Why Did You Choose to Suck?

House of Danger may offer choices, but it's rather obvious that making a choice in the text is a rather shallow thought.  However, even in these predefined choices, there are certain paths that are favored by the author and certain ones that are not.  For example, (and this was brought up in class) when making the decision on page 100 about whether or not you want to live as a baby or an old man. (Interestingly enough, from what I have read, this is the only reference to the gender of the main character)  Should you choose the wise old years of being an elderly man, you are immediately assaulted with, "Why did you choose to be old?" followed by an account of your heart slowly stopping and you fading from existence.  Meanwhile, on the baby plotline, you turn back into yourself and then are free to make more choices and experience more story.  If we take reading a half a page about an old man dying as disincentivizing an action (I do) then why is there so much hate on a choice that is just as rational as the other?

Another noteworthy example would be the plotline in which you are faced with waiting for the police to come.  If you decide to enter back into the house (after you called the police and are waiting for them) you eventually become an important leader in the International Planning Committee.  If you choose twice to remain and wait for the police you called, then you end up sleeping and wake up in shackles, imprisoned. 

Clearly, the more "adventurous" route is almost always incentivized by not getting a premature "The End" or in a bad situation. The book is more analogous to a thrill ride than a discussion on the effects of choice.  I mean, before I get too pretentious, it is a book clearly marketed towards children and to encourage reading.  The easiest way to encourage interest in a text is through exciting and unexpected developments, this much is clear from the kids' testimonial page.  Even the author biography lauds the kind of lifestyle that is promoted in the book. 

But I feel like this is expected of almost anyone writing a story like this.  Letting your preferences or awareness of audience or any moral condemnations you have subtly drip into your writing is very easy to do.  I just wish this type of novel (called a gamebook according to wikipedia) was as thoroughly expanded upon as the rest of the literature we've read in class.