[littlemissattitude]

I suspect that there are some personal issues involved in why Card wrote "Ender's Game" and why he handled it the way he did.

Card is an extremely bright individual. That is obvious, not only from his writing, but from his comments and his manner in panels and talks I attended the year he was guest of honor at LosCon. Life can be hard for a child growing up bright in American culture - being smart is not an especially valued characteristic; fitting in is much more valued. Additionally, the religious tradition Card grew up in (and which I have some experience with, as well) values the intelligent individual even less. That tradition also is not especially nurturing of creativity. That tradition sometimes denies these things, but I know from close experience that what I say is true. My suspicion is that "Ender's Game" was, consciously or not, at least partly Card's way of dealing with being the odd duck. By making the bright kids the salvation of the species, I think, he was trying to validate his own experiences. But in making these kids the salvation of the species, he had to make them really, really smart. Unbelievably smart, compared to most of us.

I could be completely wrong about this, of course. But it certainly seems to me, from my experience in life and in reading "Ender's Game" several times, that it is a good possibility that this was at least one factor in the genesis of the book.