People Dislike Those Who Excel - Theme Paragraph Ender's Game

Because of the desire to succeed as a part of basic human instinct, people tend to dislike those who excel and do better than they do. When Graff tells the group of launchies, "There's only one boy on this launch with any brains at all, and that's Ender Wiggin." (Card 31), he instantly makes the boys dislike Ender. When compared to someone else in a negative way, people tend to become angry and defensive. This is very clear during the launch, when Graff's statement leads to Ender breaking another boy's arm on accident in self defense.