Ender's Game and Surgebinding

[YoungKingCole]

Hello everyone, I'm YoungKingCole 

 

Before I get into my theory I wanted to tell you all a little about myself and what I've read so far. I first experienced the Cosmere when a student teacher I had in high school lent me his copy of Mistborn to read. I came back to the series recently and I've quickly devoured through the Mistborn Trilogy, Alloy of Law, and the Way of Kings, and I'm working through Shadows of Self now while I wait for Words of Radiance to show up in my mailbox. I'm a senior Religion and pre-ministry student at a Lutheran College and an aspiring writer. Taking Stephen King's advice to you writers to "Read" I've been devouring fiction over the past summer and it was through a happy accident that I read Ender's Game before my fiancee found a free copy of Way of Kings that I read in five days. As I prepare to delve deep into the Cosmere I've been doing some research seeing what books I need to read (answer all of them) and I've now thought it best join the fandom in full. A first for me when it comes to fandoms. 

 

So here's my observation/theory. 

I've seen it noted in several places that Sanderson (what is the proper way for you guys to address him on here? is it Sanderson, Mr. Sanderson, Brandon, Brandon Sanderson?) read Orson Scott Card when he was younger. And I'm guessing that means he's read Card's most influential and famous work Ender's Game. For those of you who haven't read the book or have seen the movie should know that it's about a six to sixteen year old boy genius who is at a training school for military officers in a war against a hive mind alien race. One of these training scenarios is to have teams of cadets enter into a zero gravity arena where they fire stun guns at each other and attempt to get through the door at the other end of the arena where the other team has excited out of. 

The reason why this is big is because of something that Ender is the first to figure out. Instead of thinking of where ever gravity was before entering the arena as 'down' to instead think of the enemy's gate as 'down'. I didn't realize until the second time that Szeth was Surgebinding that the description of how he was thinking of 'down' was the same as the way Ender thought of 'down' inn the arena. 

So in conclusion, my theory/observation is that Ender's Game influenced in some way how Surgebinding was described when it came to moving across different surfaces and changing the way that 'down' is defined. 

 

Thanks for reading, I hope I can get some feedback on how I did this post and my theory. 

 

YoungKingCole 

[Ammanas]

Welcome! Your idea wouldn't surprise me; a writer often draws from all of life experiences, but I have never heard that particular idea expressed.

You can refer to the author anyway you feel comfortable with; I have never heard of it being a issue.

Lastly, did you know that Sanderson wrote his own "spin" on Ender's game with a short story called Firstborn. It is Science Fiction, set in its own unique universe, and can be read (legally) here:

https://www.tor.com/2008/12/17/firstborn/

[Rebecca she/her]

Welcome to the Shard! It's great to have you here with us. Happy Reading!