Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Hegemon Pg, 15-95

Summary:
In this section of the book, Petra gets sort of used to normal life, but lacks the challenge and type of friend she had in battle school. Then she is kidnapped, and tortured. After pretending to be “broken” by the solitary confident, she meets most of her old friend from battle school who were also kidnapped. Trying to reach help via the “nets” there make an encrypted message that only Bean or Ender’s brother might get, like a inside joke but smarter.
Then we go to Bean who is not yet captured and is on a vacation with his “parents.” After all the kidnappings are reported, they figured that they have a high chance of also being kidnapped, so the flee, only to find that the Cabana that they were staying in was rigged to explode. Then since the father has connections with the Greek military and government, they are moved to a safe house via helicopter to wait out the situation. Bean’s old mentors/guides retired adviser for Ender and Bean, and Sister Carlotta who revealed Bean’s history and found him living on the streets of Rotterdam. Come to the safe house and make a plan to evade capture by just moving around to evade tracking. So the leave and now Bean is with Sister Carlotta, moving from country to country.

Vocabulary:
• Catalyst
o A chemical accelerate
o A cause of change
• Sentimentalized
o To treat somebody or something too emotionally
To be sentimental
• Disdain
o Intense scorn
o Look down on somebody
• Extrovert
o A person with interest
o Someone who is out going

Response:

I think that this Section of the books really asks some big questions about life, like towards the end to the section Bean talks about how we would take a bullet for someone, even though our survival instinct is to run or stop the shooter, so why? For one to understand beans thinking a little better, Bean is a Savant or a miracle of genetics and biology, where some new mutation in his D.N.A. allows him to be very smart (this was explained in the last book). So when he looks at a town map he just doesn’t look at the map he analyses escape routes and important places that could be of use to him. So I wondered how would it be to be to see humans from a perspective of another species or a separate being. I mean how would we interpret a person taking a bullet, for another. Like Bean, I would have to say that is a senseless act of courage that doesn’t help anyone. If a separate being analyzed this it probably say that you could’ve done something that would of increased both of your chances of survival, so that you both can fight rather that jump in front of a bullet for someone, because that only stops the bullet, the shooter could fire another and take the saved persons life too. Just think about all the things we do that make no sense but are rather stupid, yet we do them anyway, but to a human it is humane not to kill all the people countries can’t support, but it makes sense from a logical and inhuman stand point. Think about it.