Morals in Novels

Books that we read as a child have morals right?  Not to do this or act this way.  Since most of us, hopefully, have progressed beyond that basic stage, novels have to spread something different.

I don't know if every book I've read has a message, but most of the good ones want the reader to take something out of the story other than the straight plotline.  Sometimes people get messages out of a story that wasn't even intended.  One cannot forget Hemingway's quote about the Old Man and the Sea "There isn't any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is the old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are sharks, no better, no worse. All the symbolism people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know"

Maybe a reader can get something out of a novel that wasn’t intended by the author.  So why did I write this post?  Well since Sword Art Online has become an anime, I’ve be looking at forums to see how people are taking in the show. For those of you who don’t know, premise of the show are 10,000 people stuck in a virtual reality world where the only way to get out is beat the 100 levels of the world.  If the person dies in the game, that person dies in real life. 

 Some see the show as an action show, only living for the crazy fight scenes.  Some see the show as a romance show, waiting for the boy and girl love to blossom though a series of expected tropes. 

I can agree that those are important themes of the story, but I got an entirely different message.  When the people in the game realized they were stuck, a general panic ensued.  Away from their normal lives with almost no hope of going back, the gamers went in various mental directions, some staying in town all the time, some grouping together and fighting in groups, and some choosing to go solo. 

The message of the novels in my opinion is people should make the best of what they have.  The main character doesn’t hate on his fate or imagine the world as a fake world he needs to break out of.  He sees the world as the reality he lives in now.  He doesn’t see the time trapped in the game as time lost.  There is a chance of death in the real world as there is in the virtual world, so he doesn’t see the worlds as different. He finds a way to succeed through risk while others choose to play it safe.  On the other hand, he still lives his life and isn’t solely dedicated to escaping the world.  Taking the situation he is faced in and making the best of it is the lesson I got from the novels, and I hope other readers see beyond the fighting and romance to see that too.