The Time Gap

[Jason_Miao]

Re: your original rant, it's not so difficult to imagine people still talking about it.

First, don't forget that Card doesn't ignore relativistic effects, and the great bulk of humanity has spread to the stars.  So it's not as if for most people there has been 3000 since the event.  In fact, for some people, it was 3000 years past, for others 2000, for some 500.  Ender has some stopovers; perhaps some people may even have traveled for longer periods than Ender has, and for them, the event was also in their lifetime.

Second, they don't have to remember exactly what happened.  Can you recite the story of Adam and Eve word for word?  Probably not.  Can you name the participants, and generally what they did wrong?  Sure.  So in Ender's religion, he wrote himself in a role that changed the course of two races.  Add that to people who use relativity to travel to the future, and less informational entropy due to advanced record keeping techniques, and people should generally remember who was the "bad guy".


I was dissappointed that Card didn't show changes to society and their conception of what had happened during the war.  In Antigone, the ancient play by Sopocles, Creon wouldn't have been considered a villian, but by our social standards of what is morally correct, he's a dastardly one.  Taking that understanding into Card's universe, which doesn't involve humanity with uniform culture and 3000 years of social development possible on some of them, different planets would surely put a different spin on the religion.  Using Eve from my Adam and Eve example: Eve has been shown as a temptress, the downfall of man, the saviour of man (who gave man the precious gift of knowledge, a symbol for and against woman's lib, etc...  But in the later books, everyone uses Ender's name in the exact same way.

[twentytwo]

Dracos-

I would see stuff wrong with just introducing it via casual talking.

A:"Hey, how's it going today?"
B:"Not too bad, how about you?"
A:"Pretty good."
B:"So... What about that Jesus?"


See, it's a perfectly normal conversation...


Dracos-

not getting into this too much since it sounds like ye haven't read the sequel (he's remembered not as a hero, but as a villian, the murderous xenocide who wiped out another race leaving no trace remaining 3000 years ago...)

You're right there, but then again it does talk about it at the end of the first book.

But then again, a lot of people talk about Hitler or use him as some kind of reference, even in normal conversations. Such a villain ALSO counts as an icon worthy of everyday comparisons.

Then again, a person who kills out a whole planet of people would definitely be a very unique case, and thus would fall out of most of our generalities...


Dracos-

I'm pretty sure you're off base here. Every culture that I'm aware of is littered with tiny wars, skirmishes, etc that go on almost perpetually for literally hundreds of years tracing backwards, even into when you are talking about.

-22
...who should probubly stop living in RPG land...

[Dracos]

Hitler is an icon largely due to his recentness.  He's not sixty years out of date, and look, despite the horrificness of what he did, the overwhelming majority of discussion around him is farcical.  Despite being one of the more ignoble genociders in current consciousness, associations with his history are  more of a joke or casual insult.  What about the villians in WW1?  Bismark wasn't it?  Or something else?

In all truthfulness, he's already been somewhat replaced by Saddam.  Glance around the internet and you'll find far more discussions of Saddam within the last year or two then you will of Hitler.  His only real reason that he's unlikely to have the lasting iconic use (even if 5-10 years is likely) is that someone else will likely take his place  as that icon and he simply wasn't in charge of nearly as powerful a force, thus no feeling of heroism behind his defeat.

That said, I'm more feeling awkward on this on the note that I can't remember well enough proper GAMES for examples here =)

Dracoos

[Karlinn]

World War I is an excellent example of how information can be diluted over the years, especially when it's complicated to begin with (escalated Balkan conflicts, hooray!)  Kaiser Wilhelm was the closest thing to a recognizable bad guy that war had, but that in itself is a huge grey area since Germany wasn't the only country motivated nationalism and aggressive self-interest - hell, that was half of Europe.  You could just as easily throw some other president or PM on the fire there.

That's the thing about wars; they're typically not clear-cut good/bad conflicts.  Stuff like the Revolutionary War, WW2... that's a lot easier to keep straight than WW1, or Korea, or most mideastern conflict.

You kill Satan, you get remembered.  You kill a thousand bad guys sent from Satan, you get remembered.  You kill a guy you call Satan... ehhh, not so much.

Edit: As for Hitler?  Ah, internet memes come and go.  You ask me, it's a form of catharsis.  We'll never see a point where we read a history book, chuckle and go, "Oh, Hitler, you cad you!", but I can imagine it being less pervasive in the public consciousness - particularly a couple generations from now, when we're more distanced from it.  Saddam's part of a more general tendency to poke fun at famous or infamous people, rather than de-fanging a monster.

That's my take on it, at least ^^

[Jason_Miao]

Hitler is an icon largely due to his recentness. He's not sixty years out of date, and look, despite the horrificness of what he did, the overwhelming majority of discussion around him is farcical.

Emperor Nero.  Religious oppressor, slaughtered thousands of Christians.  Also well remembered, although not as recent as Hitler.

Despite being one of the more ignoble genociders in current consciousness, associations with his history are more of a joke or casual insult. What about the villians in WW1? Bismark wasn't it? Or something else?

WW1, while a horrific war, didn't involve cold-blooded genocide.  Bismark isn't commonly considered a villian.  He wanted a greater German empire, yes.  And Napoleon wanted a greater French empire too, but he's not considered a villian either.  Things like torture of the innocent or slaughtering civilians on a six-digit scale is what gets you the kind of noteriety we're discussing.  

Also, keep in mind the scale of casualties.  For example, both sides of WW2 carpet bombed cities to hit one factory, killing millions.  But Hitler killed millions of civilians nowhere near the battles.  And Ender may have killed trillions, if we consider that the aliens had occupied many worlds and star systems.

In all truthfulness, he's already been somewhat replaced by Saddam.

Only because Iraq is still a current event.  Wait six months after we leave Iraq, and see how many people are still talking about Saddam.  In fact, wait two weeks after his trial ends, and see how many people are still talking about Saddam.

Since we're talking about villians, remember Carlos the Jackal?  No?  Don't worry; most people don't either.  He was the flashiest terrorist of the 80s. A real media hound.  I've been told that his capture took a decade of careful infiltration by one or more intelligence agencies.  And a week after his capture, everyone forgot about him.

So no, I don't think Saddam will be forgotten because someone new comes along.  I think he'll be forgotten because that's just how people are.