Most of Ender’s identity problems come from his worry that he’s a bully and a killer, like Peter. But here, Ender wonders for a moment about what it would be like to be “like the other boys.” (We guess he means to wonder what it would be like to be just a regular boy – though we should keep in mind that these “other boys” are also Battle School super-geniuses. Not exactly regular guys.) The fact that Ender only thinks about this here – this one time – shows how Ender is really much more worried about whether he’s going to turn out like Peter.

This is Graff’s take on the limits of human freedom: humans aren’t free, ever, because the species requires individuals to do something. This is pretty early in the book, and Ender pushes back against this idea a little, but how does it affect our reading if one of the book's authority figures declares so early that freedom isn’t totally real?