The problem in marketing this to YA is not that people think Ender is moral, they think he is cool… If you want to judge it based on moral messages, I’d hold it to the standard of adult SF. This is also an argument not to cross market books: YA readers LOVE dystopias and see the heroes as rebelling against authority. They see Ender surviving a corrupt system, the bullying and fighting, and him showing skill: moral reflection can get lost in it.

Since Ender’s Game unquestionably is marketed to kids, I still think the essay is spot on – “beautifully written but morally corrupt”.

It also annoys me slightly that Card gets hit a lot based on being Mormon and conservative…

Well, Card also stakes out public positions on political issues; gotta expect to get attention when you’re trying to draw it.

The whole reason to choose children is to make sure you don’t have people even able to understand or question the moral intentions of their actions. Children also don’t have the ability to fight back. The essay is meh because to be evil means to have some nature or awareness of what exactly you are doing. Everyone hid that from him, and it’s only really at the end do we learn what the story of the game was: the eradication of an entire race, and each little blip in the game was humans he sent to death.

The problem in marketing this to YA is not that people think Ender is moral, they think he is cool. he is a symbol of powerlessness, not empowerment. That powerlessness (and the realistic nature of it: Ender is the ultimate child soldier. How many children can really resist or even fathom adult authority?) is why he isn’t blamed for the genocide. A child soldier is a product of his culture and is a weapon.

Unfortunately that does get hidden. It’s more a problem I think in trying to market a book to an entirely different audience. If you want to judge it based on moral messages, I’d hold it to the standard of adult SF. This is also an argument not to cross market books: YA readers LOVE dystopias and see the heroes as rebelling against authority. They see Ender surviving a corrupt system, the bullying and fighting, and him showing skill: moral reflection can get lost in it.

It also annoys me slightly that Card gets hit a lot based on being Mormon and conservative: there’s a lot of needed criticism on the “favored” books and authors, and not just on the unpopular ones. The Hunger Games for example: Katniss through the entire series is manipulated as much as Ender was, and by such caused a tremendous loss of life. Only this time, the “good” guys won, nearly almost losing their soul.

Sorry for the rant, YA fiction is dear to me, and often ignored in serious criticism.

Immoral themes are only a problem in literature when they are not discussed. Conservatives are at a disadvantage, perhaps. If you’re going to talk about Pullman, why aren’t you going to talk about a controversial point in theology (like women’s ordination), too?

Suffice it to say if you’re not bothering to talk about books, movies, music, and tv with your kids, then sure: limit their reading. But libraries and schools aren’t responsible to do what some parents are too lazy to do for themselves (or for their kids).

Bethany might have heard of Redwall, the hugely popular YA series. That one is incredibly morally dubious when you realize that every single animal in it that is a vermin species is evil, and unredeemable. They also all tend to die, and you get the unintended lesson that evil cant change, and you are good or evil based on your birth.

There was another YA book that really got me. Girl was a werewolf, met a normal boy. She warmed to him, and was having difficulties with the semi-violent pack leader. How did it end? Normal boy is frightened, and girl stays with her pack, Lesson learned, differences are unsurmountable.

Ray, I’d be interested in why you think Ender’s Game is bad. I’m not a fan of the whole “kid fighting our wars and the destruction of life as a video game.” Keep in mind though, Ender’s Game is NOT a YA novel, and that it won the Hugo Award from your mostly atheistic peers.

As a side note, I’ve never read or heard or attended any book/class/conference/workshop in which YA writers evaluate current YA fiction according to any kind of moral standard. That’s because everything is relative to each writer’s moral position. And boy, does that vary. Such an event or (even the suggestion of such a thing) would be a serious no-no – a faux pas of the highest order. But wouldn’t it be fun?

I always put Philip Pullman’s HIS DARK MATERIALS in the beautifully-written-but-morally-corrupt category. Even included the idea in my MFA graduate lecture in 2003…which was on the topic of “ethical fantasy.” Guess how much of the audience concurred?

The latest movie that I felt fit this category well was “No Country for Old Men.” Beautiful movie, and represented the worldview of nihilism well. Problem is, it is nihilistic. ;)

A year or two ago I read a thriller by Brad Thor in which the “good guys” treated al Qaeda terrorists with such hideous brutality that I began to root for them—but only in the book.

It is difficult for me to believe these kinds of books, which in many ways are quite immoral, actually do any harm.

I have always thought the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” tells an ugly little story.