Erebos: Who Is To Blame?

What lengths will someone go to in order to get revenge on someone that did them wrong? It becomes clear, in Erebos, that, in this particular case, people would go to extreme lengths to get revenge on someone who did something unpleasant to them. Larry McVay, Adrian's father, was extremely angry at Ortolan, who had done wrong to McVay. He was accused of copying and other charges alike this. So, Erebos was created. Erebos was just a means of getting revenge, and since Mcvay was blinded by his urge to get revenge, he was willing to manipulate and trick people, namely kids, and get them to do horrible things. Larry was willing to let kids kill people, get in lots of trouble, and do things that they would never to do if they weren't under Mcvay's

terrible, bad influence. Before he killed himself, he created Erebos, a high tech, life like game.

Furthermore, it was created in order to destroy Ortolan, and it was created before Larry had killed himself. This reminds me of countless stories, but real life as well. If someone does something bad to you, it's natural to feel a thirst for revenge. However, making a video game designed to have its sole purpose to kill a man who had committed few crimes, is way over the top. Nevertheless, Ortolan did commit a few crimes, and they were done at the expense of Larry McVay. This mainly reminds me of books like Percy Jackson. In Percy Jackson, a demigod named Luke turns against everyone on the 'good' side because he is angry at his father, an Olympian God. Moreover, he is seeking revenge, and tries everything he can to bring Olympus crumbling down, and also tries to kill everyone that opposes him. Countless stories are like this; it's a common theme in books. It seems like so many problems are created in stories when someone does something to someone, and it makes them turn evil, and they want revenge. Common theme. Furthermore, I think that all of the things that the people playing the game were made to do were actually tests. They were tests of

loyalty. Therefore, the messenger and, in extent, the dead man that created the game, Larry Mcvay, could 'weed' out any players that would not do anything that they were asked to do. Furthermore, for example, Nick was asked to ask Brynne out, poison his teacher, spy on people, copy the game, etc. Others were asked to do things like write graffiti on a garage, make Jamie have a bicycle accident that I suppose was supposed to kill him, put a pills bottle in the garbage, spy on people, make rude and scary phone calls, etc. Moreover, I believe that this was Larry McVay's way of testing who would follow his instructions to kill Ortolan, and who would draw the line at murdering someone. In other words, people who were not completely brainwashed and still had a bit of common sense. Those people were kicked out; they served no further purpose to McVay's revenge plan. Emily, for example, refused to do what was asked of her, so she got kicked out. She proved herself not trustworthy enough to be able to be part of the 'revenge group'. However, at first, Emily wanted to take no part in Erebos. She flat out refused to accept the game when offered it near the start of the book; then suddenly, she changed her mind. I think it's a bit odd for anyone to change their mind like that; to have one very distinct opinion, and then a little while later, have the opposite opinion. However, there was a lot of excitement about Erebos; even though they were not allowed to speak about it, everyone knew about it. The excitement most likely caught up to her, and she probably just thought that she should try the game out, see what the big fuss was about. Emily didn't meet McVay's requirements, though, because, like said before, she refused a task.Therefore, she realized how horrible the whole revenge plan was. Talking about McVay's revenge plan, Helen had a huge part in it. She nearly killed Ortolan, she shot him, and almost become a murderer. I think that she attacked Ortolan because she felt accepted by Erebos. What I mean is that at the school, most people ignored her, made rude comments about her, or, overall, made her seem like a joke to everyone. Therefore, she was never really accepted by anyone. Nick may have been the exception, but even he didn't really try his hardest to get her to be a friend of his. So when she got this game that seemed like a real person, that acted like a real person, it accepted her in a way. Nevertheless, she was being manipulated, but still it appeared to accept her, to like her. Therefore, when asked to do something very crazy, she didn't question Erebos's motives because she felt like she was accepted. She didn't want to lose the one thing that might actually like her, and she would be kicked out of the game had she not done what Erebos wanted her to do, so she shot Ortolan. Ortolan had copied Larry McVay, and ruined a lot of things for him. McVay ended up killing himself, but, before he did, he made this super high tech, life like game called Erebos. It was created as a means for revenge; the people playing it were all put through tasks that seemed strange at times. However, like I said, I think it was to test people's loyalty and to see who would really fall through with the final task;killing the man who had done the creator wrong.