Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 0

Ernest Cline, at the beginning, dedicates the book 'For Susan and Libby', along with the line:


Because there is no map for where we are going.


This is a lie - it is unrelated to Ready Player One, as the characters use a lot of maps in order to get to Plot Point A to Plot Point B throughout.

There is a prologue titled 0000. The first page exposits how the death of the powerful internet and virtual reality mogul, James Halliday, billionaire and world's richest nerd, has led to everyone in the world becoming obsessed with finding an Easter egg hidden in the OASIS, a virtual reality simulator created by Halliday, used by practically everybody in the 2040s.

It's worth pointing out that no one, not even the protagonist, Wade Watts, really cared about Halliday's death - since there were far more pressing concerns in this craptacular future where resources are scant and poverty has reached an all-time high. That is, until the "eccentric" rich man took the OASIS - a world everybody uses and is reliant on for everything in their lives - hostage, forcing them to care more and look for his Easter egg. The winner will have full control of the OASIS and thus, every person on the planet's livelihood.

The search for the egg involves seeing, reading and playing every 1980s pop culture product there is, because Halliday grew up in the eighties and thought it was the best decade ever. Because it was a good time for him, a heterosexual white man, specifically. So his dying wish is to force others to think and act exactly like him, to like everything he did, for the fate of the world depends on it.

What better way to force people to like what you do than this? The sound that you are hearing now is multiple geeks ejaculating at once. This is an internet troll's fantasy right here. And not once in the novel is this pointed out as the evil mastermind's plan that it is.

Anyway, the second page notes that Halliday, unsurprisingly, had no heirs, no friends. no social life whatsoever - yet he is considered a role model, a hero; not the lonely shut-in that he was.


He'd spent the last fifteen years of his life in self-imposed isolation, during which time--if the rumors were to be believed--he'd gone completely insane. (Page 2)


Hmm. Any further thoughts on this?

No.

Get used to moments like that. Self-awareness is an afterthought in Ready Player One.

Exposition on Haliday's Anorak's Invitation: a video of himself explaining his Easter egg hunt, and how the winner will receive all his vast fortune and complete control over the OASIS. The video would be released unto the world upon his death. It is really narcissistic, and contains references to eighties music and films such as Heathers, because the eighties is literally all that defines Halliday. The references are pointed out in footnotes: thankfully this chapter is the only one in the book that does this.

All this does is highlight how lonely, greedy and pathetically obsessed with the past Halliday was, but the narrative wants you to think this is cool and eccentric. He thinks very highly of himself, as does the book.

In the video, Halliday presents himself as a child with an Atari 2600 game console, and goes on to explain how his love for gaming began in the 80s (obviously he hasn't grown up since then), plus a long, long diatribe on the history of the games developed from that era, and the first famous video game Easter egg. Here is one example of a footnote:


Halliday now looks exactly as he did in a school photo taken in 1980, when he was eight years old. (Page 4)


Why did that need to be a footnote? It isn't a pop culture reference.

I'll spare you the further exposition and footnotes. There are three keys to collect in order to find the egg, there is the Scoreboard, the Almanac which is Halliday's eighties pop culture bible and list that is required reading for every egg hunter - called "gunters" - etc. By the time the contents of the whole video is done being explained, and its effects on the world are subject to further infodump, nobody raises any kind of awareness of how incredibly narcissistic and self-absorbed this hunt of Halliday's is, nor care for its implications.

Now nearly everyone in the 2040s is obsessed with reliving one rich privileged guy's childhood - eighties styles are back in fashion. I find this hard to believe for a number of reasons, though I suspect that people don't necessarily like the eighties as they are merely going along with this fad as a survival tactic - the OASIS, and therefore their way of life in a dystopian future, is at stake, after all. One may claim that the hunt had helped the OASIS to grow and develop in popularity, but that isn't a good thing, as we learn more about this virtual reality nightmare.

Halliday also didn't test out his hunt before releasing it for others to play in it because... he couldn't be bothered to, I guess. Rich, lonely, selfish bastard.

Everything about this contest - this plan - of Halliday's screams, "Please care about me and my worthless life and knowledge again!"

Then, as the years fly by and nobody in the OASIS has even gotten close to finding the first clue to finding the first key in the egg hunt;


The general public lost all interest in the contest. People began to assume it was all just an outlandish hoax perpetuated by a rich nut job. (Page 8)


"Rich nut job" is right. Halliday could well have been trolling the entire world. Tricking people into the 80s again from beyond the grave. His revenge against everyone who ever thought poorly of him. Oh, poor rich bastard.

Until it is revealed that someone does find the first clue after five years of searching, and who ultimately wins the contest. Guess who?

Yep, our point-of-view protagonist, the eighteen-year-old Wade Watts.

So there is no tension, no need to read what happens next - we already know, the narrator just told us the outcome and who will win the egg hunt.

Here is the last paragraph of the chapter:


Dozens of books, cartoons, movies, and miniseries have attempted to tell the story of everything that happened next, but every single one of them got it wrong. So I want to set the record straight, once and for all. (Page 9)


Blowing your own trumpet much?

Honestly, this is the most harmless chapter of Ready Player One. Halliday's diabolical scheme is made clearer as we read further. This is the story of how he had made himself into an awfully elitist god after his death. It is about his villain's legacy. He is Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy if his antagonism was accidental. Willy Wonka - more like No-Willy Wanker.

Plus, as you read on it quickly becomes obvious that both Halliday and Wade are levels of the author's self-insertion and wish-fulfillment fantasies.

That's the end of that chapter, folks. Further thoughts coming soon in the subsequent chapters.