Bean (character)
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Bean is a major character in Orson Scott Card's science fiction novels revolving around Ender Wiggin. He is an important supporting character in Ender's Game and the main character of the eponymous Bean Quartet (or Shadow Saga as it is officially known), consisting of Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant. He will be one of the two main characters in the Ender's Game movie.
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[edit] Ender's Shadow
Bean was born in Rotterdam as the result of an illegal experiment in genetic engineering conducted by a scientist named Volescu. In the experiment, Volescu turned "Anton's Key," which allows for literally unlimited intelligence. Bean's parents, Grecians Julian and Elena Delphiki, had conceived one child (Nikolai Delphiki), through in-vitro fertilization. The other embryos were stolen by Julian Sr.'s half brother Volescu, who turned Anton's Key in some or all of the 23 stolen embryos. When Bean was only about a year old, the government found out and Volescu "discarded' all of the babies except Bean, who crawled into a toilet tank and hid there for days before being rescued by a janitor. After a short time living with the janitor, Bean wandered out onto the streets of Rotterdam.
Around the age of four, Bean joined Poke's Crew. Poke was very merciful to Bean, and probably saved his life by feeding him. Bean devises a plan to get more food for the crew by recruiting a bully to get them into the soup kitchen. Poke chooses Achilles de Flandres, who is the one of the lowest individuals in the bully hierarchy due to his bad knee. Bean does not think Achilles was a good choice, and actually advises Poke to kill Achilles. She shows Achilles the same mercy she showed Bean, however, and spares his life. Achilles became the crew's "papa" and carried out the plan successfully, allowing all of the orphans to get food. When Achilles begins contemplating killing Bean, however, Poke intervenes, and meets with Achilles at night to make a deal with him (although Achilles, of course, has a different view of the events and of Bean). Bean witnesses this and follows them for a while, but he sees the two kissing. Thinking that he was wrong, he starts to walk home. When he realizes his mistake he turns back to try to save her. When he gets there, Achilles is gone, but he sees Poke's body floating in the river. This causes Bean incredible guilt, and losing those to whom he owes a lot becomes a theme that runs throughout the book and its sequels.
Meanwhile, Bean and Achilles are noticed by Sister Carlotta, a nun who recruits children for the International Fleet's (IF) Battle School. Sister Carlotta discovers that Bean was actually the mastermind behind the plan to create civilization among the street urchins, and also that Bean and Achilles cannot both be sent to Battle School lest one kill the other. She gets Bean into Battle School and hides Achilles in a school on Earth in hopes that the IF will not find him and decide to send him to Battle School. Although Bean's test scores and intelligence far exceed those of any other Battle School student—including Ender Wiggin's—Bean is both the smallest and youngest child in the school. He keeps to himself, but shows an intense interest in Ender, the school's most successful and well-known student, because everyone is soon comparing Bean to Ender. He does his best to hide his obsession with Wiggin, however. The first friend Bean makes in the school is another boy in his launch group, Nikolai Delphiki.
The first person Bean meets outside of his own launch group is Petra Arkanian, a friend of Ender Wiggin. During his stay at Battle School, Bean explores the school and eavesdrops on teachers by crawling through the ventilation. After a few months, Colonel Graff recruits Bean to create an army from scratch for Ender. Ender is rather mean to Bean at first, but a partnership emerges between the two geniuses. While Bean has greater intelligence (Ender is the only student to approach Bean's intellectual level), Ender has the ability to lead and to inspire personal loyalty among his fellow students. After the initial small fights, Ender uses Bean's intellect by assigning him an "ad hoc" toon to come up with crazy stunts, flashy strategies that might come in handy in the battleroom as the teachers keep changing the rules to be biased against Ender's army. After Ender kills Bonzo, Ender effectively quits the game and relies on Bean to plan and execute his final Battle School battle, which is against two armies at once. They win by having Bean's toon go through the enemy's door early in the battle. After the battle, the teachers made a rule that all enemy soldiers must be frozen or disabled before an army can go for their gate.
Later that day Ender (along with many of the other commanders) is graduated, and Dragon army is dissolved. Bean is put in command of Rabbit Army. There was a brand new student put in Rabbit Army, Achilles. Bean knew that Achilles would eventually try to kill him, so Bean came up with a plan to get him sent back to Earth. He told Achilles that the reason Ender was so good was that he spied on the teachers and other armies with him and knew all of their plans. With the help of a small group of other soldiers, Bean had Achilles trapped in the air intake system, hanging by some deadline. They recorded his confession of the series of murders he committed. He was immediately sent back to Earth, and eventually to a mental hospital. After a very short amount of time, Bean had his first battle. He never won any of his five battles. He was more interested in training his soldiers, and learning from the other commanders, than winning.
Bean is picked for Ender's "jeesh" (a term coined by Card meaning a group) and sent to Tactical School to train for the Third Invasion. Bean was their second choice for commander in case Ender could not do it. In Tactical School, Bean and the rest of the jeesh study the ships that were being used for the invasion. They were older models, since the ships that would be used were launched soon after the Second Invasion. They were soon sent to Command School, to train with simulators of the final battles. During this time, Bean was used as the commander. The other children resented him at first for it, but later found great respect. When Bean's simulators breaks down, the technician tells Bean that they did not bother programming in a time lag. Bean then realizes that the lack of a light speed lag in the simulations is intentional, meaning that the IF has the technology to send communications faster than the speed of light. He realizes that at any time, the games that they are playing can become real battles in the Third Invasion without their knowledge. Bean plays the pivotal role of watching the flow of the battle and essentially being a second pair of eyes and ears for Ender. As the battles wear on and Ender tires, Bean begins to take a bigger role, translating unclear instructions. Bean was given the opportunity to take control of Ender's position as commander at any time. Some of the jeesh, such as Crazy Tom, also run their battle plans through Bean. In the very final battle, neither Ender nor Bean can see any way to win; Bean remarks, "The enemy's gate is down," an instruction Ender had given to his army back in Battle School. This sparks an idea in Ender's mind, and he gives orders for a suicide run in order to destroy the Bugger homeworld itself with their ultimate weapon, nicknamed "Dr. Device" or "Little Doctor". More and more of the ships are shot down, and because of the atmoshpere, they are breaking apart. Bean tells his last ship to set off the little doctor inside his ship. The planet was destroyed.
Once the jeesh wipes out the Buggers, the children, except for Ender, return to Earth. Bean is introduced to his biological parents, whom Sister Carlotta had found, and learns that Colonel Graff had been telling the truth after all when he'd said that Nikolai was Bean's brother and Bean's real name was Julian Delphiki.
[edit] Shadow of the Hegemon
Bean's tranquil life with the Delphikis is short-lived. When the family is on vacation, Achilles, who between the two books has used his considerable intellect to gain influence and power in Russia and other empire-minded countries, tries to outright kill them. Bean and the Delphikis separate; Bean goes into hiding with Sister Carlotta, and the Delphiki family disappears until a small appearance in Shadow of the Giant. Bean later learns that Achilles has captured all of Ender's jeesh except for Bean (which he tried to kill) and Ender (who is gone). Bean later allies himself with Peter Wiggin to combat this threat. Bean is most concerned for Petra's welfare, and finds a coded message that leads to the release of all of Ender's Jeesh except for her.
Bean moves to Thailand, where he helps train a strike force under Suriyawong (a member of Ender's Dragon Army). Another assassination attempt on him (and on Suriyawong) leads Bean to request Sister Carlotta's presence. Achilles, however, blows up the plane in which she is traveling. Near the end of the novel, Bean engineers a rescue mission in which he successfully, and without casualties on either side, rescues Petra from Achilles. A following scene at Sister Carlotta's cenotaph foreshadows their future romance. Finally, Peter Wiggin, newly-elected Hegemon, bestows the office of Strategos on Bean.
[edit] Shadow Puppets
Bean and Petra get married. While Bean does not want to have kids for fear of passing down Anton's Key, Petra eventually convinces him after taking him to Anton, the man who discovered Anton's key. They go to Volescu, who performs experiments and pretends to identify those with Anton's Key and those without. He implants one embryo into Petra and keeps the rest. Later it is found that he stole the rest and implanted them into other women. He was in cahoots with Achilles; he pretends that he destroyed the embryos, and Achilles claims to have them. Bean sees through most of the lies and finally kills Achilles at the very end of the novel.
[edit] Shadow of the Giant
In this novel, Bean is around sixteen years old (the age is unknown because Volescu destroyed all of his records). Anton's Key has made him rapidly grow even faster; he is becoming a giant, and is nicknamed the African Giant, due to his noticeably African features. Bean's time on Earth is very limited; there is simply not enough time to find a cure in the span of his life.
Bean plays a pivotal role in helping Peter to unite the world under the Hegemony. Peter creates the Free People of Earth (FPE) organization. To join, the people of countries must vote to ratify the FPE constitution as their own. Once part of the FPE, a country is protected by FPE military forces. Rwanda is one of the earliest countries to agree to join FPE. However, Felix Starman, the head of Rwanda, requests that Giant Julian lead the Rwandan army. Aside from Bean being the greatest military mind in human history, having a commander with some African heritage and features would play to the patriotic side of the Rwandan soldiers. Bean turns the Rwandan army into an irresistible force. The effectiveness of his leadership initially frightens many countries into holding plebiscites to discuss joining FPE rather than getting defeated by an army Bean commands.
From the advice of the Minister of Colonization Graff, Bean follows in Ender's footsteps to live at relativistic light-speed along with three of his children who share his disorder, in hope that a cure can be found for the condition. By the end of the novel there is no cure, and it is unknown how he lives the remainder of his life.
| Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series | |
|---|---|
| International Fleet | Admiral Chamrajnagar | Hyrum Graff | Mazer Rackham |
| Battle School | Petra Arkanian | Bean | Achilles de Flandres | Bonzo Madrid | Ender's Jeesh | Other Battle School students |
| Ender's family | Ender Wiggin | John Paul Wiggin | Peter Wiggin | Theresa Wiggin | Valentine Wiggin |
| Other | Han Qing-jao | Si Wang-mu | Jane | Minor characters |
| Books | Characters | Concepts | |
