Immortality is no longer a simple gift or curse, but has been endowed with profound philosophical connotations. It is a "zero-sum game", and the "gain" of immortality must correspond to the "loss" of civilization. This setting makes the protagonist's final decision full of weight. By protecting civilization, he is actually repaying the debt he "stolen". This is a noble form of self-salvation. By exploring the price of "immortality", the novel ultimately leads to thinking about the "meaning of life": should we choose detached, meaningless eternity, or should we choose investment and bounded finitude?
