Because when I say I have a Wiggin Problem I mean all the Wiggins, not just Peter and Valentine.

• He’s an intense mess of contradictions who was borderline engineered to be so (I mean look at all of Graff’s meddling in his parents meeting and requesting that he be born) but who suffers greatly from it: all his parts don’t quite mesh together.
• It’s also his greatest strength, because he can love people the way Val does without skipping over the weaknesses, without being unable to hurt to get people to be better; and he can pursue strength and be unafraid to act on a threat the way Peter does without losing sight of the human factor.
• But at his core he’s this gentle emotional boy who feels responsible so easily but who learned from both his siblings that the only way to be safe is to excel: to either be able to use superior force or superior words (superior manipulation).
• My friend reread Speaker for the Dead once and remarked that Ender cries a lot and he does. Because seriously he’s full of emotion, but childhood taught him that wasn’t okay, he had to bunch it all up inside, so now it’s ten times worse when it comes boiling over.
• He’s a snarky little bastard. I didn’t realize this the first time I read the books, mind. His is more subtle than Peter ‘SAVING THE WORLD FROM ITS OWN COLOSTOMY’ Wiggin, especially since he’s usually echoing back other people’s brand of snark like he’s speaking another language - he tends to use somewhat belligerent humor to keep people from getting close. But there’s a scene at the start of Speaker for the Dead that is absolutely my favorite because he’s just SO DONE WITH YOU, STUDENTS: ‘I know all the arguments of your Calvinism, but even John Calvin would call your doctrine stupid.’ ‘How do you know what Calvin would—’ ‘Because he’s dead, and so I’m entitled to speak for him!’ NICE ONE, WIGGIN.
• He’s just genuinely interested in people and how they tick and how to speak to them better. He doesn’t pick sides, he tries to heal. He’s a teacher, essentially, even when he doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in what’s going on. He can’t help it.
• “You were the one who threatened us with an Inquisitor.” ”And you’re the one who told the people I was Satan and they shouldn’t talk to me.” While the Bishop and the Speaker grinned at each other, the others laughed nervously, sat down, waited. Snarky asshole. <3
• People who claim Ender ‘happily’ committed xenocide obviously don’t seem to have read the books, because by Speaker even the last remaining member of the species he killed is begging him to just forgive himself and carry on already and he absolutely refuses because it is his fault and he won’t accept anyone trying to make it seem less so.
• Honestly he just needs to stop narrativing about how all his important relationships are with women because outside of Valentine (his sister) and Jane (a woman in the sense that she chose that voice and those pronouns on a lark, but doesn’t seem to put especially much stock in the gender issue) all of his confidantes have been male so srsly Ender just go kiss a spaceboy already
• I just really love Ender, okay.
• He is Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, he’s like a Frankenstein’s monster made up of genius parts of various moralities and he really just wants a family but he has no idea how those function but he’s trying.
• And he’s both ambitious and he’s not— he changes things everywhere he goes but it’s never simply out of wanting to be a force of change, he avoids all power outside of his Speaking, but at the same time that’s kind of a need for power in itself, control over people, making them better the way he thinks they should be better.
• And like Jane I just love it when he turns people into plasma.
• The end because I could go on for a while.
• (And let’s not forget he’s the one who genuinely opened up Bean to the idea of caring about anyone to begin with)

tsonicscrewdriver:

Along the lines of that short story about Peter and the Wiggin parents on Christmas, how about a ficlet of Ender and Val on a particularly bittersweet day?

Ender’s up in the middle of the night again. Valentine would be worried, if it wasn’t such a regular occurance. Now, several months into their stay on Shakespeare, she’s used to it. She knows the sound he makes when the nightmares become too much, the twisting and turning of the sheets. She can count the number of steps he makes down the hall in her head. One, two, three, four, until he’s at the stairs, and then there’s soft thuds and the clink of a glass.

Usually, she goes right back to sleep. It’s his own business, and she knows he doesn’t like her meddling in it. 

This time, she follows him. She knows what today is.

“You’re up early,” she observes from the doorway.

He glances up. “No, I’m not,” he says. “Not for my standards.”

Valentine shrugs with one shoulder. “Sometimes I like to pretend we’re normal,” she says. “It’s a funny joke.”

Ender smiles, not because it’s actually funny - he smiles because it really isn’t. She knows that. He knows that. But they talk in word games all the time because it’s the only language they’ve really got between them, the language of her and Peter and him.

“Are you thinking about Peter?” she asks.

He pauses. “Why would I?” he says.

“It’s his birthday.”

“Have you ever considered that it’s a little odd to be thinking about someone’s birthdate when they’re already past their expiration date?” Ender asks, resumes what he was doing before: getting milk from the fridge and pouring it into his glass.

“You’re terrible at deflecting at three in the morning,” Valentine says simply. “It’s not a crime to be thinking about Peter right now, you know. Even if he’s dead. We both remember what his birthdays were like.”

It’s Ender’s turn to shrug. When the motion finishes, the line between his shoulders is tight. “I don’t remember much,” he says.

“Liar,” she replies.

“I’ve blocked out most of Peter. I remember only you, oh radiant beloved sister of mine.”

“Liar,” she repeats.

He shrugs again. “Don’t call me a liar just because I’m not saying what you want to hear.”

“What I want to hear is what’s in your head,” she retorts. “Don’t you ever get tired of playing games with me?”

Ender looks over his shoulder. It’s the first time she’s seen his eyes during this entire conversation. They’re clouded over, distant. He’s not really here, not right now, but he’s trying to lie to her about it. 

“There’s nothing going on in my head,” he says. “I just want to have a drink and go back to bed, that’s all.”

“We’re going to have to talk about Peter eventually,” she says.

“I’ve said quite enough about Peter already,” Ender returns. “I’ve written the book, in fact. You can read it, if it’ll make you happy.”

Valentine sighs very loudly, very obviously. Trying to elict a reaction out of Ender can be like drawing blood from a stone. There are some tricks in her playbook to open him up, but they seem to work less and less well every day. It worries her. There’s so much in Ender’s head that really needs to come out.

“Sorry,” he says, kisses her cheek as he passes her by, glass of milk in hand.

She shakes her head.

She doesn’t move until Ender is gone. Yes: he hides much, even from her. But she has her secrets too, her hidden things. Right now one of them is in the fridge, all the way in the back, hidden behind a container of vegetables that Ender had received from some local farmer not too long ago.

She takes out the cupcake and lights the candle and watches it burn, all the way down. She watches until there’s only smoke left— smoke, and the faint salty smell of a teardrop that got stuck to her nose when she wasn’t paying attention. 

Undignified, as Peter would say.