I can't remember what page it was on, but it was in the Salamander chapter, he said Bonzo's name wrong. It said "Now another 'boy' joined the conversation", blah blah blah. Ender asked if that person was Bonzo, and they said they were "Petra Arkanian. The only girl in Salamander Army." Did she change just for Ender? What do you think?
Seeing as Ender didn't know that there was a girl in Salamander, and considering the predominance of males in Battle School, couldn't he just have been mistaken in thinking that everyone was male, including Petra?
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canibecanadian writes:
Yes, but the book is told almost entirely from Ender's perspective, so Card would've shown us the world around Ender through HIS eyes, thus showing us his mistake.
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Petra writes:
I remember finding that section a little confusing at first, but a few pages later, on page 81 (the page you were looking for is page 75, by the way), one of the soldiers tells Ender not to strip by Petra. To himself, Ender notes that "that was stupid. Petra still looked like a boy." You have to remember; although this kids act, talk, think, and feel like adults, they're only six, seven or eight years old. True, Petra's lower half would have given her gender away, but if she were sitting on a bunk turned slightly away from him, her torso should have been quite "unfeminine."
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kari writes:
This isn't a mistake; Ender just thought Petra was a boy, and the book is mostly from Ender's point of view.