Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 13

Content warning: references to rape.



Breaking news: Aech has cleared the First Gate.

Wow, didn't see that coming.


I returned to school that same morning. I'd considered calling in sick, but was concerned that my absence would raise suspicions. When I got there, I realized I shouldn't have worried. Due to the sudden renewed interest in the Hunt, over half of the student body, and quite a few of the teachers, didn't bother showing up. Since everyone at school knew my avatar by the name Wade3, no one paid any attention to me. Roaming the halls unnoticed, I decided that I enjoyed having a secret identity. It made me feel like Clark Kent or Peter Parker. I thought my dad would probably have gotten a kick out of that. (Page 28)


No consequences for missing school - crisis averted!

You're not deserving of picking the noses of the superheroes you just name-dropped, either, Wade.

More gunters are now winning the Copper Key, thanks to I-r0k's snitching and outing Wade and Aech as students on Ludus, where the Key is. Page 129 is also where the names Shoto and Daito appear, on the Scoreboard. These characters (and I use that term extremely lightly; when we are introduced to them proper you'll see why) will appear later on in the book.


All week, I was unable to focus on anything my teachers were saying. Luckily, I only had two months of school left, and I'd already earned enough credits to graduate, even if I coasted from here on out. (Page 129)


No stakes, no conflicts. Doesn't matter one bit if Wade fails his last term at school. Fuck higher education and preparing to be an adult, right? Easy life!

Wade ponders over the riddle to the Jade Key. He describes a scene in Revenge of the Nerds, which was "one of Halliday's favorite films". Of course a film where one of the main characters rapes a girl and she loves him for it would be a favourite of Halliday's. Why am I not shocked?

Wade talks about the millions of messages clogging his inbox:


I'd been sifting through them all week. I'd received notes from people all over the globe. Letters of congratulations. Pleas for help. Death threats. Interview requests. (Page 130)


"Death threats", huh? A lot of us envy you receiving only that much in terms of online threats, Wade!

Wade has millions of fans now. He has, I shit you not, offers from movie studios and book publishers, wanting to buy the rights to his life story! Okay, these might well be bullshit fraudsters wanting to glean his true identity from him, but seriously? Though it does make me wonder about the state of the celebrities in this future setting. Where are the movie and TV stars, now - both in front of the camera and behind it - if everything is heavily reliant on the OASIS? For a book all about pop culture, this seems like a critical oversight.

Wade, not letting this unmitigated fame go to his head, accepts the offers to have a line of OASIS immersion hardware, toys, lunch boxes, and a fucking pizza-delivery chain manufactured in his avatar name and image. So much for saying no to heartless corporate sponsors. Money!

And it goes on and on ad nauseam. Endorsement deals this, contracts that.

He's rich now! Rich enough to get to do whatever he wants in life. The whole chapter - ney, the whole male power fantasy novel - is about ego-stroking Wade. The world really has gone insane and has nothing better to do than kiss this loser's arse.

Halliday did all this. He's responsible.

Weren't you just trying to solve that riddle a page ago, Wade?

Then he gets harassed by the Sixers, begging for his attention. Finally he opens up an email from the head of the IOI, Nolan Sorrento. The letter leaks of sliminess and threat, and the reasonable thing to do would be to ignore it, delete it, not give the corrupt company any satisfaction of a reply, or any sign that he's ever seen and read the email.

But Wade's dangerous pride and over-inflated ego get the better of him. He wants to know what the IOI are up to. He doesn't listen to his instincts and common sense. Obviously Sorrento wants to recruit him into the Sixers; to own him and take advantage of him, hoping that he'll lead IOI to the egg and hence, the takeover of the OASIS (still not seeing what the actual threat in that is, though). Or else they'll go after the other gunters "dumb enough or desperate enough" to give them the information they want.

Well it turns out Wade is dumb enough and desperate enough. He agrees to meet Sorrento on his own turf, just to rub it in his face the gunter pride! The little man standing up to the big man! The big man at the head of the billion dollar industry!

This won't backfire horribly!

I hope Nolan Sorrento isn't named after Christopher Nolan, too.

A paragraph of boring infodumping on Sorrento later (where Wade comments that he had "sold his soul", pfft! Have you looked in the mirror lately, Wade? Knowing you, probably not), and our rich-in-a-day boy is ready:


Once I'd done my homework on Sorrento, I felt like I was ready to sit down with the devil. (Page 133)


But Wade, James Halliday is dead.

Oh, you're talking about Sorrento. Sorry, I don't know why I would ever get those two mixed up!

He taps on the chatlink invitation icon at the bottom of Sorrento's email, and his avatar is transported into the IOI business territory.

Well, that escalated quickly.

Next chapter, see how Wade's recklessness and arrogance literally costs lives, and how he'll shrug it off!