

Wang-mu: Only puppets strutting around hanging from strings.

Peter: Better to dangle from strings than to be bound tight by them.

Wang-mu: Oh, the gods must love me, to have put me in the company of a man so clever with words.

Peter: Whereas the gods have put me in the company of a woman with no breasts.

(Orson Scott Card, 'Children of the Mind')

[once-a-traya]

Peter: What was that for! ... Oh, good, laugh. I can see you're going to be fine company.

Wang-mu: Be angry, I don't care. I'll just tell you this. Do you think that away off on Lusitania, Ender's aiua suddenly thought, 'Ho, a bee!' and made you brush at it and dodge it like a clown?

Peter: Oh, aren't you clever. Well gosh, Miss Royal Mother of the West, you sure solved all my problems! I can see I must always have been a real boy! And these ruby shoes, why, they've had the power to take me back to Kansas all along!

Wang-mu: What's Kansas?

Peter: Just another memory of Ender's that he kindly shared with me. So are you with me?

Wang-mu: You must try not to be nasty with me.

Peter: Take that up with Ender.

Wang-mu: I don't care whose aiua controls you. You still have your own thoughts, which are different from his-- you feared the bee, and he didn't even think of a bee right then, and you know it. So whatever part of you is in control or whoever the real 'you' happens to be, right there on the front of your head is the mouth that's going to be speaking to me, and I'm telling you that if I'm going to work with you, you better be nice to me.

Peter: Does this mean no more bee fights?

Wang-mu: Yes.

Peter: That's just as well. With my luck Ender no doubt gave me a body that goes into shock when I'm stung by a bee.

Wang-mu: It can also be pretty hard on the bee.

Peter: I find myself liking you. I really hate that.

(Orson Scott Card, 'Children of the Mind')

[merlypops]

Reading "Children Of The Mind" - my god! I ship Peter and Wang-mu so MUCH!!!!