49 pages • 1 hour read
Marie LuWarcross
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Technology and Technological Products
In support of the theme of “Virtual Technology as a Replacement for or an Escape from Reality,” the author creates a host of technological products that symbolize characters’ emotions or conflicts. These exist in the real world, in the virtually enhanced world, and in the fully virtual world of Warcross.
Emika’s electric skateboard, which she pilots expertly in the opening chapters, represents her desire for freedom from the oppressive debt. She uses the board to pursue and catch the criminal Martin Hamer. Technology is not on her side, and another hunter gets the bounty; this symbolizes that the skateboard, a real item, cannot solve her problems. The author strengthens this symbolic point when the skateboard’s battery dies after her failed bounty attempt, leaving Emika to walk home.
A variety of other symbols appear throughout the book, reminding the reader consistently that technology and virtual reality connect to human emotion and personal goals. Emika’s cracked phone dies at an inopportune moment with the police, representing the inability to trust technology. The glass-paneled airplane stands for Emika’s fear of the unknown task ahead. In the first official Warcross match, the one-eyed wolf that bursts from the ice symbolizes Ren and his sneaky actions. The virtual appearance of Zero’s dark armor suit covering Emika without any power to stop it symbolizes her fear of making the wrong choice and losing control to those with immoral motives. The film against the eyes produced by Hideo’s contact lenses represents literal blinders as Henka Games veils users from the truth when immersed in the virtual world of Warcross. Finally, in the Dark World, a circus tent houses the selling of illegal power-ups. This image, like a carnival, symbolizes superhuman strengths or unnatural capabilities similarly gained by the power-ups.
Insecurities as a Result of Loss
While Emika and Hideo are both strong, resourceful, and intelligent characters, they each display emotional insecurities due to loss. These insecurities show the change in each one’s character arc, humanize each as a three-dimensional character, and support the theme of “How Loss Shapes Character Traits and Objectives.”
Emika is a streetwise bounty hunter who chases down criminals on her electric skateboard at the story’s beginning; later, backstory reveals her courage and forethought in going to the Dark World to do away with her father’s debt. Backstory also reveals her sense of righteousness and acceptance of fault in avenging Annie Pattridge. Overall, these events establish Emika as bold and strong. Occasionally, readers see a glimpse of a more emotionally insecure Emika; for example, the motif of her father’s last remaining painting connects Emika consistently to her father and to her background. The receipt of this gift is a featured Memory in her Memory Worlds; it pains her to lose the Memory when Zero erases it, and she is devastated when the painting itself is almost destroyed in the house explosion.
Hideo mostly presents as a cool, aloof young businessman, but a motif of his emotional insecurity repeats with mentions of his kidnapped brother. He also shows vulnerability in emotional moments with Emika throughout the book: He shares his brother’s story; he genuinely wants Emika to like the dinner he made; and he earnestly wants Emika to support his plans concerning the mind-control of would-be criminals.
It is ironic that Emika and Hideo are two of the characters most concerned with the concept of technological security in the novel but are the two characters who demonstrate the most emotional insecurity.
Risk-Taking
The motif of offered and accepted risks contributes to the theme of “Rewards and Costs of Risk-Taking.” Specific risks symbolize common conflicts and life lessons we experience. For example, Emika’s risky trips to the Dark World symbolize the dangerous steps we sometimes must take for eventual reward or goodness. Emika’s choice to leave her life in New York City for an unknown city and situation symbolizes the rejection of our ordinary world for adventure, excitement, and the chance at something better. The game of Warcross is filled with virtual risks, move by move, for every player; for example, Emika lassos the ice dragon in a risky move no one expects, and Roshan sacrifices himself to help Emika’s strategies pay off. The fast pace and unexpected situations in which players make these moves represent risks we take without time to plan or a chance to gain experience. Emika also takes a risk each time she converses with Zero; communicating with the adversary symbolizes a risky tactic that sometimes pays off.
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By Marie Lu
