Quote 7
"Ender Wiggin is ten times smarter and stronger than I am.” (8.26)
Do we trust Graff when he says this? We’ve seen how smart Ender is (see the first quote in this time), so maybe this is just a reminder that Ender is the best at what he does. But when Graff says “stronger,” he’s not talking about physical strength – he’s talking about Ender’s identity. Do you agree with him that Ender has a strong character?
Quote 8
“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them.” (4.81)
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?
Quote 9
"Of course I mind, you meddlesome ass. This is something to be decided by people who know what they're doing, not these frightened politicians who got their office because they happen to be politically potent in the country they come from." (8.22)
We’re back to non-Ender confinement. Here, Graff is complaining that he doesn’t want people to mess up his finely-tuned system of making Ender unhappy. Graff is the principal of the school – can we even imagine anyone higher up than him? Well, as it so happens, we can: there’s a whole group of people (politicians) who could force Graff to take some actions, and he’s trying to avoid those folks.