Reflection

Ready Player One Independent Reading Reflection

By Max Bressler

In Ready Player One, Wade has several friends that he met online through the OASIS. In the OASIS, almost everybody does everything they can possibly do to keep their identities secure so nobody can see who they really are. Wade does this as well. That’s true in real life as well, to a lesser extent though. Towards the end of the book, Wade has to team up with one of Wade’s closest friends, whom he met in the OASIS. Through the entire friendship, Wade was led to believe that Aech (Wade’s friend) was a white teenager who was a heterosexual. However, when he met Aech, he found out that she was really an African American female who was a homosexual. While, again, these situations are far likely to a lesser extent in real life, situations happen very frequently. There are also exigencies where kids are put into serious danger when they give out their address or identity, shown several times by shows like Dateline. Another situation similar to this happens earlier in the novel when one of Wade’s acquaintances turns out to be a recluse, which Wade had no way of knowing seeing as this person only showed the part of him that he wanted to show, which was a far more confident person. Similarly, I am in the same boat as that person. That is not to say I am two faced, however, I am a lot more talkative and open about things while I’m on my computer playing games than I am at school or in social gatherings.

In Ready Player One, one of the reasons that everybody keeps their true identities hidden is because if their identity gets out into the open, you have a high probability of being in danger. This is shown several times throughout the book. One of those occasions is when Wade is in a life or death situation. He could either join the evil corporation, IOI, or let his abusive family die. He chooses the latter, not realizing that they had set up an explosive at his home. While these situations are probably almost never happen, there are cases similar to this occurrence. A lot of these cases are due to the deep web. Unfortunately, if you make the terrible decision to go on this service, you could end up dying. Because there are some truly awful people on there, their lack of empathy could lead them to hack you to figure out your personal information which could lead you to be sold into human trafficking or something along those lines. Another case similar to this in Ready Player One is when Daito, an acquaintance of Wade’s, is killed because he is close to finding the virtual treasure that he was searching for. This is of course caused by IOI, who also attempted to kill Wade earlier in the novel.

Ready Player One By Ernest Cline

(1) Is everyone you meet online who they say they are?

(2) Are you safe when you're online?

Universal truth 1: A: "Despite what I had said to Aech, knowing that I was about to meet him in person after all these years made me more nervous than I wanted to admit... I took a deep breath and crossed the slush-covered sidewalk, feeling a strange combination of dread and excitement... A           heavyset African American girl sat in the RV's driver seat, clutching the wheel tightly and staring     straight ahead."(318)

B: "Art3mis: What if I were a 300 lb. gal named Charlene, who lives in her mom's basement in                 suburban Detroit? Would you still have a crush on me then?

      Parzival: I don't know. Do you live in your mother's basement?

      Art3mis: No.

      Parzival: Yeah. Then I probably still would." (170)

Universal truth 2: A: "Tell us how to reach the First Gate. Right now. Or we will kill you. Right now"

B: "They broke into his apartment, pulled him out of his haptic chair, and threw                                    him off his balcony. He lived on the forty-third floor." (242)

Connections:

1. In Ready Player One, there are several times where the antagonist company of the story tracks the main characters through the internet and tries to kill them. While killings may be not as frequent, there are several internet personalities whose houses and faces have been shown due to people hacking them and figuring out stuff about them.

2. Ready Player One includes a lot of made up virtual reality equipment. The book was written in 2011, and now a lot of what was in the book is rapidly becoming a reality.

3. In this novel, the main character has a lot of friends as well as enemies that he made in the virtual world he spends most of his life in. Similar to him, I have made several acquaintances from all over the world from playing video games.

4. Ready Player One is mostly set in virtual reality, which makes me think of The Matrix seeing as they are both set in virtual worlds for most of the time.

5. In this book, the main character studies and enjoys thousands of T.V shows, movies, and video games from the 70s to 90s. While I haven't seen thousands, I have definitely enjoyed a seriously big amount of movies, T.V shows and video games from the 70s to 90s.

Pictures

In Ready Player One, Wade (the main character) lives in a dystopian world of run down cities.

Wade wears a virtual reality visor in this book, which I imagine would look something like the Oculus Rift.

Wade is in the OASIS for most of the novel, which is shockingly similar to an upcoming game called Chronicles of Elyria where you make an avatar and live life as that avatar in a virtual world.

Wade refers to how people can sell items or services they have in the OASIS, similarly, people sell virtual items on the Steam community market that range in price from $.03 cents to over $400.