Abominable Snowman Addiction

So I only got to two endings in the Abominable Snowman before Tuesday's class. Since I was a kid I felt like if I went back and chose another route, it'd be like cheating- I had to live with whatever choice I'd made. I couldn't chose another one just because I didn't like it.

However, as we got to talking about it in class, I read some other versions of the story while listening to what others had found. I kept reading afterwards, too. There was no longer the feeling of cheating- now it was a quest to find as many of the plots as possible. So I found the unicorn and the smugglers; and I got killed by poachers.

Why is it such an addiction? I feel like Choose Your Own Adventure books allow you to exhaust every option- live out multiple adventures of your choice and see where they take you. It's that curiosity that makes you wonder what other things could have happened. We so rarely get a chance to go back on a decision after finding out the consequences of the one we made; it's nice to be able to do so in a book. Like we said in class, it's both interactive and not: the options are presented to you; you just make the choice; but at least you have a choice.

It's also interesting to think of whether or not those other worlds exist while you're in a separate story. To you as the character, they don't because you don't know that those worlds are possible- you don't know they exist. To you as a reader, they could exist because you know that if you had made another choice, it would have led you to that other possibility. It's like knowing that if I go to Seaco for dinner, I'll eat cereal; but if I choose to go to the Nest, then I'll probably get yogurt. I am aware of both options, and I choose one of the; while I've chosen the one, I know what would have happened if I had chosen the other. In reading, I am aware of the previous situation's I've found myself in as I make each choice. I wonder if I will be led to that part of the world or not- it's a more... god-like perspective, as if you're looking down on yourself as a character in the world, and you can see the options laid out for you, and the various realities.

At the same time, some of the realities contradict each other, so they can't exist in the same fictional world.

I'm not sure where these thoughts get me, but... those are my reflections on my Abominable Snowman addiction.