Ender's Game

The Giant’s Drink is a challenge in the fantasy game that serves as a motif exploring how Ender navigates games. No other Battle School student has moved beyond the Giant’s Drink, and the only other one to obsess over it took his own life. The game depicts a Giant who presents the player’s avatar with two cups: Ostensibly, one is poison and the other wins the game. Ender chooses poison every time. Ender tries to dismiss the game: “I’m sick of the Giant. It’s a dumb game and I can’t ever win. Whatever I choose is wrong” (46). Nevertheless, he compulsively returns to it, dying each time. Finally—like Ender eventually does with all games—he plays by different rules and overcomes the challenge, though with gruesome results. Ender knocks over the cups and climbs toward the Giant’s face, burrowing into his eye. Afterward, Ender is horrified by his measures: “He hadn’t meant to kill the Giant. This was supposed to be a game. Not a choice between his own grisly death and an even worse murder. I’m a murderer, even when I play” (47). Any time an opponent presents Ender with no good options, Ender finishes the game by destroying his enemy.