Ender’s game series has always been one of my favorite collections and I think I’m probably one of the huge fan’s who read whole around 11/12 books at one go. After the movie came out I wrote some answers in Quora for ‘theorizing’ (bless me) about the book and different implications by different quotes. I feel like I should be making a collection somewhere (in the web, where I can actually find it out). So here it goes:
I always thought “The enemies gate is down!” is a special dialogue between Ender and Bean. The first time it was said by bean in the last match where all of the members of Ender’s team was fatigued and they were outnumbered and outmatched. Bean was told to try out as many ‘random plans’ as he can and try to practice and get new ideas in a separate ‘guerrilla’ team. Now Bean is an interesting character to begin with, he’s smarter than Ender, genetically improved than other humans, brought to the spaceship in order to replace Ender himself, so naturally there was rivalry between Ender and Bean for leadership for a while.
Now Ender has this habit, and a bad habit I’d say, that when he sees that he’s cornered, either he gives up or he tries to murder the enemy. Most of the times we see he’s triumph over enemies but at least two times he was at his last limit and way too fatigued to even think rationally. At that moment what he can do is to just fight until the end even if he has given up on everything mentally. Ender hesitated at least two times in the book, one time in the battle room and the next time when he was fighting the formics. Ender was under severe emotional stress in the fight against formics and was thinking that he’s going mad. Same was in that last fight in battle school before he’s transferred to the senior school. So under severe stress Ender has this habit to shut down and isolate himself and he does things without thinking just like a instrument. That makes him a good Commander actually. In military temporarity shutting down most feelings and do what is required is a very valuable trait.
Now we’ve got Bean here. Bean does not have that much emotional barriers to begin with, it’s not that he lacks Empathy, rather Bean is naturally more rational and intelligent than Ender, and he has extreme respect for Ender and wants him to win and lead the battles. He works as a self employed vice president or right hand of the commander and basically observes how things are going. When he saw Ender being hesitant momentarily because of his fatigue he shouts “The enemies gate is down”. It shows respect that he does not disclose to other fighters that their commander is a mortal too. He’s tired and he can’t decide. So bean takes things in his own hand and basically commands Ender to go to his ‘mechanical murderer mood’. Ender was so tired that he couldn’t even see things properly that he’s got the chance to destroy the enemy in formic battle and he was fighting with the last energy he’s left at that moment. Bean covers for Ender. That’s what he likes to do despite being more intelligent than anyone on that spaceship.
If he says “Ender why are you not taking any decisions when you see that we’ve got the chance to murder them?” that won’t have the same impact on ender and it will be more like disrespecting him in front of the group. The control of the group dynamics plays very important role in Ender’s game over and over. In Bonzo’s team Ender didn’t want to insult Bonzo directly infront of the team as it will compromise his authority later. I think similarly Bean didn’t want to let people know that the leader needs help right now. So it’s a special dialouge between two really intelligent people which worked as a “Go fight and destroy them right now” button for Ender. Very encouraging.
Personally that’s how I interpret it. “The enemy’s gate is down’’ = Go the whole way and do what you have to Commander, this is the chance.
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