Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 4

Content warning: racism, sexism, ableism, references to rape.



The following chapters are about Wade zoning out of his boring classrooms and giving an excuse to give out further exposition on the OASIS, Halliday, and list ALL of his eighties obsessions. And hoo boy, if you thought that the last chapter was nothing but a long geek masturbation detour, you haven't seen anything yet!

Wade describes his World History teacher, Mr. Avenovich, and how he likes him because he's a good teacher, despite being yet another superfluous character who only appears in one chapter.


Of course, we didn't know who Mr. Avenovich really was or where he lived. We didn't know his real name, or even if "he" was really a man. For all we knew, he could have been a small Inuit woman living in Achorage, Alaska, who had adopted this appearance and voice to make her students more receptive to her lessons. (Page 47)


Ladies and gentlemen and everybody else, the first most offensive line in Ready Player One.

Wade knows that prejudices exist in the world. He knows about racism and sexism. Why else would he think that his wise, old, white male teacher in the OASIS could be a woman of colour in the real world, in order for her lessons to be taken seriously? This is yet more social commentary that is dropped in and never explored further. Worse - this is complacency in racism. This makes it sound like the OASIS is a good thing for humanity because anyone who isn't white and male could easily change themselves to look and sound white and male in order to receive a career; to do what they want to by changing their entire personality. Race, gender, background - all to suit a white supremacist default.

So another reason why the real world is terrible is because it is racist as fuck. So is the OASIS, by the looks of it. And this is not in any way challenged in Ready Player One. It is just a fact to be dealt with without having to actually do anything - leave the blame, responsibility and hardship on the victims of racism and sexism.

And this attitude still exists in 2044-45. No progress has been made.

Now that I think of it, what about the disabled people in this world? Are there procedures and treatments made to help people with disabilities log into the OASIS? With so much exposition dumped on the reader about the high-tech and perfect virtual reality, no mention is made of the disabled. This is erasure at its extreme.

Back to the "plot":


All of my teachers were pretty great. Unlike their real-world counterparts, most of the OASIS public school teachers seemed to genuinely enjoy their job, probably because they didn't have to spend half their time acting as babysitters and disciplinarians. The OASIS software took care of that, ensuring that students remained quiet and in their seats. All the teachers had to do was teach. (Page 47)


The OASIS software makes students quiet and remain seated to make teachers' lives easier. So much for a safe, free environment where anyone can be whoever they want, however they want, all the time, with no control or restrictions (unless when it comes to violent acts in some areas). Totally not totalitarian!

Next we are treated to a long infodump on how the OASIS works. Money is needed in order to travel around it, and it can be dangerous for your avatar. Sure, it's safe and fun. Not.

Chapter 4 = Infodump, the chapter.

When Wade explains the various preexisting virtual worlds and planets, where there are apparently hundreds of them:


The Firefly universe was anchored in a sector adjacent to the Star Wars galaxy, with a detailed re-creation of the Star Trek universe in the sector adjacent to that. Users could now teleport back and forth between their favorite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds. (Page 49)


And yet no Hogwarts?

With the exception of Pern, all of these worlds were originally created by male writers. Where are the franchises created by women authors, Ready Player One? Has pop culture been influenced by the manchild Halliday this much?

Also, is Firefly - as well as the original Star Trek series - one of the very few non-80s things to have stood the test of time, then? Are the sci-fi creations by men timeless to you, Cline?

As Wade keeps going on and on about the OASIS, he says this about its dangers, for both combatant users and non-combatant, business users:


If you stayed in safe zones, like Ludus, you didn't have to worry about your avatar getting robbed, or killed. (Page 50)


And it occurred to me: Is there any danger of female avatars being raped in the OASIS? I know that men get raped as well - it has nothing to do with the gender or anything but the vulnerability of the dehumanized victim - but statistically, in the real world, being female alone is a dangerous hazard. They are far, far more likely to be victims. To be abused. That is the tragic state of our reality; one that would find any excuse to hate and kill women.

This is in the internet, too! Ready Player One is set in an internet world! There is hardly any mention of any female avatars in the OASIS, except for Art3mis, the hot love interest in this science fiction male power fantasy.

On that note: are there any gay bars in the OASIS? Any trans avatars? POC avatars? Disabled avatars, or avatars operated by disabled people in the real world?

The OASIS is a lie, created by and made to cater exclusively to cisgender, straight white males. Who have no social skills or basis in reality. I don't think I need to tell you that Cline either doesn't realize, or doesn't care, about any of this.

Wade whines about not being able to afford going anywhere in the OASIS:


In desperation, I'd tried to find a part-time after-school job, just to earn come walking-around money. I applied for dozens of tech support and programming jobs (mostly grunt construction work, coding parts of OASIS malls and office buildings), but it was completely hopeless. Millions of college-educated adults couldn't get one of those jobs. The Great Recession was now entering its third decade, and unemployment was still at a record high. Even the fast-food joints in my neighborhood had a two-year waiting list for job applicants. (Page 51)


Not-so-subtle insulting of retail jobs. So are there homeless people in the OASIS, too? Or are they stuck in the real world, abandoned by the decrepit government to die? How can the worldbuilding of Ready Player One be so detailed while at the same time leave so many issues unexplained?


So I remained stuck in school. I felt like a kid standing in the world's greatest video arcade without any quarters, unable to do anything but walk around and watch the other kids play. (Page 51)


Oh boo-hoo, the little boy can't have fun playing video games all the time or be free to explore his options because he's not rich enough. Meanwhile he possesses hard drives filled to breaking point with TV shows, movies, cartoons, and yes, video games. He's still a loser, either way. Wade gets no sympathy from me.

And that's how the chapter ends, on that "woe-is-me" hook, like you're meant to care.

Buckle up, it's only going to get worse - more self-indulgent and tragically pathetic - from there.