Addiction In Erebos Addiction

In the real world, there is very minimal benefit of having an addiction to anything. Addiction is where a person cannot keep themselves away from something, potentially causing a threatening change to their reality. In the novel, Erebos, by Ursula Poznanski, the protagonist, Nick Dunmore, and those around him become addicted to a game called Erebos. Their addiction to this game begin to cause problems to the characters in the real world. Some of which, are life-altering consequences. Possessing an extreme addiction will have negative effects on a person’s life such as distancing relationships from family and friends, and the extent some will go to satisfy that addiction. To start, a negative trait of addiction is that it can

This gives the reader a true sense of Erebos’ addictive nature. This problem further enhances when Nick states, “there were only eight of us at practice”, which was “an absolute all-time low” (14). Colin’s absence and Nick’s reaction to their team’s absence shows the depth of the social situation. People are no longer interacting with each other, and fewer people are revealing themselves. This will cause a lack of communication because there is not enough variety of people to speak to, which can cause further issues like social anxiety or even depression in the future. Not even Nick’s best friend will speak to him, showcasing the loss of friendship as well. This creates another social problem in friendships. This is proven when Nick and Jamie have a huge argument after Nick’s absence and his peculiar actions towards Erebos. This goes down because Nick gets banned from Erebos, and Jamie is relieved because he feels it is better that he is kicked, sensing its danger. This causes Nick to completely snap at him. (278-279). This shows that Nick would rather defend the game over his best friend who is only thankful because he feels

In Erebos, the teacher, Mr. Watson, becomes suspicious of Erebos and decides to look around and figure out what is going on from all the mysteriousness in school. The messenger, an incredibly smart AI, eliminates all threats to the game from the real world. He uses Erebos’ addictive nature to get people to do things for him that they would not do if they did not play the game. He tells Nick to poison Mr. Watson with “B-Acetyldigoxin” by putting all of it in his tea which “[c]an be fatal” (260-261). Nick’s persistence to completing quests in Erebos almost makes him terminate the life of his own teacher, being seen as a threat to Erebos. This would have led to a loss in a school teacher, which would affect the students educationally. Without their teacher they would have a substitute thrown in who would not be able to teach the way the previous teacher did, decreasing clarity and effectiveness of the teaching. This would also result in police involvement which is an unnecessary waste of police resources which could have been evaded by looking to reality instead of obeying the game’s command. All this would result from one game mission, and there are students who do this because they feel processing in the game is more important than their future. This leads to the next point, which shows that unlike Nick, there are people who