Yeah, that’s the other side of the same complaint :-) I’m not complaining about Harry’s behavior, but about Eliezer putting so much macho posturing (and opportunities for it) into the story.
Well, the premise of the story necessitates that Harry be an eleven year old boy and that he be highly competent. Having people constantly underestimate him is a practically unavoidable consequence.
Harry could just quietly, secretly exceed people’s expectations, but when those people are his allies, it’s probably a poor strategic decision.
There is a little too much of that for my taste. There are plenty of other things going on as well in the story, enough of them to keep me interested, but the bits that seem to be just Ender’s Game don’t impress me. Being smart isn’t nearly that reliable at producing victory in battle; there are too many details of execution that matter tremendously, and there’s just generally too much unpredictable stuff going on. Admittedly, there have been historical generals who consistently won, but they always had some consistent edge that for some reason their enemies couldn’t fully duplicate or counter (higher technology being an obvious possibility, or perhaps ability to recruit soldiers from a population that already possessed useful, difficult to develop military skills not practiced elsewhere).
Harry hasn’t won consistently. He’s lost plenty of mock battles, and while he sometimes gets his way against adults, he’s sometimes thwarted. Harry also does have a couple advantages that can’t readily be replicated by other characters, namely his technological and scientific savvy, and the True Invisibility Cloak, and the time turner which can’t be replicated by most of his opponents.
Eliezer wrote ages ago that he gets people complaining that Harry wins too often and isn’t sufficiently challenged, and people complaining that he loses too often and doesn’t accomplish much, and considers himself to be doing his job properly if he’s at least getting similar amounts of each kind of complaint.
Everyone else: presume HP is inferior; withhold information.
I can see both sides of it.
Yeah, that’s the other side of the same complaint :-) I’m not complaining about Harry’s behavior, but about Eliezer putting so much macho posturing (and opportunities for it) into the story.
Well, the premise of the story necessitates that Harry be an eleven year old boy and that he be highly competent. Having people constantly underestimate him is a practically unavoidable consequence.
Harry could just quietly, secretly exceed people’s expectations, but when those people are his allies, it’s probably a poor strategic decision.
It’s okay, he’s just rewriting Ender’s Game.
There is a little too much of that for my taste. There are plenty of other things going on as well in the story, enough of them to keep me interested, but the bits that seem to be just Ender’s Game don’t impress me. Being smart isn’t nearly that reliable at producing victory in battle; there are too many details of execution that matter tremendously, and there’s just generally too much unpredictable stuff going on. Admittedly, there have been historical generals who consistently won, but they always had some consistent edge that for some reason their enemies couldn’t fully duplicate or counter (higher technology being an obvious possibility, or perhaps ability to recruit soldiers from a population that already possessed useful, difficult to develop military skills not practiced elsewhere).
Harry hasn’t won consistently. He’s lost plenty of mock battles, and while he sometimes gets his way against adults, he’s sometimes thwarted. Harry also does have a couple advantages that can’t readily be replicated by other characters, namely his technological and scientific savvy, and the True Invisibility Cloak, and the time turner which can’t be replicated by most of his opponents.
Eliezer wrote ages ago that he gets people complaining that Harry wins too often and isn’t sufficiently challenged, and people complaining that he loses too often and doesn’t accomplish much, and considers himself to be doing his job properly if he’s at least getting similar amounts of each kind of complaint.