Wirtualność urzeczywistniona : "Sword Art Online" Rekiego Kawahary

Abstract

The novel Sword Art Online: Aincrad by Reiki Kawahara tells the story of people trapped within a virtual reality. The head designer of the game, in which the characters are imprisoned, binds the players to their avatars permanently. As a result of such a connection, the death of an avatar in the virtual world results in the death of the player’s body in the actual world. In the novel, Kawahara offers a vision of what human behaviors and their mutual relations in the context of such an extreme situation could be like. The transition of their entire lives into the virtual space becomes a problem that the players find impossible to overcome, as a result of which their identities lose integrity and become split: bodies left in the primary world come to be gradually perceived as abject and soon turn into a taboo subject, ousted from everyday conversations. The main thesis in Kawahara’s novel that the degree of “reality” of virtual worlds is insubstantial, since memories gained, relations created, and feelings felt – are as real as those experienced in the actual world.