Sometimes, Good Guys Lose

When I was a teen, I got into the Pendragon series, by D.J. MacHale.

Spoilers below, you've been warned.

The series follows Bobby Pendragon, a teenage boy who is uprooted from his idyllic life to travel with his "Uncle" to different worlds, solving issues and thwarting plots by the evil Saint Dane. While it's not lighthearted, it starts off as a simple episodic journey, where the good guys thwart the villain, and follow him to his next scheme. But as the series progresses, the themes slowly get darker and darker.

The first book ends with a total victory, so a good start. The second book ends with Bobby's uncle being killed, which firmly cements him as the "doomed mentor." Upsetting, but not surprising to someone familiar with stories. The third book forces Bobby to make an impossible choice, by letting hundreds die to save untold millions. And in doing so, he loses his only other companion on his journey.

Then we reach the book 4: The Reality Bug.

In a world where people spend as much time as they can in their own personal virtual reality dreams. Saint Dane is attempting to keep the people like this, while Bobby and the envoy from this world try to stop it. Chicanery happens, we get lots of imaginative dreamscapes, and a fight against a monster that bleeds into reality from dreams! The monster is defeated, and the populace is shown the true danger of their apathy!

At which point, Saint Dane is revealed to have been disguised as someone in charge, who declares the problem solved, and that the VR is safe to use once again. And there is much rejoicing. Bobby can do nothing. The envoy can do nothing.

Saint Dane wins this battle.

And they lose.

The book ends on a bittersweet note, with the envoy staying in her world to try to mitigate as much of the societal damage and decline as possible, as hopeless as it may be. And Bobby continues on his journey to other worlds, now more than ever determined to stop Saint Dane.

This was the turning point for me. Not just for the series, but for every book I've read ever since! Up until then, I'd always had the mindset that the good guys will win. That no matter how bad things get, there's always a way to prevail. The Reality Bug completely destroyed that illusion. And by doing so, has allowed me to appreciate and invest in stories in ways I hadn't before. Even with truly wholesome or sugary stories, I can imagine what might happen if the heroes fail, and add some weight to the reading!

Now, would I have reached this same conclusion another way? Sure. Could it have been another book? Probably. But The Reality Bug was that book for me, and one that I remember more vividly than any other book in the Pendragon series.

It is the book that truly made me fall in love with books all over again! Not for being genius, or being controversial. But for teaching the lesson that sometimes, good guys lose.