Wirtualność urzeczywistniona Sword Art Online Rekiego Kawahary
Virtuality Actualized: Sword Art Online by Reiki Kawahara

Author(s): Oskar Kalarus
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The novel Sword Art Online: Aincrad by Reiki Kawahara tells the story of peopletrapped within a virtual reality. The head designer of the game, in which the charactersare imprisoned, binds the players to their avatars permanently. As a result ofsuch a connection, the death of an avatar in the virtual world results in the death ofthe player’s body in the actual world.In the novel, Kawahara offers a vision of what human behaviors and their mutualrelations in the context of such an extreme situation could be like. The transition oftheir entire lives into the virtual space becomes a problem that the players find impossibleto overcome, as a result of which their identities lose integrity and becomesplit: bodies left in the primary world come to be gradually perceived as abject andsoon turn into a taboo subject, ousted from everyday conversations.The main thesis in Kawahara’s novel that the degree of “reality” of virtual worldsis insubstantial, since memories gained, relations created, and feelings felt – are asreal as those experienced in the actual world.

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