You’re spot on when you say the attraction of this lies in the sense of narrative, and it’s clear that people are getting something out of playing their parts in the drama, whether it be the grieving friends, the iconoclastic sceptic, or, in my case, the sage observer.

I do feel a bit uneasy about exploiting a real-life tragedy in this way, whether Rheta/Valerie really is dead, or if she has appropriated the story of that pregnant woman who got run over by a truck in New York a few weeks ago, but I guess it’s no different from the countless books, films and other cultural artefacts that are based on real events. People make sitcoms about the Nazi occupation of France, so a bit of role-play in SL is probably harmless.

Virtual worlds are places of smoke and mirrors, where working out whether something is “true” turns out to be a slippery process. Even a person’s real-world gender is up for speculation. I can say that I am a man but I have no real “proof” of that – and frankly don’t care that much anyway.

I guess my contribution would be that mortality in Second Life is as real a phenomenon as in First Life. Avatars are, after all, extensions of living people and living people do die. In fact, although residents on SL look fit, healthy, pneumatic, and positively aglow with energy, that’s not a reflection of their true selves, who may be older and sicker. Thus, we should, as you point out, expect folks to die. The particularly Second Life feature of death is that we may never know it has actually occurred! If I die in RL tomorrow, not one of my SL friends would ever know because they only know Sigmund Leominster.

So SL death – based on RL death – is no more unusual that regular death, but it can make an interesting story; a narrative; a group sharing of a tale. I’ve always thought of SL as a co-constructed novel where we all add plot lines and characters – a sort-of extemporaneous theater. Stories such as of Rheta may, or may not, be “true” in the factual sense, but the STORY is what is important. It takes on a life of its own and folks use it as a vehicle for expressing their own thoughts, feelings, and desires. It’s similar to a Rorschach test without the blots.

Hence the “discussion” surrounding the story. Its truth is now irrelevant because it is now a story all on its own, capable of being shared and commented on by all and sundry.