The book's focus is economics
- the gold farmers extract value from the game environment
- Anda's clan extracts value from gold farmers
Anda receives different kinds of peer pressure offline with her friends and online with her clan
- "Sarge" alludes to how the metaphor is militaristic
- The gold farmers are dehumanized
- If they don't speak English, kill them (49)
the character creator (14) includes humans, making everything else nonhuman
- the Chinese gold farmers are racialized
  - identical appearance
  - no apparent gender markers (unlike other beings)
  - mystical
  - don't speak English
Anda participates in cultural appropriation
- her avatar is Kali Destroyer (Hindu goddess)
- Coursegold carries Eastern influences
- fantasy is colonized (as noted in SLAY)
Anda's physical body is not idealized, but the plot hinges on binary gender
- the narrative is prompted by needing more girls in the game
Anda's economic situation isn't precarious but not wealthy