Julian "Bean" Delphiki 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. Bean will be featured in Card's newest novel, "Shadows in Flight", which will be released on January 17, 2012, as well as Card's planned wrap up novel, "Shadows Alive".
Aramis Knight will potray him in the Ender's Game film.
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At the age of four, Bean is living on the streets of Rotterdam. He is ostracized by the other children on the streets for his small size. Desperate for food, Bean talks to Poke, a crew leader; the leader of a small gang of children, and convinces her to give him food in exchange for an idea. Poke gives Bean his name when she admits he isn't worth a bean. However, Poke becomes intrigued with Bean's idea, to get one of the bullies who prowl the streets to work for her crew. When Poke agrees and attempts to attack Achilles (pronounced 'ah-SHEEL'), a bully with a crippled foot, Bean is struck with foreboding. Soon after, though Achilles makes a good 'papa' to the crew, getting them into the soup kitchen and protecting them, his insane need to kill anyone who has seen him in a vulnerable position causes him to murder Poke. This marks the end of Bean's street career.
First in the care of Sister Carlotta, an unconventional nun, and then at Battle School, Bean makes it clear that his abilities far exceed the possible—for a human. While Bean is studying at Battle School, Sister Carlotta does some research, and soon discovers that Bean is actually the son of Julian and Elena Delphiki, parents of Nikolai a fellow Battle School student. Kidnapped along with twenty-three others, he was genetically altered by his half Uncle, Constantine Volescu. Due to Bean's small size he was able to hide in a toilet tank and thus began living on the streets of Rotterdam.
The alteration made was to turn a genetic key—called Anton's Key for the scientist who discovered it—which greatly enhanced Bean's mental powers, but cost him the greater part of his life. Small as he is at age six, he will eventually die a giant before he turns twenty-five.
At the Battle School, Bean knows nothing of these events except what he can glean from his expeditions through the ventilation system. As an extremely bright boy with a knack for extrapolation, he decides that to wait for the Formics (Buggers) to come and attack Earth would be strategic suicide. He states that the best idea would be a Human invasion, The Third Invasion, which was already on its way to the Bugger home world.
Meanwhile, Bean does much work behind the scenes, putting together Ender's Dragon Army and helping as much as he can. In the final battle of the Third Invasion, it is Bean's wry remark in reaction to the impossible task ahead ("The enemy's gate is down") which trigger's Ender's ultimately successful venture.
The book ends with Bean and Nikolai being reunited with their parents.
Though Bean is only seven when the Buggers are eliminated, it is later stated that he does not return to Earth and his parents until age eleven. This four year difference is due to the turmoil that existed on Earth from the subsequent power play from the different Earth powers.
Bean's tranquil life with the Delphikis is short-lived. While the family is on vacation, Achilles, who, since the events of Ender's Shadow, has used his considerable intellect to gain influence and power in Russia and other empire-minded countries, tries to kill them outright. Bean and the Delphikis separate; Bean goes into hiding with Sister Carlotta, and the Delphiki family disappears with the help of Graff. Bean later learns that Achilles has captured all of Ender's "jeesh" (the command group that was with Ender during the final battles of the Formic Wars) except for Bean (whom he tried to kill) and Ender (who is among the first to colonize a former bugger world). Bean later allies himself with Peter Wiggin to combat this threat. Bean is most concerned for Petra's welfare, and finds a coded message sent by Petra that leads to the release of all of Ender's jeesh except for her. Achilles captures Petra while she is being released and takes her to India where he already has a position of power. From there he negotiates a non-aggression pact between India and Pakistan. This agreement allows India to pursue an empire in Southeast Asia and Pakistan to prepare for a war to unite the Islamic nations.
Bean travels to Thailand, which is threatened by a newly adventurous India, where he helps train a strike force under Suriyawong (a member of Ender's Dragon Army). He assumes the name Borommakot, the name of a former Thai king. Another assassination attempt on him (and Suriyawong) leads Bean to request Sister Carlotta's presence. Achilles, however, shoots down 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, who has betrayed India by making them vulnerable to the Chinese. India and all of Southeast Asia is conquered by China. Pakistan aborts their war with the rest of the Islamic nations in order to unite with them against this new enemy. A following scene at Sister Carlotta's cenotaph foreshadows Bean and Petra's future romance. Finally, Peter Wiggin, newly-elected Hegemon, bestows the office of Strategos on Bean. Peter relocates the main Hegemony offices to Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, where Bean and his family are reunited.
Following Peter's decision to free Achilles and bring him to Ribeirão Preto, Bean and Petra leave the Hegemon's employ and travel the world under false identities to remain hidden to Achilles. Bean meets with Ambul, a former soldier under Bean in Battle School's Rabbit Army, and gives him the task of finding a way to meet with Alai, who has dropped out of sight but is assumed to be highly placed in the Muslim defense forces. In an attempt to convince Bean to have children, Bean and Petra meet with Anton, the scientist who discovered Anton's Key, and then with Volescu, who genetically enhanced Bean's embryo by turning it. Bean is assured by Volescu that he can determine the status of Anton's Key within an embryo, and agrees to create nine embryos but destroy those with Anton's Key turned. Volescu implants one of the embryos into Petra, appears to destroy three more, and places the remaining five into safekeeping under the eye of a guard hired by Bean. However, Volescu faked the destruction of the three embryos in the lab and bribes the guard to reacquire the other five.
Bean and Petra split up; Bean places Petra in the cab of an Indonesian cabdriver secretly in the employ of the Caliph, who takes her to the airport to fly to Damascus. Bean gets into a different cab and is nearly assassinated by the driver. Saved by other agents of the Caliph, he also makes his way to meet with Petra and Alai. While in Damascus, Achilles contacts Bean to tell him that he possesses the five stolen embryos, offering him a chance to meet at the Hegemon compound and take them back. Bean flies to Brazil and kills Achilles, having already decided that Achilles was lying about possessing the embryos and that Volescu must still have them. Petra flies to Brazil to meet up with Bean again and settle down in Araraquara, a city Bean had visited while traveling with Sister Carlotta. The novel ends with Bean and Petra determined to rediscover the lost embryos.
In this novel, Bean is around sixteen years old (his exact age is unknown because Volescu destroyed all of his records, and author Orson Scott Card does not specify anyone's particular age throughout the novel). Anton's Key has caused his body to undergo rapidly accelerated growth; he is becoming extremely tall and strong, and is nicknamed "the African Giant" by the Rwandans, due to his noticeably African features. Bean's time on Earth is very limited; there is simply not enough time left to him to find a cure.
As commander, Bean plays a pivotal role in helping Peter unite the world under the Hegemony. Peter creates the Free People of Earth (FPE) organization. To join, the population of a country must hold plebiscites to 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 the hope that a cure can be found for the condition, while Petra and Bean's five 'normal' children remain on Earth. It is revealed that a ninth child of Bean's, who also has Anton's Key, was birthed by and is under the care of a woman named Randi, who plans to take the child with her to a colony world and raise him as Achilles' heir. By the end of the novel decades later, a cure has still not been discovered, and it is unknown how Bean lives the remainder of his life. The fate of Bean's ninth child is revealed in Card's novel Ender in Exile.
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