Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 19

Content warning: sexism, misogyny, male entitlement, reference to mass shooting.



This chapter... I feel I should warn everyone right now:

This chapter is, without a doubt, one of the saddest, most pathetic things I have ever read in my life.

Let's swim through the swamp of literature quickly, if that's possible.

We are subjected to Wade's "daily ritual":


"I'm up!" I shouted at the darkness. In the weeks since Art3mis had dumped me, I'd had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. So I'd disabled my alarm's snooze feature and instructed the computer to blast "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham! I loathed that song with every fiber of my being, and getting up was the only way to silence it. It wasn't the most pleasant way to start my day, but it got me moving. (Page 190)


Bet you'd love the song if Halliday had loved it, though, wouldn't you, Wade?

And Art3mis didn't dump you - you were never together! Entitled dick.

Reading Ready Player One over and over as such, it occurred to me how many missed opportunities it has. For example: This depression of Wade's, this total devotion to the OASIS and finding the egg now - it could be part of IOI's plan. They knew all along that he wasn't in his trailer when they blew it up; that his inflated ego would get the better of him and he'd refuse Sorrento's offer. When eventually he'd be traumatized enough to never want to face reality again, that would be when they'd strike him at his most vulnerable. They know his identity, and finding him in both the OASIS and in reality wouldn't be hard. The Sixers could wait until he almost completes his quest before ambushing him, killing him in the real world, and taking the egg themselves. Sorrento can even point out to Wade how heartless he has been in regards to the deaths he'd inadvertently caused - comment on how long the Sixers had had to wait for him to be at his most vulnerable, and why it had to be over a girl he'd never met to bring it on! If only Wade had paid attention and spent more time in the real world instead of playing addictive games, none of this would have happened. It would be a subversion, a play on expectations; a truly tragic cautionary tale at work in the text. Have Art3mis be more than meets the eye as a Sixer spy or an NPC - all part of the plan - while you're at it.

But alas, Ready Player One is not nearly as clever and self-aware enough for anything like that to happen.

Back to what really happens, which is... nothing. Wade had spray-painted his window black to prevent even seeing the outside world, much less live in it. He wants no contact with other humans. Ever. Microwave food and other necessities like toilet paper are delivered to his "new airtight armor-plated vacuum-sealed WarDoor." To cut a long-winded explanation short: Wade has turned his apartment into a self-made prison. Chapter 19 is one big infodump about how he had set it up and how he survives now. He built everything himself - all so he could spend as much time in the OASIS as possible. Reality is his feared enemy from here on out.

All because a girl rejected him. Because he couldn't stand the thought of the object of his creepy obsession having a life and interests of her own, that don't reflect his.

Wade Watts, I say this most sincerely, and with the most human compassion capable by anyone in the whole world: I feel nothing for you.

The smallest violin for you would be too small even for a nit.

He has a pee hole in his OASIS immersion suit.

Plus a sex doll! Why am I not surprised?!


You could also purchase an ACHD (anatomically correct haptic doll), if you wanted to have more "intimate" encounters inside the OASIS. ACHDs came in male, female and dual-sex models, and were available with a wide array of options. Realistic latex skin, Servomotor-driven endoskeletons, Simulated musculature. And all of the attendant appendages and orifices one would imagine.
      Driven by loneliness, curiosity, and raging teen hormones, I'd purchased a midrange ACHD, the Shaptic UberBetty, a few weeks after Art3mis stopped speaking to me. After spending several highly unproductive days inside a stand-alone brothel simulation called the Pleasuredome, I'd gotten rid of the doll, out of a combination of shame and self-preservation. I'd wasted thousands of credits, missed a whole week of work, and was on the verge of completely abandoning my quest for the egg when confronted with the grim realization that virtual sex, no matter how realistic, was really nothing but glorified, computer-assimilated masturbation. At the end of the day, I was still a virgin, all alone in a dark room, humping a lubed-up robot. So I got rid of the ACHD and went back to spanking the monkey the old-fashioned way. (Page 193)


The quote speaks for itself.

It's embarrassing to read about anyone's sex life, or lack thereof, and here are two entire paragraphs dedicated to how pathetic Wade is. Not because he hasn't had sex - trust me, I literally could not care less about anything else; a lack of a sex life is not the problem here, no matter how much he thinks it is - but because he decided that possessing a sex doll linked up with virtual reality technology is a sad way of existing... and it has nothing to do with his loneliness and lack of real human connection and companionship. No, it's because it's distracting him from finding the egg.

Everything always goes back to Halliday, the true cause of all of Wade's problems. Neither Wade nor Cline seem to realize this.

Points for the "dual-sex models" line, however; though was it intended to be an inclusion of trans, non-binary, genderqueer and hermaphrodite/intersex persons in this world? A woke awareness that they are human and as desirable as anyone else? Probably accidental.

This book does no one any favours. It doesn't celebrate geek and nerd culture, it makes fun of them - it goes along with the stereotype that geeks, nerds, dorks, and pop culture fanboys are all useless shut-ins in a dark basement-like room, with no social life, and have never had sex. It's a male power fantasy - Twilight for boys -  that insults its target audience; much like Twilight insults young girls and takes advantage of their low self-esteem.

And we are not done yet. Here is an actual quote from the universally-beloved and critically-acclaimed Ready Player One, on how Halliday felt about masturbation, in Anorak's Almanac, printed in full:


AA 241:87--I would argue that masturbation is the human animal's most important adaptation. The very cornerstone of our technological civilization. Our hands evolved to grip tools, all right--including our own. You see, thinkers, inventors, and scientists are usually geeks, and geeks have a harder time getting laid than anyone. Without the built-in sexual release valve provided by masturbation, it's doubtful that early humans would have ever mastered the secrets of fire or discovered the wheel. And you can bet that Galileo, Newton, and Einstein never would have made their discoveries of they hadn't first been able to clear their heads by slapping the salami (or "knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom"). The same goes for Marie Curie. Before she discovered radium, you can be certain she first discovered the little man in the canoe. (Page 194)


This book has a 4.29 rating on Goodreads. It has been made into a film by Steven Spielberg.

I feel embarrassed for everyone involved in the writing and publication of Ready Player One just typing that damn quote. I feel embarrassed for myself in doing so.

Why did Halliday include it in his Anorak's Almanac? Does it have to do with the hunt? It reads as being incredibly smug and narcissistic, so it definitely sounds like Halliday, at least. Typical as well that Wade likes the theory.

The above quote is used to justify everything. Including misogyny and male entitlement in geek circles, and the book's stereotypical view of geeks and fandom.

Is it satire? You're not Douglas Adams, Cline.

Credit where credit is due, however: the Marie Curie mention. Spoiler: She is the only real-life female figure who isn't an actress mentioned in the entire book. Baby steps are not enough for your female representation in the 21st century.

But wait, if geeks and smart people have a harder time getting laid than everyone else, as Halliday so graciously put it, and he recognized that female masturbation does exist, then why wouldn't he think that smart people of all genders would want to have sex with each other? Why are smart people so repulsive in sexual desire to Halliday, even to other smart people? Why is he--Oh - WHY AM I THINKING SO MUCH ABOUT THIS THEORY?

MOVING RIGHT ALONG FOR EVERYBODY'S SAKE:

Wade has a system agent software, his personal AI, called Max, after Max Headroom. It looks, talks and acts exactly like Max Headroom. For some reason, Cline felt the need to explain to his readers that this is a Max Headroom reference. It's not just namedropping, but infodumping on the show and it's impact on pop culture and CGI technology from the '80s onwards. Even though Cline already referenced Max Headroom with Wade's Bryce Lynch alias, without namedropping it. It feels like bragging about a thing the author loves, and how much he knows about it. So it is run-of-the-mill Ready Player One then.

Wait, wouldn't IOI be able to track Wade down if he has a downloadable system agent software? A recognizable one at that? Is his room that protected?

Wade then explains that before Max he had Erin Gray as his AI, "But she'd proved to be way too distracting." Why? Because she has a vagina? You are a misogynistic loser internet troll, aren't you? I remind you, he is like this because one girl - the only one he ever bothered to talk to - said no to him.

Wow, holy crap, I think I've discovered the origin of the internet troll!

Women are so distracting in STEM fields; distracting to men's genius!

Fuck you, Wade Watts.

After he's done taking a piss and bantering with Max (both things he does at the same time, I'm not joking), he is happy because he can finally enter the OASIS.


The hour or so after I woke up was my least favorite part of the each day, because I spent it in the real world. This was when I dealt with the tedious business of cleaning and exercising my physical body. I hated this part of the day because everything about it contradicted my other life. My real life, inside the OASIS. (Page 195)


"My real life, inside the OASIS." Right, I'm done.



Change of subject time: In terms of female characters so far in Ready Player One, Art3mis has been the only main one. She is a love interest, a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a "cool geek girl" who is one of the guys, and the moment she displays an ounce of independence and being a real person, she causes the male hero's depression and complete isolation from reality. The male hero who had already tragically lost everything in the real world due to his own carelessness. Massive, unfair responsibility you're putting on your female lead character, Cline. Not to mention the toxic message this sends to young girls: that no matter what you achieve in life, you are ultimately nothing of worth without a man. You must bear the man's bullshit and toxic masculinity and male fragility; you must always be there to support him no matter what he does, or else he might either kill himself immediately or slowly, or he'll become a shut-in internet troll and ruin everyone's lives. Or he'll become a mass shooter, as also tragically happens in real life.

The other two female characters with names so far in Ready Player One are Mrs. Gilmore (no first name given) and Wade's aunt Alice (no surname given). They are one-note, one-dimensional stereotypes - the sweet old religious lady with cats, and the nasty, greedy shrew of an evil guardian, respectively - who barely get to appear in a single page, and they are now dead. Their deaths mean nothing to the male hero, not even man pain; there's no development to be gotten from their fridging, so it would have made no difference to the story if they had never existed.

Take from that what you will.



Anyway, I shall reluctantly continue with the nothing that is this chapter.

Wade is exercising now in his prison - an OASIS workout system is installed. All for the egg, of course, as he doesn't want to die of sloth before finding it! He has to exercise before logging on to the OASIS, which is motivation enough for him. He also uses virtual simulators, like gyms.

In two months, he is now conveniently thin! Real life! Presumably his acne's gone, too.

Also he keeps referencing old playlists, as he's exercising and taking a shower. For example: ""Change" by John Waite. From the Vision Quest soundtrack. Geffen Records, 1985." Stop it, Wade. This trivia won't help you on your "quest", and it is not interesting to read about. Once again, it's bragging about the author's knowledge. This is not an Easter egg hunt within an Easter egg hunt within a book, at all.

He has a powerhouse shower that rinses and cleans his body for him. He is such a wealthy little shut-in! Plus he'd removed all of the hair on his body, for a smoother transition into his OASIS suit. Like Halliday, not only is virtual reality his life, but he is deliberately eradicating his humanity. Literally cutting himself off from everything and everyone. And himself.


Once I had the suit on, I ordered the haptic chair to extend. Then I paused and spent a moment staring at my immersion rig. I'd been so proud of all this high-tech hardware when I'd first purchased it. But over the past few months, I'd come to see my rig for what it was: an elaborate contraption for deceiving my senses, to allow me to live in a world that didn't exist. Each component of my rig was a bar in the cell where I had willingly imprisoned myself.
     Standing there, under the bleak fluorescents of my tiny one-room apartment, there was no escaping the truth. In real life, I was nothing but an antisocial hermit. A recluse. A pale-skinned pop-culture obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame. (Page 198)


=blinks= =blinks=

What a meaningful and powerful quote. How self-aware; a chilling cautionary tale in a dystopic sci-fi that can benefit everyone at the moment and in the near future-- 


But not in the OASIS. In there, I was the great Parzival. World-famous gunter and international celebrity. People asked me for my autograph. I had a fan club. Several, actually. I was recognized everywhere I went (but only when I wanted to be). I was paid to endorse products. People admired and looked up to me. I got invited to the most exclusive parties. I went to all the hippest clubs and never had to wait in line. I was a pop-culture icon, a VR rock star. And, in gunter circles, I was a legend. Nay, a god. (Page 198)


Oh, never mind!

Escaping reality is great! Everyone should do it!

Wade is such a selfish, narcissistic, smug arsehole, I want to punch him. He brags about being invited to all the best parties and clubs in the OASIS, because he is a celebrity in that fake world, when Sixers had tried to kill him at a party event before! Yeah, remember that, dipshit? You're in hiding, because they are after you, and they killed your family and friends in the real world.

The Sixers are not mentioned in this chapter. Wade's delusions of grandeur are more important to him than self-preservation. Priorities!

Proof that he never ever listened to Art3mis about using money to make the world a better place and help people. He is, always has been, and always will be, only out for himself.

 "I was a legend. Nay, a god." Go fuck yourself, Wade. Go on, I know you want to.

Wade Watts is a LOSER! Why should I care about him? He never learns from anything.

Is everything here a reference to The Lawnmower Man? Even down to the infamous cybersex? I'm not sure what to make of that, except that it's not positive.

He enters the bloody OASIS by saying his pass phrase: "None in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful." No quote has ever been ill-suited to the person saying it. Wade has everything he wants! Except "that one special girl", but who gives a shit? Leave that cliche to the gutter.

So that ends chapter 19. I feel dirty and depressed myself. I'm seriously regretting this life choice of mine to write this read-through.

But I must persevere. For you guys. Because I love everyone.