An Open Memorandum

I decided to write a brief memo summing up my books' themes. The reason I'm doing this is a few reviews on Goodreads, Reddit, Amazon and other platforms where readers accused Alex, the main character of my Disgardium, of fat-shaming and betraying a childhood friend.

To recap: I have a character called Eve, an overweight girl next door who has a crush on Alex. At some point, Alex becomes too selfish for his own good: his life ambitions have just been thwarted, and he's too busy to find time for Eve, who in turn appears to take his problems too lightly. Gradually Alex drifts away from her, not least because his interests are now different. Also, he has a crush on Tissa, another girl from his class who finally starts to notice him because of their common interests in the game. All this leads to Alex forgetting Eve's birthday. Tissa, in turn, views Eve only as the pampered daughter of a corrupt official, which is why she treats her with disdain and calls her fat.

I have no intention of hiding behind the "different mentality" excuse. Yes, in the days of my childhood overweight people were called fat, and people with no scalp hair were called bald. It was perfectly acceptable at the time — even though, admittedly, it did hurt.

But that's not what I'm talking about. Teenagers are probably the same all over the world. They tend to have this all-or-nothing attitude; they can show little empathy, but by the same token, they can be quite cruel. I used to think this was true only of the countries of the former Soviet Union, but I lived in the US for a while and saw exactly the same thing happening there. Bullying is a problem all over the world, and even expensive private schooling can't safeguard one against it.

And by depicting Alex dumping his old friend Eve in order to befriend more popular students, I gave him a chance to redeem himself. My characters are never perfect — and that's why the road they have to take in order to better themselves is a long and winding one.

You won't find any selfish, deceitful bastards among my books' heroes. And if they did have a few such traits at the beginning of a book — like Phil in Level Up or Alex in Disgardium — it's only to make their future change more pronounced.

Because even in LitRPG, a successful hero's journey isn't limited to hitting the top level, receiving some divine skills or procuring a legendary set of armor. It's the journey of an ordinary, not-so-perfect person who overcomes their weaknesses and shortcomings — and that's what makes the book much more interesting. The journey to become truly human.

This is the kind of journey that also awaits Luca Dezisimu, the hero of World 99.

→ Meet Luca on the darkest branch of the universe: World 99.