Childhood
In Ender's Game, Peter is depicted as a sadistic bully who delights in torturing animals and terrorizing his siblings, Ender and Valentine. He is denied entrance into Battle School because he is too violent for the likings of the officers in charge of battle school. He is not without humanity, however; toward the end of the novel, Peter admits he loved Ender as a baby and felt very angry when Ender would ignore him in favor of Valentine.
After Ender leaves for Battle School, his family moves to North Carolina in an effort to curb his emerging sociopathy. The move ultimately makes the situation worse, however; Peter does not change at all, but he learns how to affect a charming facade to manipulate adults into giving him what he wants. Valentine sees him for who he truly is, but remains silent because she feels guilty for sharing a bond with him.
At the age of 12, Peter convinces Valentine to use their parents' network identities, and eventually hidden identities that they have obtained for themselves, to submit writings (in the form of blogs) to the world using pseudonyms (Locke for Peter and Demosthenes for Valentine). Demosthenes acts as a demagogue, stirring up hostility towards governments in the Second Warsaw Pact, especially Russia; Locke, meanwhile, takes a more empathic and high-minded role, calling for communication between the two nations. The two Wiggins’ personalities are complete opposites of their alter-egos; this is intentional on Peter's part, both to keep Valentine bound to him, and to ensure no one discovers their true identities. Each of the two writers gradually gain a following. Playing off each other’s writings, the siblings work to manipulate world events and opinions, so that when the extraterrestrials threatening the world ("Buggers") are defeated, the resulting League War (caused by the world’s only common enemy ceasing to exist) is quickly resolved by the "Locke proposal".
Peter sends Ender away after the five-day League War; Valentine, having spent her entire life with the brother she fears, joins Ender, leaving Peter as the only Wiggin child on Earth.
Read more about this topic: Peter Wiggin
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“Adolescence is a border between childhood and adulthood. Like all borders, it’s teeming with energy and fraught with danger.”
—Mary Pipher (20th century)
“Why are all these dolls falling out of the sky?
Was there a father?
Or have the planets cut holes in their nets
and let our childhood out,
or are we the dolls themselves,
born but never fed?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it. The two things that nearly all of us have thoroughly and really been through are childhood and youth. And though we would not have them back again on any account, we feel that they are both beautiful, because we have drunk them dry.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)