List of Battle School students
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This is a list of Battle School students who attended Battle School in Orson Scott Card's fictional Enderverse that are not in Ender Wiggin's jeesh.
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[edit] William Bee
William Bee is a minor character who is primarily notable due to his involvement in one of the more unusual battles in the "Battle Room". In the Battle School's first "handicapped" battle, Ender Wiggin, commander of Dragon Army, was required to face both Bee's Tiger Army, as well as Talo Momoe's Gryphon Army. With a two-to one disadvantage and an unfairly stacked battle room, Wiggin's odds to win are nearly impossible. In an inventive maneuver, Wiggin sends all of his soldiers into the battle room in extremely vulnerable positions (incurring heavy losses), but manages to win by carrying out the "victory ritual" without disabling all of the enemy soldiers. This was the first and only time anyone had used such a strategy, and it was banned thereafter. When Ender gets upset at Anderson, William Bee note that "Any battle against you will be unfair, Ender."
[edit] Bernard
Bernard is a somewhat mean-spirited individual. He is part of Ender's "launchy" group and treats the precocious Ender with great contempt. Bernard is also seen as a ringleader in the first few chapters of the book, and he takes great delight out of picking on Ender and Shen, a young boy who is also in the launchy group. However, his stranglehold on the clique falls apart when Ender and Alai become friends in the battle room, and when Ender manages to hack into the computer system and posts a message saying "Cover your butts, Bernard is watching," signed "God."
[edit] Nikolai Delphiki
Nikolai Delphiki is a major character of the book Ender's Shadow and a side character in Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card. Nikolai is a Greek male.
Nikolai is one of twenty-four fertilized eggs produced by Greek natives Elena Delphiki and Julian Delphiki, Sr. A defect in one of Elena's fallopian tube and an ectopic pregnancy in the other made it impossible for her to conceive. In their hopes for a child, Elena had several eggs taken out, and Julian's sperm was harvested to produced numerous fertilized eggs. The healthiest were cloned, and then the twenty-four healthiest of those were chosen. One was implanted, producing Nikolai.
However, a man named Dr. Volescu, the illegitimate son of Julian's father, stole the twenty-three remaining fertilized eggs for use in his experiments involving the modification of a human genome. Volescu later chose to exterminate the babies instead of being discovered, and twenty-two were killed. However, one child escaped, hiding in a toilet tank. The child then was discovered by a janitor, and was later named Bean.
Nikolai was later chosen for Battle School, where he met his (although not known at the time) biological twin brother Bean.
[edit] Bonzo Madrid
Bonzo Madrid (prounounced Bone-SO) is an antagonistic supporting character, serving to bring out Ender's brutal nature while at Battle School.
Bonzo (real name Bonito de Madrid) is described as a strikingly beautiful boy of aristocratic Spanish lineage from the town of Cartagena. As commander of Salamander Army, the autocratic Bonzo suddenly has Ender Wiggin thrust upon him when Ender is promoted from his launch group. Bonzo was forced to give up a veteran soldier (a toon leader) to make room for Ender, is further furious because Ender has virtually no experience in the Battle Room whatsoever. Bonzo takes out these frustrations on Ender and as a supposed punishment, he forces Ender to do desk work when his army is practicing. He also prevents Ender from participating in battles until after 4 minutes have elapsed, and, even then, Ender is forbidden from firing his gun. This causes Ender's individual soldier ranking to be high, and Bonzo hopes that this will help him trade Ender to some other army.
Desperate to gain experience, Ender begins to practice with the "Launchies," younger students at the Battle School who have not yet been assigned to an army. After Bonzo orders Ender to stop these practices, Ender antagonizes Bonzo by privately threatening to have Bonzo "iced" (or kicked out of Battle School) if Bonzo does not rescind the order. Ender inadvertently makes the situation worse by explaining to Bonzo how Bonzo should rescind the order. Later, Ender disobeys Bonzo's standing orders by firing his weapon during a battle with Condor Army, turning a defeat for Salamander army into a draw. Bonzo hits Ender for disobeying his orders to not fire his gun and transfers him to Rat Army. This backfires on Bonzo, however, and he loses the discipline he had with his army, because they knew Ender's "disobedience" had turned a defeat into a draw.
Following a battle where Ender, now a commander, defeats Salamander Army, Bonzo is finally provoked beyond sanity. Ender, enraged at the Battle School teachers, accidentally humiliates Bonzo during the end of battle ceremony. Bonzo and a group of his cronies corner Ender in one of the Battle School showers. Ender manages to use Bonzo's honor against him and shame Bonzo into engaging in one-on-one combat. Taking advantage of the slipperiness of his still-soapy skin, Ender evades Bonzo and quickly ends the battle by headbutting Bonzo's nose, forcing the nosebone into Bonzo's brain and killing him. Bonzo is sent home to his family in a bodybag, ironically on the same shuttle that transports Ender back to Earth on short leave. Ender never truly realizes that he killed Madrid until Hyrum Graff's court martial, where vids taken of the fight are used in an attempt to prove that Ender was abused by the Battle School staff.
The Bonzo incident is pivotal in Ender's development, as it forces him to realize that he must fend for himself at all times, as the teachers refuse to offer him help — an attitude fostered by Graff. Believing isolation was the environment under which Ender would become the military genius needed for the Third Invasion, Graff attempts to put a psychological barrier between him and the other Battle School students at every opportunity. Despite this goal, he never intends to endanger the life of any student of the Battle School. By forcing Ender to take on Bonzo alone, without any adult intervention, Graff makes a mistake that stays with him through the rest of his career, one he continues to think of when making future decisions, and validating his own work.
Bonzo is also the main character of a short story, released in the second issue of "Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show", called Pretty Boy. This short story, taking place before Ender's Game, explores Bonzo's childhood, detailing some of his family life and some events that contribute to his sense of honor and eventual downfall.
[edit] Talo Momoe
Talo Momoe is the commander of one of the numerous armies at Battle School. He is paired up with William Bee's army in a battle against Ender's undefeated Dragon Army. Momoe favors a very direct approach, and argues with Bee that, because they outnumber Ender, they should do a frontal assault. Bee's disagreement leads to a prolonged war of words.
[edit] Rose de Nose
Rose de Nose, although his first name is Rosen, is the commander of Rat Army when Ender is transferred into rat army. Rose de Nose treats Ender with considerably more decency than does Bonzo Madrid, the commander of Ender's first army, Salamander Army. Although Rose de Nose was the army leader, Ender became much closer with Dink Meeker, who requested the trade from Salamander. By the time Ender and his group of companions rise to prominence, Rose de Nose has already graduated from battle school.
[edit] Suriyawong
Suriyawong was part of Ender Wiggin's Dragon Army.
Suriyawong is a graduate of Battle School who Bean (also known as Julian Delphiki), encounters in Thailand. Following the Formic wars, Suriyawong has been given a place of prominence in the Thai military. Although initially threatened by Bean's presence, Suriyawong and Bean quickly become friends as they train and lead their elite company of Thai soldiers. The two of them lead their company on several daring raids. He participates in the successful operation to rescue Petra Arkanian from the grasp of the expansionist Chinese.
In Shadow Puppets, Suriyawong is ordered by the Hegemon Peter Wiggin to rescue Achilles, the psychopath whose actions resulted in the occupation of his homeland. Suriyawong disobeys his orders slightly, choosing to give Achilles a knife rather than rescue him directly. Fearing for the life of Virlomi, whom he has come to love, he warns her to flee from the compound before Achilles arrives. After successfully bringing Achilles within the Hegemony compound, Suriyawong serves Achilles faithfully, until the fateful confrontation between Achilles and Bean. When Achilles orders Suriyawong to gun Bean down, Suriyawong slides Achilles a knife, telling him to solve his own problems.
He is absent during most of Shadow of the Giant. He leads the troops trained by Bean in defense of Nubia, after which he is mostly involved in the Thai resistance to foreign control, and is the commander of the force that defeats Virlomi's Indian army, and successfully returns Virlomi to her senses.
[edit] Virlomi
A participant in Battle School though not in Ender's jeesh, Virlomi is an Indian girl who is a character in the science fiction Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card. Her most prominent role is in Shadow of the Giant.
In Orson Scott Card's series, Virlomi's home country, India, through allying with Caliph Alai's Muslim armies, worked to repel the Chinese invasion. However, upon successful repelling of the invading forces, India was subsequently occupied by their Muslim allies. When Battle School disbanded, Virlomi becomes the spiritual and physical reawakening of India by assuming the role of a goddess. Standing on a bridge, she blesses Hindu India as Mother India. She denounces the Islamic faith as one that is not "true," since practitioners cannot stop being Muslim without being killed by radical Muslims. At the same time, she rejoices in the trueness of Hinduism for allowing that choice. On international television, she declares that true Islam requires freedom and peace. She draws the mark of Shiva the Destroyer upon her forehead and calls upon the subjugated continent of India to rise up against the Muslim occupation.
Han Tzu proposes to Virlomi, in an attempt to secure an alliance against Alai's Crecent League. Virlomi rejects him, as she has decided that only one man is fit for her hand in marriage - Peter Wiggin, the Hegemon of the FPE. However, Peter knows that a marriage with Virlomi would ruin his chances of bringing the world into the FPE, and rejects her. She then forces Alai to marry her, and uses him to effectively take control of the Muslim League. She allies India and the Muslim league with Russia, and invades China. Suriyawong's Thai army thwarts the attempt, and Virlomi agrees to surrender. At the end of the novel, she has gone to the Indian colony world of Andhra.
| 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 | |
