Line #10 YMMV/ReadyPlayerOne


1	For examples from the 2018 film adaptation, go [[YMMV/ReadyPlayerOne2018 here]].
2	----
3	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:
4	** James Halliday is a reclusive, antisocial nerd who spends his entire adult life pining after Kira, his best friend's wife, even after he becomes the richest, most famous man in the world. Some view his behavior as stalkerish at best and outright misogynistic at worst. Others believe James suffered from severe social anxiety that prevented him from revealing his feelings to his best female friend. The fact his best ''male'' friend Ogden (who ''married'' Kira) remembered him fondly post-mortem implies we're supposed to view it as the latter. There's also the question of whether he intended to warp the ''entire fabric'' of human entertainment over the course of a decade to become nothing but a collection of 80s nostalgia. While he certainly wanted people to like and appreciate his childhood, it's questionable he would want seemingly all new ideas replaced with a recycling of Creator/JohnHughes, ''Franchise/StarWars'', and ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}''. [[GoneHorriblyRight Or maybe he did.]]
5	** Creator/AndyWeir, author of ''[[Literature/TheMartian The Martian]]'', has one for a character in his ([[AscendedFanon declared canon by Ernest Cline]]) ''RPO'' fanfic [[http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/lacero.html "Lacero".]]. [[spoiler: Nolan Sorrento's true goal is to destroy the OASIS as revenge against GSS, as his sister was an OASIS addict who ended up dying due to her obsession.]]
6	** Is Wade Watts a WishFulfillment figure who improbably gets a famous beautiful love interest and billions of dollars, all because of his obsessive love of 80s pop culture and trivia? Or is he a character who [[CharacterDevelopment undergoes an arc]] from starting as a selfish nerd to become a better, more heroic person, which is what helps bring about his triumph instead?
7	** [=Is Art3mis=] a ManicPixieDreamGirl and Wade's SatelliteLoveInterest [[https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-trophy-woman-of-ready-player-one-1798309534 as some readers argue]], or is she the {{Deuteragonist}} who has a much better grasp of what the stakes are for the game, given she [[spoiler:actually breaks up with Wade because of his selfishness and devotion to their relationship over the game]]? The movie puts front and center her goal [[spoiler:of destroying IOI, which she calls a revolution in her first real-world sentence to Wade.]]
8	* AluminumChristmasTrees: Cline did not come up with the culture and other elements out of nothing, he did research in the closest thing available pre-2011: ''VideoGame/SecondLife''. The pop culture avatars and items, the dance parties, and the shops where you also can buy magic items and moves will all be familiar to anyone who has played that massively-multiplayer online sandbox game.
9	* {{Anvilicious}}:
10	** Early on, Wade goes on a rant for a page and a half about how we've all been lied to, primarily centering on God and religion. This is especially jarring, since there's zero indication that he was raised in any religion, and very little suggestion of religious influence anywhere around him. In fact the only religious character in the whole book, Mrs. G, is also just about the only adult who's kind to him [[spoiler:and the person whose death most impacts him when his home is attacked]].
11	** Wade's reaction to the discovery his best friend [[spoiler:is an African American lesbian rather than a white boy that she presented herself as]] leads to a lecture on tolerance. Understandable given [[spoiler:she was homeless for a time because of parental rejection.]]
12	** The AntiEscapismAesop strikes some readers as this, although it might be mitigated by the conflicted stance the book seems to take on the OASIS' role in society.
13	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The (probably tongue-in-cheek) passage written by Halliday about the virtues of masturbation among an otherwise depressing chapter in the book is viewed as this.
14	* CondemnedByHistory: In TheNew20s, it seems that many now view the novel as a symbol of everything wrong with late 2000s/early 2010s geek culture: between the plot coming across as a juvenile PowerFantasy, use of nostalgia as a substitute for actual quality, and seeming glorification of arrested development, nerd elitism, franchise consumerism, and retreating from reality into a fantasy world, very few will admit to being a fan nowadays. The author's follow-up novels laying the original's mistakes bare by [[FranchiseOriginalSin repeating them without improving on them]] and the various real-world scandals involving said culture did not help matters. To [[https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/26/17148350/ready-player-one-book-backlash-controversy-gamergate-explained quote]] Constance Grady, writing for ''Vox'':
15	-->''A time traveler from 2011 could be forgiven for being deeply confused by [the backlash]. In 2011, ''Ready Player One'' was beloved. It was "a guaranteed pleasure." It was "witty." It was not only "a simple bit of fun" but also "a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own." What gives? How did the consensus on a single book go from "exuberant and meaningful fun!" to "everything that is wrong with the internet!" over the span of seven years?''
16	* CriticalDissonance: The book received rave reviews, but audience reactions were a lot frostier. This intensified with time, as critics came to turn on the title too and retrospective reviews of the book after the announcement of its film and sequel led to a fresh look on its negative aspects.
17	* FranchiseOriginalSin:
18	** Everything people have complained about in Ernest Cline's later novels (unlikable, arrogant, entitled, show-off protagonists who hold onto petty grudges, overusing pop-culture references to nostalgia-bait the audience, generally clunky plotting) is present to one degree or another in ''Ready Player One''. But unlike most of them, at the start of the novel Wade is an underdog whose resentment is at least understandable, rather than one of the most powerful and important people in the world, and the argument could be made that the story is at least ''kind of'' about him growing beyond his flaws and becoming less selfish before the sequel shows [[AesopAmnesia he really hasn't]]. [[Literature/{{Armada}} Zack Lightman]], meanwhile, doubles down on the WishFulfillment aspects of Wade's character to such an extent that his lack of humility and delight in petty revenge and one-upsmanship are thrown into stark relief pretty quickly, with a story that fast-tracks him to the place of comfort and power that Wade has to work for and mostly keeps him there, enjoying his genetically optimized gamer weed and other luxuries while cracking jokes and pop-culture references with his fellow pilots, despite the extreme stakes of his situation. It all serves to make him less fundamentally relatable, and therefore undermines the WishFulfillment.
19	** Many readers opine that while ''Ready Player One'' could be shallow and silly at times, with underdeveloped characters, it was also a straight-forward adventure story that wasn't too difficult to understand and had a logical, satisfying conclusion the plot had built up to. ''Armada'' tried for a more complicated story and was generally seen as handling it poorly. ''Ready Player Two'' has a near-identical premise but its story is a lot more convoluted and contrived, with an abrupt ending that raises more questions than it answers. The poorer plotting and weak endings compared to the first novel makes their other flaws harder to overlook and the books more difficult to enjoy even as light escapism.
20	** All three novels are filled to the brim with 1980s pop culture references, which was more enjoyable in the first book as many of the references were to things even the average person would likely be familiar with, while also including a few more obscure references for fans of those works; while some readers found it a bit much, it was generally tolerated. ''Armada'' and the sequel have far more obscure references that few people outside their niche fanbases are likely to understand and to make matters worse, ''Ready Player Two'' even gets some of these references factually wrong, making it harder for anyone to appreciate. ''Armada''[='s=] explanation for why Zack Lightman is so obsessed with the 80's, trying to form some kind of connection with his DisappearedDad, is also seen as an excuse to recycle ''Ready Player One''[='s=] schtick with a much weaker plot justification, while ''Ready Player Two'' just recycles the first book's plot outright.
21	* FriendlyFandoms: The book complements Cory Doctorow's ''Literature/LittleBrother'' very well. Those who like one book usually end up liking the other.
22	* HarsherInHindsight:
23	** A few years after this book was written, several high-profile harassment movements exposed a nasty streak of toxicity and gatekeeping running through much of geek culture. [[http://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/26/17148350/ready-player-one-book-backlash-controversy-gamergate-explained This helped contribute]] [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-ready-player-one-tells-us-about-toxic-fandom/ to the ongoing]] backlash towards it, since the fun nerd power fantasy no longer looked like innocent fun.
24	** The villain of the book and movie is IOI Corp. Several years down the line, a real life IOI Corp in Malaysia actually came under fire not only for [[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/27/greenpeace-blockades-ioi-palm-oil-refinery-rotterdam-port inhumane treatment of wild animals and destruction of forest areas in Borneo]] to establish new palm oil estates, but also for [[https://www.finnwatch.org/en/news/213-ioi-group-suspected-of-serious-labour-rights-violations violation of human rights]] when it comes to treatment of their employees. [[note]]And oh, the company was founded on money scammed from various people.[[/note]]
25	* HilariousInHindsight:
26	** The TakeThat towards ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'' becomes this with [[http://deadline.com/2015/03/ready-player-one-movie-steven-spielberg-ernest-cline-warner-bros-1201398299/ Steven Spielberg directing]] TheFilmOfTheBook.
27	** Creator/TyeSheridan wearing [[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual tech goggles]] [[Film/XMenApocalypse for a large portion of the movie]] once again.
28	** By 2021, there's a Brazilian metaverse app called OASIS. But the premise of the book is literally about a metaverse with the same name.
29	* HypeBacklash: While the book was highly praised upon its initial release, over the following years, it began to attract a considerable backlash. The most common criticisms are that it is [[ClicheStorm cliche]] and heavily derivative of other works, overuses pop culture references to disguise that it has little to no identity of its own, embraces a soulless consumption-as-identity model of nerd culture, [[http://www.okayplayer.com/originals/ready-player-one-black-culture-erasure-harmful-opinion.html doesn't feature enough black icons from the 80s]], and is an amateurish first novel besides. This also ties into the HarsherInHindsight entry more than a little bit.
30	* JerkassWoobie: The aforementioned declared as canon by Ernest Cline himself fanfic reveals Sorrento to be this of all people. [[spoiler: He wanted to destroy OASIS because his sister got so addicted to the Hunt for the Egg that she started taking meth to stay awake, later dying from an overdose]].
31	* JustHereForGodzilla: The ISO-9000 standard "[[YoungAdultLiterature YA teen dystopia]]" plot is pretty much there to justify the massive bounty of 80s and 90s pop-culture references, which in turn are the main reason most of the story's audience exists.
32	* MemeticMutation:
33	** "People who live in glass houses should shut the fuck up."
34	** "Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo received something of a musical revival due to its use in James Halliday's video will.
35	** After the announcement of the film adaptation, it became a minor meme to mock the novel's purportedly clunky prose and dialogue and [[PanderingToTheBase endless litany of 80s nerd culture references]] through the quotation of certain passages.
36	* MoralEventHorizon: IOI's desire to control the OASIS makes perfect sense; not only is it the single most profitable enterprise in human history, but its online credits are the ''de facto'' '''GlobalCurrency'''. It's as if Reagan-era POTUS-For-Life was up for grabs, so the lengths they're willing to go should have been expected. But there's really no glossing over the fact that IOI engaged in bribery, racketeering, premeditated murder and ''terrorism'' just to win a ''contest.''
37	* {{Narm}}: The book's copious use of LeetLingo and the word "noob" hasn't aged terribly well, being seen as a kind of nerdy TotallyRadical by some detractors. It was especially egregious considering the book was published in ''2011'', long after such early 2000s internet slang had fallen out of style.
38	* NotSoCrazyAnymore: Cline was mostly describing his dream online game when he envisioned the OASIS back in 2011 -- but a number of elements have already become reality.
39	** Some fans found it incredulous that people would be using characters from established franchises as 3D avatars for OASIS. Cue a little something called ''VR Chat'', and more often than not you'll see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eix7fLsS058 exactly that]] happening.
40	** OASIS credits becoming more valuable than any other currency is downright ''prescient'' in light of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin Bitcoin]] value shooting up to ''over sixteen thousand dollars'' in 2017.
41	** The fight against the CorruptCorporateExecutive villains seeking to monetize the OASIS has gained a real-world parallel in the movement to maintain Net Neutrality along with safeguarding online privacy from marketing purposes.
42	** A horrifying one due to recent reports that Sony filed a patent for VR based ad displaying (including one that brings to mind the film's Pure O2/"80 percent of the visual field" pitch), the ads being based on a users eye tracking information.
43	*** Even worse with Facebook wanting to place ads in games through the Oculus store for the Quest 2, similar to how IOI wanted to do so.
44	** Some questioned how copyright laws apparently have gotten so lax in the future that just about every media franchise has a playable skin in the OASIS. ''VideoGame/{{Fortnite}}'', a popular online game, would start regularly having tie-in skins for franchises such as ''Franchise/StarWars,'' Creator/{{Marvel}}, Creator/DCComics, ''Franchise/StreetFighter,'' and ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' just to name a few.
45	* ParanoiaFuel: The Cataclyst has the power to kill hundreds of characters with no known countermeasure, and nobody knows where it is. [[spoiler:It ends up getting used during the largest player gathering in the history of the OASIS, killing all but one of them.]]
46	* SoBadItsGood: Among the BrokenBase, there's a substantial portion of fans among nerddom who like the book due to how over-the-top it is in its celebration of 80s nostalgia, minimalist writing style, and general cheese factor. Creator/MikeNelson and Conor Lastowka of ''Podcast/RiffTrax'' actually made the podcast, ''Podcast/ThreeHundredSeventyTwoPagesWellNeverGetBack'', dissecting the book based around this premise.
47	* SlowPacedBeginning: The first several chapters explain the state of the world and the importance of OASIS. The actual quest for the key doesn't begin until Wade discovers the Tomb of Horrors and the Copper Key.
48	* SpiritualSuccessor: Could be considered one to Conor Kostick's 2004 novel ''[[Literature/TheAvatarChronicles Epic]]'', as both follow a very similar plot and themes: in a post-apocalyptic CrapsackWorld where the entire world plays a virtual reality MMO and your station in life is most likely dependent upon your in-game prowess, a poor boy and his friends pursue the game's ultimate quest, become rich and famous along the way by noticing things others don't, and end up as enemies of a powerful CorruptCorporateExecutive who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.
49	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
50	** The book is famous for its heavy focus on properties from the 1980s and 1990s despite in taking place in 2044. It could've had commentary about effects of reboot culture, the current obsession with nostalgia and how future society is [[CreativeSterility still focused on the same entertainments from over half a century prior]], but instead it fully embraces that sterile obsession with nostalgia and only talks about how awesome old shows and movies are. It also could have talked about the shallow nature of nostalgia, that the only reason old properties remain popular in 2044 isn't because people naturally like it but because it's the key to winning Halliday's fortune and control of the OASIS.
51	** The real world is in shambles with a global energy crisis leading to frequent blackouts in all major cities, extreme climate change causing famines, constant wars between nations, the stacks being plagued by gun violence…and none of it has any relevance to the plot. Nor is it ever explored how the world is impacted by having millions of people, particularly the rich and privileged, spending all day completely ignoring these problems by being in virtual reality.
52	* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Even though the story is set several decades in the future, the plot is so heavily dependent on Pop Culture of the past (both InUniverse and within the real-world timeframe of when the book was published), that this trope has come into effect as several long-running franchises and fandoms have continued past the point of the book's publication. Among the references that are already dated as of 2018:
53	** Wade claims to have watched ALL the ''Franchise/StarWars'' movies, "the original and the prequels". No reference is made to the Sequel Trilogy (''Film/TheForceAwakens'', ''Film/TheLastJedi'', ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker''), the Anthology Series (''Film/RogueOne'', ''Film/{{Solo}}''), the live action series (''Series/TheMandalorian,'' ''Series/TheBookOfBobaFett'', etc), nor any of the animated series (''WesternAnimation/TheCloneWars'', ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'', etc).
54	** Similarly Wade also boasts that he watched "all" of ''Franchise/StarTrek'', specifically mentioning ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', and ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', but not ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' or ''Series/StarTrekPicard''.
55	** It is noted that a PosthumousCharacter had set the world record by playing a perfect game of VideoGame/PacMan in "just under four hours". Less than a year after the book was published, the world record was actually set [[https://kotaku.com/5875131/you-cannot-top-the-new-pac-man-world-recordat 3 hours, 33 minutes]].
56	* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Wade holds people who call in to the tech support hotlines where he works (first voluntarily, later as an indent) in searing contempt, seeing them as lazy incompetents who should ReadTheFreakingManual. While this is likely to [[CatharsisFactor strike a chord]] with anyone who's ever worked in tech support, it comes across a bit differently to people who are more used to being on the other side of the equation - feeling frustrated and confused by some user-unfriendly piece of technology and then having to subject themselves to an equally demoralizing [[ForInconveniencePressOne tech support process.]] There is also the fact that Wade is literally getting paid to sit there and answer those inane questions -- if everyone adopted the do-it-yourself values that he holds to, he'd be out of a job!

Context YMMV / ReadyPlayerOne