The theme of good vs. evil, shown by characters Ender and Peter, seems very black and white for the first half of the book. Ender is the innocent child who seems to be used by Peter, by Colonol Graff, by Mazer Rackham, etc. He is good, and we see this through his interactions with other "innocent" characters, such as Valentine or Alai, who are seemingly "good" characters. Ender wants to protect himself and other innocent people from evil. Peter, on the other hand, is violent, aggressive, and determined to be "too dangerous" for Battle School training. He seems to be the very definition of evil. Throughout the rest of the book, however, these archetypal lines seem to be sometimes blurred by the actions of the characters. For instance, Peter ends up essentially bringing Earth together as a planet/species again, a "good" action whether it was to satiate his personal need for power or not. Ender kills Bonzo and Stilson, manipulates his friends and "soldiers" throughout Battle School, and wonders himself (especially after killing the Giant in the video game) whether he is actually "good" at all if he is showing all of these signs of evil. In summary, Peter and Ender seem to be archetypes of "good" and "evil" characters, but author Orson Scott Card experiments with the line between good and evil using their actions.
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