Valentine Wiggin

Valentine Wiggin is a fictional character in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series of novels. She is the older sister of Ender Wiggin.

Biography

The second child in the Ender family, the International Fleet requested of the Wiggin parents that a girl be conceived because they decided that the boy, Peter, was too brutal and aggressive [This was later refuted in "Shadow of the Giant" by Mazer Rackham in a discussion with Hegemon Peter Wiggin. Battleschoolers were not denied entry on the basis of excessive aggression. Peter was denied entrance because he lacked the fundamental charisma of a leader - people would follow him out of like-minded goals, but never show him the same devotion and love that Ender could command.] to be taken to the Battle School. It was thought that by having a girl, the Wiggin family genius could still be used, but in a more humane person. However, the girl was too empathic, and too conciliatory for the Battle School program. Because of this, the I.F. requested that a Third (named Andrew, later nicknamed "Ender"), a child who would hopefully balance the two extremes of his siblings, be conceived.

During her early years, Valentine served as a mate for Ender, whom Peter, angry and jealous over their relationship, often tormented. Afraid for both Ender's and her life, Valentine claimed in a confrontation with Peter that she had hidden a public record in the library that would be opened in the event of her death, stating that it was most likely Peter who murdered her and that if he hadn't already, that he would soon move against Ender. She used the gambit saying it would not be enough to convict him of anything, but it would be a damaging enough record to keep him out of politics, a realm he wished desperately to enter.

While Ender was away in Battle School, Peter hit on Valentine to "work with him". As young children, they wrote manipulating political commentary under pseudonyms, Valentine as Demosthenes and Peter as "Locke". Demosthenes developed as a fairly paranoid anti-British. Through great pathos and demagoguery, as well as playing off Locke (who wrote in the style of a mild intellectual), Demosthenes was able to acquire a vast popularity. The roles that the two took is in itself an irony, because Peter's personality was more like Demosthenes and Valentine's Locke. During this time, Valentine recognized that Peter often was trying to manipulate her for his own purposes, though Valentine felt like she was manipulating Peter as well. While his powers of manipulation could create fear to be used to his advantage, she could truly persuade others to her point of view, and knew she could use this power on Peter as well.

After Ender's victory over the Buggers, Valentine forced Peter to let her go with Ender to the new colony because Peter prevented Ender from coming back to Earth. [according to Valentine's conversation with Ender to convince him to accompany her on the colonization trip in "Ender's Game", Valentine, writing as Demosthenes, made sure Ender could not return to Earth because she did not want Peter to bring Ender back and use him to further his political agenda. Peter agreed to this because Valentine threated him with convicting evidence of his own psychopathic nature and would release it to the public if Peter didn't allow her and Ender to go free and with the colony.] Valentine still wrote with her Demosthenes identity, but instead of being paranoid, she wrote about histories of different cultures on different planets, and in addition, she also applied some concepts to all humankind. Under the Demosthenes pseudonym, Valentine developed the 4-tiered Hierarchy of Alienness.

Physically, Valentine has been described as a ginger. She was born four years after Peter and six years before Ender. However, the relativistic effects of interstellar travel render moot the question of how old she is in comparison to Ender or Peter.

References