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• 1 2017-11-14T17:26:57-08:00 Gods and How to Be One 9 Iris Wilcox plain 2017-11-19T20:20:38-08:00 God Tier, despite its power, is not a desirable status by virtue of what it takes to get there. While most games have their highest level achieved through questing and defeating enemies, SBURB/SGRUB does everything through sacrifice. Just as your world must be destroyed to create a new one with the game, a player must die on their Quest Bed to be reborn a god, and even the bravest hesitate at the prospect. In fact, of the violent trolls, with all their boasting, their competion, and their childhood in a society that praised murder and destruction, the only one to ascend to God Tier only took the option as a last resort, while the first human had to be tricked into ascension. 
  
  Vriska was dying, not as a consequence of the game, but from injuries inflicted by a "friend" getting revenge. She chose God Tier over oblivion, mind controlling another into carrying her to her Quest Bed, and even then, she asked for her death to be quick. John, on the other hand, never even knew he had to die. Told that he would arise after taking a "legendary nap," John was slain in his sleep, only to rise a god unknowing of the fear that kept others from godhood. These unintentional gains of power give both the violent, vindictive Vriska, and the joyful, just John insecurities over their worthiness of said power, and these insecurities in turn create a distrust of the game's judgement of worth.
  
  Without faith in the game, John and Vriska each have a hard time seeing when their actions would be counted as heroic or just, and while the game decides harshly, we as readers join them in their much grayer understanding of rights and wrongs.