The reason I started this series is I like goblins swords and sorcery however the sci-fi elements make all of those aspects meaningless.
The ending to this book basically makes all the progression of Orens Goblin character development meaningless and all his relationships. It makes sense he worshipped the God Nihilator since basically the moral is that it was all meaningless and in a fake world. I think the author is trying to be edgy and philosophical but doesn’t understand the full impercussions of the ending he chose. When you set up the game world as basically characters are sock puppets controlled by Virtual-Intelligences and it doesn’t matter at all who is controlling the puppet that means every character and relationship does not matter. Orens love Tika is a puppet his clan is puppets. The appeal of a fantasy world is that an individuals choices matter and they can be virtuous and rise up as a hero. With the nihilistic Matrix sci-fi thrown in at the end it undermines that an individuals choices matter and basically all the accomplishments of Oren throughout the whole series and 90% of this book mean nothing. it has been a theme about Oren losing himself in the game and not realizing its fake however I would’ve liked to see the book show that it was real that his relationships did matter and that the in game characters were in some way like humans in that had individual thought and agency and identity. I imagine in the next book they are going to try to move in that direction but I will not be reading/listening since 2+2=4 you can’t have this book end with SHIVA is the puppet master and Evil God controlling all characters in NEO and every character and have Oren have any meaningful relation with any NPC. The only acceptable hero ending would be a Truman Show like ending where Oren casts.off the fake world and starts a new life in real world.