I started to write it out in the comment section, but when I realized I was closing in on 500 words and still not finished, I decided to just write an independent post. In any case, the first comment on Mahonri’s most recent post finally provoked a response from me on the topic of Card and homosexuality. And, as I pointed out with Heinlein, this is sort of a tradition for the sci fi genre. On the one hand it’s easy to mock the tendency of older, successful men rambling on about their pet politics, but on the other hand I think the world generally needs more straight talk and not less. I’ve also observed for years that he, like Robert Heinlein, has gradually been adding more and more overt politics to his works as he gets older. Although my article doesn’t address the topic of homosexuality itself (it’s a more general look at how Mormon themes are exhibited in Ender’s Game), I’ve recently re-read several of of Card’s works. I’ve actually been hard at work for the past few months working on an article about Ender’s Game to coincide with the release of the movie. I’ve enjoyed reading Mahonri’s pieces on Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game, and homosexuality. I’d like to help Jazayerli understand Card. That’s the least I owe him for gifting me with an ethical compass when I needed one. Others may hate him, but I’m still struggling to understand him. He is not only a fan of science fiction in general and Card’s works in particular, he writes movingly of how Card’s sympathetic depiction of a Muslim character in Ender’s Game (written in the 1980s) profoundly touched Jazayerli. As a devout Muslim he shares Card’s Mormon view that homosexual sex is a sin. Jazayerli is clearly a sympathetic reader (sympathetic of Card, I mean). Why, then, is the author of Ender’s Game an unrepentant homophobe and conspiracy theorist best described alternatively as either “intolerant” or “kooky”? That is the question Rany Jazayerli asks in his moving and thoughtful piece for Grantland. It is the key to all of young Ender’s victories and the source of his greatest strength. From the very first line of the book (“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears…”) and on to the end the theme of empathy dominates everything the characters do and think about. Ender’s Game is, more than any thing else, a book about empathy.
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