So this chapter is a bit wonky. On the one hand, it introduces a large part of the mystery of the story in the pattern around which the center of the Game is formed. This is important from a narrative perspective because it means Snuff spends a lot of his time investigating other players in relation to this patter. Trying to figure out if he’s missing anyone, if there are alternate residences he hasn’t considered, if some people even count. Things like that. But on the other hand, it’s fundamentally a geometric issue in a story with no map of any kind whatsoever. So it relies a fair bit on the reader’s imagination to piece together where everyone else is in relation to each other. Or their ability to let go, since at the end of the day, the nitty-gritty doesn’t matter to us. All we care about is what we know and why we know it, which is conveyed well enough.
I do also like how this chapter approaches some of the arcane nature of the Game in discussing the players’ pattern. I find it fun that neither Snuff nor Nightwind knows why the pattern is a thing that happens. It does always happen, but nobody can explain it. It just does. The players don’t even consciously know that they’re doing it (there’s even a fun kind of ‘real-life style consequence’ to this later), but it just works out that way. And I think that’s a nice kind of magic. It happens, but there’s never really an explanation given because it doesn’t need one. It’s just a ‘mysterious things are mysterious’ kind of situation and that can be nice from time to time.
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