Character from enders-game by Orson Scott Card
The man who found Ender, isolated him, pressured him, and lied to him for years — because the alternative was letting the Formics win, and Graff decided one child's trauma was an acceptable price.
Hyrum Graff's opening line defines him: 'I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.' He identified Ender, recruited him, and then systematically destroyed every support system the boy had — isolating him from peers, accelerating his advancement, engineering conflicts — because Graff believed the only way to produce the commander who could defeat the Formics was to forge him in fire. He was right. He was also a monster. The show trial after the war acknowledged this: Graff was court-martialed for his treatment of children at Battle School and acquitted on the grounds that it worked. 'Did the ends justify the means?' is the question Graff forces on the reader, and the series refuses to give a clean answer. After the war, he became Minister of Colonization, managing humanity's expansion to former Formic worlds. He stress-ate his way through decades of guilt. He eventually transferred his consciousness digitally to the starship Herodotus.
Tall (6'1"), grey hair, hazel eyes. Notably obese — he stress-eats, and the weight of engineering a child soldier turns out to be fattening. His appearance shifts from military authority to weary bureaucrat as the consequences of his choices accumulate.
Also known as: Colonel Graff, Minister Graff