Sunday 1 July 2018
Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 35
Content warning: sexism, racism.
It is the Ultimate Showdown! Of Ultimate Destiny!
(Another male-led reference, I might add, even though I like the song.)
The top four gunters attack Sorrento's Mechagodzilla amid all of the chaos. Shoto makes an honorable sacrifice of his avatar, in a very vague reference to his previously-forgotten-about revenge motive.
Literally a page after Shoto is defeated by recklessness, Wade decides to get revenge on Sorrento once and for all; even though Art3mis and Helen have made it to the Third Gate and are waiting and shouting for him to join them already.
Sorrento had tried to kill me. And in the process, he'd murdered my aunt, along with several of my neighbors, including sweet old Mrs. Gilmore, who had never hurt a soul. He'd also had Daito killed, and even though I'd never met him, Daito had been my friend. (Page 339)
Oh, now you think about the dead people!
A bit late to start caring when you didn't before, isn't it? His aunt and Mrs. Gilmore haven't been mentioned in 190 pages!
Wade wants revenge, and he wants to do it in front of cameras and newsfeeds in the OASIS, for Sorrento's humiliation.
Wade, dear, YOUR RECKLESSNESS AND HIGH-AND-MIGHTY, HEAD-UP-YOUR-ARSE ACTIONS ARE WHAT GOT YOUR LOVED ONES KILLED IN THE FIRST PLACE!
Our hero! A prideful and arrogant showoff who learns nothing; who does not learn from his mistakes.
He uses the Beta Capsule and turns into Ultraman (his Leopardon got damaged in the fight with the Mechagodzilla). It is even bigger than Sorrento's mech. You can guess where this is going.
Ego-boost activated!
The mech battle is glorious - Ultraman beats the ever-loving crap out of Mechagodzilla. Crowds cheer all around - supremely lucky Wade has thousands, if not millions, of followers, fans and cheerleaders. Sorrento's avatar dies.
Ego-stroke achieved!
Time's up, and Ultraman shrinks back into toy-size. Wade finally heads for the Third Gate, where another awesome battle had just happened - off-page. We don't get to see Art3mis and Helen/Aech fight and win against an army of Sixers. But we were treated to more of Wade's stupidity and narcissistic wet dream.
He whines that he missed the Sixer arse-kicking. It's your own fault, dumbass! Art3mis seems to agree with me, as she clearly has had enough:
Art3mis didn't reply. She just gave me the finger.
"Congrats on wasting Sorrento," Aech said. "It was an epic throwdown, for sure. But you're still a complete idiot. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," I shrugged. "I know."
"You're such a selfish asshole!" Art3mis shouted. "What if you'd gotten yourself killed too?"
"I didn't, though. Did I?" I said, stepping around her to examine the crystal door. "So chill out and let's open this thing." (Page 341)
Art3mis is right. Again.
She is told to "chill out" by a male avatar. Again.
Her views and concerns are ignored and she is quite literally pushed aside, by the characters and the narration. Again.
The male main character's actions are excused (actually shrugged off in this instance) and then forgotten about. Again.
Everybody stop telling the "girl" of the group to shut up!
Also, with Shoto gone, Helen/Aech is the only POC character left, in time for the book's climax. And she is pretending to be a white guy! So as far as the OASIS is concerned, the heroes of the story are all white, and the POC side characters are dead.
After some repetitive dialogue, the three open the Third Gate. It's full of stars.
As the three of us stepped forward, preparing to enter the gate, I heard an earsplitting boom. It sounded like the entire universe was cracking in half.
And then we all died. (Page 342)
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNN't care.
This would have been a great, fitting end to the book, actually. The single and ultimate subversion: Where in real life, not in games or movies, the good guys don't always win.
Sadly, there are thirty pages to go.
Ready Player One is still rather dull, dumb, simple, inane, cliched, contrived, geek/fanboy wankery, fanfiction-y, tone deaf, sexist, and racist. But it might use the time it's got left to redeem itself.
Right, have you been reading the book?
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I don't know what you find so racist and sexist about this book. About Aech's problem, her mother did it to protect her because there are racists in the world, its a part of life and there's no avoiding it. The insult of calling someone or something "racist" has become so overused that I don't think its even effective anymore. If you going to call someone or something racist, check if them/it is trying to intentionally be offensive. Second of all, this book is not sexist either. The fact that Art3mis is told to "chill out" by the opposite gender doesn't mean a damn thing. I bet if she was told to chill out by another female, you would've been fine with it. We are all human beings, there is no dominant gender, stop pretending there is one. Any sane person would tell a person screaming at them to "chill out". Those are all of my complaints, the rest is your opinion and completely respect it.
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