History Literature / SpeakerForTheDead

* AncestorVeneration: Played with via the Pequeninos of Lusitania. The human xenobiologists THINK this is what the Piggies are doing when they talk about their fathers, even claiming to be able to talk to said fathers via the trees that bear their names. The reality is that the Fathertrees the sexually mature forms of the more mobile pequeninos and therefore are their fathers in a most literal sense. That a pequenino has to either do something exceptional for the tribe or be a certified badass to be allowed to take this form, rather than the sterile brothertrees, explains the veneration.

%% BabiesEverAfter: Subverted at the end: there's [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle still half a series to go]], plus Ender never actually ''has'' a child. Played straight otherwise.
* AncestorVeneration: Played with via the Pequeninos of Lusitania. The human xenobiologists THINK this is what the Piggies are doing when they talk about their fathers, even claiming to be able to talk to said fathers via the trees that bear their names. The reality is that the Fathertrees the sexually mature forms of the more mobile pequeninos and therefore are their fathers in a most literal sense. That a pequenino has to either do something exceptional for the tribe or be a certified badass to be allowed to take this form, rather than the sterile brothertrees, explains the generation.

* DistantSequel: ''Speaker for the Dead'' is set about three thousand years after ''Ender's Game''. Ender is still alive after all this time (and not even particularly old) thanks to the time-dilation of many trips across the galaxy.
* DolledUpInstallment: Was intended to be a standalone novel but Card then decided to make the protagonist the same on from the ''Literature/EndersGame'' novella. He then rewrote ''Ender's Game'' as a full novel to explain how Ender came to another planet.

* GenreShift: ''Speaker for the Dead'' is an excellent book by any standards, and it's still science fiction, but it's very philosophical and revolves about stopping a war, not winning one.

** Some of Novinha and Libo's decisions, and how the Xenologers act towards the pequenininos before Ender shows up.

* DistantSequel: ''Speaker for the Dead'' is set about three thousand years after ''Ender's Game'', as this is the amount of time needed to travel from Earth to the book's setting, the planet Lusitania, in a slower-than-light sleeper ship.

** WordOfGod states that it took many rewrites to turn Novinha's children into anything but {{Flat Character}}s, so this might just be more of the same problem.
* YourCheatingHeart: [[spoiler:Marcao's disease rendered him sterile. All of his children were fathered by Libo. He knew it, and had agreed to it, but he didn't actually like it.]]

* OverlyLongSpanishName: well, Brazilian Portuguese, really, but the trope still stands. This is partially why "OnlyKnownByTheirNickname" is in effect.

* BabiesEverAfter: Subverted at the end: there's [[YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle still half a series to go]], plus Ender never actually ''has'' a child. Played straight otherwise.

* PoorCommunicationKills: While a lack of understanding and proper communication between [[spoiler: formics and humans]] lead to xenocide in the first book, the Starways Congress decides that to prevent the same thing from ever happening again... they should be as conservative as possible and [[AesopAmnesia deliberately withhold as much knowledge]] as they can from another sapient species. This leads to two men being killed.

* CommanderContrarian: Quara.

* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: There's a considerable faction of Catholics who believe implants are a sacrilege, "trying to improve on a body that God had created perfect." As a result, users of prosthetics such as Olhado have it hard, even though he was ''blinded'' by a malfunctioning holographic projector. However, that prejudice even extends to gadgets such as the jewel Ender wears in his ear to communicate with Jane - and please note that said jewel is ''not'' a cybernetic interface, but simply a radio with a microphone capable of interpreting subvocal speech. Future Catholics consider ''wearables'' to be ungodly!
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Novinha.

* DisappearedDad: Marcao. It takes Ender to point out the trauma that this really inflicted on the family.

* CommanderContrarian: Quara

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Novinha

* FreudianExcuse: Novinha builds her entire life around trying not to get her lover killed. ([[DownerEnding She fails]].)

* LoveMartyr: [[{{Deconstruction}} Deconstructed]] in the person of [[spoiler:Marcao]].
* MamaBear: Novinha
* MightyWhitey: downplayed. Ender's ability to solve all of Lusitania's problems is not presented as being a product of his hailing from Western culture (specifically, Greensboro, North Carolina), but he ''does'' solve their problems and he ''is'' the only white person there.

* PreacherMan: Quim

** WordOfGod states that it took many rewrites to turn Novinha's children into anything but {{Flat Character}}s, so this might just be more of the same problem.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Olhado ("the guy with the eyes") is the big one, but it's true of ''everyone'' on Lusitania, mostly due to the {{Overly Long Name}}s that seem to be the vogue for the Brazilian colonists.

* {{Planimal}}: [[spoiler:A lot of species on the Pequenino's world, including them.]]

** Revealed to be a deliberate plan by Graff, who grouped colonists by culture so that humanity would become more diverse and therefore stronger.

* PoorCommunicationKills: While a lack of understanding and proper communication between [[spoiler: formics and humans]] lead to xenocide in the first book, the Starways Congress decides that to prevent the same thing from ever happening again... they should be as conservative as possible and [[AesopAmnesia deliberately withhold as much knowledge]] as they can from another sapient species. This leads to two men being killed in what is merely a gross misunderstanding of alien biology.

* PromotionToParent: Ela, and to a lesser extent Miro, due to their parents' messy lives
* RobotsThinkFaster: Jane acts so quickly that her companions learn to simply ask her for something and then immediately get to work on the next steps requiring it. Her catchphrase is essentially is "Done." Because of this, it's a sign that something's terribly wrong in one instance where she ponders one dilemma for several minutes.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In an early chapter, Valentine's eldest daughter Syfte is set up as having a bit of a hero-worship for her uncle Ender, and planning to maybe follow him to Lusitania to help him. In the next book, Valentine's family ''does'' do that... But Syfte is barely mentioned.
** WordOfGod states that it took many rewrites to avert this for Novinha's children in ''Speaker for the Dead'' to begin with, so perhaps it is the ever-expanding cast size that is the root of the problem?

* AlienNonInterferenceClause: The colonists of Lusitania initially practice this towards the Pequenios. Turns out the Pequenios are less than happy with this arrangement. Turns out later that ''breaking'' the clause brings the threat that the human government will try to subject you to [[EarthShatteringKaboom rather extreme "decontamination" procedures]].

* BrotherSisterIncest: SurpriseIncest is responsible for this one. [[spoiler:Ender discovers during his investigation that two characters who are boyfriend and girlfriend are in fact half-siblings due to an extramarital affair by Novinha.]]

* CommonTongue: Stark, an English-based language, derived from "[=STARways=] Kommon."

** Some of Novinha and Libo's decisions, and how the Xenologers act towards the pequinos before Ender shows up.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler:The Pequeninos' reaction after being told that humans, unlike them, can't become Fathertrees upon death, meaning instead of honoring their most favored humans, they ritually murdered them. There is literal wailing and gnashing of teeth when they find out.]]