Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 21

Content warning: sexism, toxic masculinity.



I've just realized that, at twenty-one chapters and 208 pages, quick as a flash, I'm over halfway-through this read-through. And I already feel drained. Which isn't good news, considering that I haven't even gotten to the very worst parts of the book yet. Yes, you read that right: Ready Player One gets far, far worse. I haven't reached the angriest I can be.

Be extremely afraid.

But we are not quite there yet. For this chapter will be rather short, with little excitement and plot and character development (surprised?), and containing less things to rant about.

It starts off with an infodump on two OASIS artifacts auctioned off to the Sixers: one is called Fyndoro's Tablet of Finding, which allows them to locate a specific avatar; and the other is called the Catalyst, which is a huge Chekhov's Gun if there ever was one, as it is a bomb that could wipe out an entire sector in the OASIS, taking out all avatars in its wake. The Tablet is used by the Sixers to find the avatar who wins the Jade Key - revealed on the Scoreboard - immediately at the location where they won it; thus the bad guys will know where to look and win a Key themselves. It can be used only once a day, so they wait patiently for the best opportunity.

Might as well put a giant neon sign on these few pages of exposition saying: THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT! THE CATALYST WILL BLOW UP MUCH LATER, YOU'LL SEE! THIS ISN'T AWKWARD AND OBVIOUS! NO NEED FOR FORESHADOWING, SUSPENSE, TENSION, OR GRADUALLY PLACING HINTS OF THIS INFORMATION AS THE BOOK'S PLOT PROGRESSES.

As paper-thin as the plot of Ready Player One is.

So the Sixers know which sector Art3mis is in, and soon everybody else does, thanks to "their complete lack of subtlety". How rich coming from this book.

Meanwhile Wade laments being "dethroned" from his position as top gunter in the OASIS. Art3mis is ahead of him now on the Scoreboard. He berates himself for his own uselessness and self-pity. For his own cockiness, taking his fame for granted, allowing himself to become lax and nonproductive.

Here is a snippet of his inner thoughts:


You wasted almost half a year screwing around and pining over some girl you've never even met in person. The girl who dumped you. The same girl who is going to end up beating you. (Page 211)


Sounds about right. Except that they were never together so Art3mis did. not. dump. Wade.

Immediately afterwards:


Suddenly I wanted to win the contest more than ever. Not just for the money. I wanted to prove myself to Art3mis. And I wanted the Hunt to be over, so that she would talk to me again. So that I could finally meet her in person, see her true face, and try to make sense of how I felt about her. (Page 211)


Wade has neither an ounce of pride nor dignity in him. Silly me for thinking he would finally grow up and start to be responsible and selfless.

Because a girl - one he is unhealthily obsessed with - is one-upping him, he wants to prove himself to her. By beating her. By beating her and making her see him again, when she has lost everything - all her efforts and hard work in vain - and so she has nothing to lose in possibly getting together with him. Totally not a creepy, passive-aggressive, possessive Nice Guy that Wade is, oh no! If he can't have fame, glory and happiness, she sure can't!

He figures out the clue as Art3mis did before him, and goes off to search for the location of the Jade Key on the planet Archaide in Sector Seven. Our video game hero is off on another quest - one that progresses the plot this time - and severely overcompensates by having so much arsenal on his avatar's body that he's reached his limit. Extra junk in his trunk is in his "Backpack of Holding" (I'm serious).

Wade's spaceship is called the Vonnegut (right next to his DeLorean there is also an X-wing fighter in his asteroid's runway). He explains how it is modeled after the Serenity from Firefly, and that it was named the Kaylee when he'd first stolen it. He'd "immediately rechristened" a ship named after a female sci-fi character, giving it the name of one of his favourite male sci-fi novelists.

This is sexist in so many ways, it's disturbing. I'm amazed that Cline didn't see anything wrong with doing this; didn't pick up on how sinister this sounds when plainly put like that. It is further erasure of female personalities and presences in sci-fi fandoms and geek culture. Not to mention in STEM fields, since Kaylee from Firefly is a mechanic. A straight man's comfortable, male-gazey view of a female mechanic, who is cute, quirky, inappropriately-dressed and Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl-ish, but still.

Wade then infodumps about how he got the Kaylee/Vonnegut. He was "cruising through a large group of worlds in Sector Eleven known as the Whedonverse." Of course there is a place in the OASIS called the Whedonverse. In light of the feminist politics displayed in Ready Player One so far - and what's to come - I like to think that it is an accidental indication on how little feminism has progressed thanks to the not-so-positive influence of the works of the spectacularly overrated Joss Whedon.

Still no mention of any female creators.

Anyway, a gunter clan tried to hijack Wade's X-wing while he was in the Whedonverse. Wade killed them all in retaliation - a bunch of avatars just doing their part in the egg hunt - and then he stole their cool spacecraft. He "was in a foul mood", you see:


...I bombarded them with laser bolts and proton torpedoes. After I disabled their engines, I boarded the ship and proceeded to kill every avatar there. The captain tried to apologize when he saw who I was, but I wasn't in a forgiving mood. After I'd dispatched the crew, I parked my X-wing in the cargo hold and then cruised home in my new ship. (Page 214)


He expresses no regret, nor a hint of a conscience, in all this casual wiping out of other people's avatars. It is virtual reality, but remember, to him it is his life: his reality. To him, he'd just confessed to mass murder. Because he was in a bad mood.

Our hero is turning to the Dark Side, and it is as well developed and subtle as Anikin Skywalker's turn in the Star Wars prequels, and what is truly baffling is that neither he nor the author ever stop to reflect on this.

Like I've stated many times before, Ready Player One is, first and foremost, a violent male power fantasy trip. Toxic masculinity is played on all of its levels. Like a video game only not as fun.

Wade Watts is a sociopath; possibly a psychopath, driven mad by a lifetime in the OASIS. I can't believe I didn't say this before, but he is also the very definition of White Boy First World Problems. Look to the previous chapter for confirmation of this.

He sets the course for Archaide on the stolen Vonnegut:


I spotted several ships camped out in a high orbit above Falco [the asteroid]. The usual suspects: crazed fans, wannabe disciples, and aspiring bounty hunters. A few of them, the ones currently turning to follow me, were tagalongs--people who spent most of their time trying to tail prominent gunters and gather intel on their movements so they could sell the information later. I was always able to lose these idiots by jumping to light speed. A lucky thing for them. If I couldn't lose someone who was trying to tail me, I usually had no choice but to stop and kill them. (Page 214)


Our hero.

Not a villain, or even an antihero, not intentionally. Wade is a sociopath, willing to kill not out of self-defense, but because other avatars annoy him. Avatars who are potentially his own fanbase, at that.

Another "lucky" mention - take a shot!

He jumps ahead to Sector Seven using a stargate. Yes, stargates exist in the OASIS, too, and they are very expensive. How convenient that our rich boy protagonist can afford to use one at any convenient moment!

Ready Player One - where originality goes to die. Then its corpse is propped up for plot devices. Sometimes not even that; it's just a prop.

End of chapter 21. More tedium before the worst is yet to come. The lethargy before the storm. I should not be afraid, but in the immortal words of Yoda: "You will be. You will be..."