the V.R.5 wallow, continued: two bucks a look at the peeled face

The wounded body instantly monetized as spectacle. Stice comes out of the infirmary looking, per Gopnik, "like a piece of cheese pizza where somebody tore the cheese off," and "Troeltsch is charging two bucks a look." The academy that turns bodies into ranked assets also turns a disfigured face into a paid exhibit — the same reflex that puts players on display at the Fundraiser gala now sells tickets to a boy's ruined forehead. Even catastrophe on the athletic body becomes content, priced at two dollars a viewing.