The Psychology of Wade Watts

 After seeing review titles that say Ready Player Two was horrible I read it for myself and it is amazing. No, I am not here to roast the book. I think it is good sci-fi writing, but to each their own. What I'm here to talk about is how Wade Watts and literally everyone else in his fictional world need to learn how to handle reality outside their devices. Let's just psychoanalyze Wade and see what we find out.

Courtesy of Bookstacked.com

*spoilers for Ready Player One and Ready Player Two are contained in this post!*

Just to get it out of the way, yes I like this series. No, I don't think it necessarily needed a sequel, but it is engaging and entertaining. This is sci-fi, obviously, so you can expect a plot that isn't entirely possible. I think at this point he'd be wise to end it here and stop. I don't think it deserves the criticism it is getting. Your main character does not need to be perfect. He does change as the book hits the midpoint. The honest reality that I see is that Wade Watts never knew how to deal with reality without hiding in the Oasis, nor did most of the people in the Oasis. His mother died of drug overdose and he hid from that online. 

This fictional period reflects a point where life has fallen apart, so much so that everyone is escaping reality and running from it, even after the Anorak incident. Some have given up on fixing it. Wade Watts is now becoming like Halliday (the man he idolized from the jump) - a recluse that doesn't know how to interact with people except in digital form. He changes when Anorak goes rogue and everything hits the fan. He realizes that he was wrong. The ONI device (a headset that connects to your brain for more real experiences) shot him down a rabbit hole that fed his already horrible addiction to the Oasis. Today we look at the flawed character that is Wade Watts and acknowledge that he is not a static character. 

His Situation

He went from living in poverty with his aunt and her boyfriend to being rich. Before that, his mother died of depression-related drug overdose. He is running the Oasis by the second book with the five people he found the egg with (minus one which is honorarily replaced with Morrow). His friendships have deteriorated in some ways, blown up in other ways, or faded. He doesn't have enough social contact. He is hopelessly addicted to the Oasis. He's already in a bad place mentally. If you want to call him a sociopath, please do your research. Halliday may have been one, but Wade is not. He simply doesn't know how to deal with the real world outside the Oasis. I don't think he ever did. He has spent almost his entire life in the Oasis avoiding the real truth of the state of the world - and he isn't the only one. When Anorak locks everyone into the Oasis until the seven shards are found, he begins to see that the Oasis is not so safe anymore. By the end he won't touch an ONI device again. Don't judge the first chapters of a book by the actions of a character that hasn't found the main conflict yet.

Courtesy of Daily Mail

If you know how important social contact is, you know that Wade is in a dangerous place when you first read the beginning chapters. We already see in the beginning of the second book how isolated he is and how addicted he is. His relationship with Samantha is lost temporarily because he couldn't live in the real world with her. They are no longer friends, let alone lovers in the first three chapters. The happy ending of the first book has snapped in two, only to be replaced by Wade letting his relationships fade and break. His friendships rise again towards the middle of the second book. Looking at how alone he is before that happens, this is hardly surprising. He admits that he doesn't trust an actual person as a therapist and we see that he lives in a world he creates for himself. This illusion promptly falls apart when Anorak takes the invincability robes back by stealing and the Oasis is taken hostage.

 Too Much Power 

Social skills have to be there to wield power. After living purely in the Oasis for most of his life, I can safely say he doesn't have the real-world social skills to wield the power of the robe he has on. He literally goes after the avatars who say bad things about him, that is until Aech suggests therapy. While the therapy was clearly a good move, he probably needs to be unplugged from his fantasy world along with everyone else in the book. Mid-book everyone wants to log out due to Anorak going AI rogue, so that is likely to happen more often after all this blows over. Wade gives up ONI use entirely. The Oasis does not lose too much popularity, though.

Samantha rails against him releasing the ONI because she wants to fix the real world. This was what ended the relationship dead in its tracks for a while. I do believe Samantha has a point. Unfortunately for Wade, he can't imagine life outside of what he's always known until Anorak happens. His safe place is a videogame world where he can be whatever he wants to be and do whatever he wants to. This is why his leadership is not quite up to the power of the robe. His character shouldn't be untouchable.

The world around Wade is serving him up until Anorak goes rogue. Part of his problem is that he is focused on himself, yet that isn't unique to the human race. Our technology does this every day for us, encouraging the individual to focus on themselves and not others. When you have your fictional, perfect world serve you and give you everything you ever wanted, it doesn't discourage "me, me, me". It actively discourages Wade from stepping out of his fantasy of being invincible to face the state of the world. This is why he opted to give ONI to kids of low income for free during early chapters, as opposed to trying to fix the world itself. He thinks helping others escape will help people live happier lives. Being focused in on your needs and obsessions instead of stepping out to see what others need is not what someone in power should be doing, which is why Og created a weapon that can kill Anorak. At the end of all this (and no, I'm not telling the entire ending), Anorak is destroyed and Wade is not the same person he was. 

Why People Are Upset

Wade came across as an underdog hero in the last book because he was an underdog. Wade is no longer an underdog. He has the opportunity to do great things with his wealth. He had the choice of releasing the ONI or not. Many reviews are not positive on this book. I am currently reading it and see no problems with the writing itself, just many flawed characters who never learned to handle reality in their younger years and should be unplugged from their devices. The sad truth of the fictional world this book created is that most of the younger generations (Wade included) were taught to escape to the Oasis early on, leaving Wade and several others at the disadvantage of never knowing how to face real life. They never knew how to fix the world. Frankly, no one does.

Courtesy of Wordpress.com

People are upset that Wade is making horrible decisions, to put it point-blank. They didn't read enough to get to his apology to Samantha and see his worldview change. Yet, what I read about his decision-making skills early on doesn't surprise me. He didn't know how to face the truth of the world's sorry state, let alone how to wield the power of a robe that makes you immortal online. Did you expect the character to solve every problem on earth in the blink of any eye and save the world without flaws and conflicts? I didn't. When half the world or more is literally in stasis running around a digital world, most humans on earth aren't even looking for a solution. 

Every single human in the book is addicted to the Oasis to some degree (minus maybe Samantha). The rest of the five are all in for the ONI and give it credit for making end-of-life care better, upping the amount of empathy in the world, and eliminating disease spread. While end-of-life care might be a point to the five, the rest of it can truly come down to the fact that most of the world isn't leaving their house. Unfortunately, this makes it easy for thieves and murderers that killed some users while they were in stasis. ONI leaves your body in stasis while you wander the Oasis, so naturally, riots and disease spread have gone down due to physical inactivity. Anorak makes the ONI a serious problem by creating infirm ware that makes you unable to log out, meaning anyone logged in could go into a coma after 12 hours of use. The views on the ONI are suddenly not bright. Respawning is also suddenly not working, to make matters worse. In the end, no one died of ONI-related brain trauma. All the same, Wade decided not to use his ONI again.

Wade is not the only character blind to their addiction. Seriously, if you are mad at the main character's choices, go analyze how he grew up and why he is what he is. Wouldn't you hide in your happy educational treehouse if your mother is doing drugs due to depression? The book followed the natural progression of how Wade Watts would handle power. He barely left the Oasis in the first book, so what makes you think he isn't still an addict? He was unbalanced then and still is now. Wade made bad decisions, but he learned and apologized. What do you expect from someone so addicted to the ONI that he either sleeps or is online? He barely leaves his house all book. My point is simply this; Wade Watts is a flawed character, but you didn't get to see his worst traits in the last book because he was the underdog. Read past the first five chapters that are groundwork and get to the main conflict before you say the book is trash, because it isn't. The ending, while a bit odder than I expected, was heartwarming.

Conclusion

Courtesy of The Herald-Standard

 I don't see anything that shocks me. That world created by the Oasis is where everyone hid from the state of the world. AI going rogue isn't out of the ordinary, and nor is Halliday being sociopathic (given his disorder). Wade spent years of his life hiding in a van in haptic gear. He became his idol, which he studied obsessively (minus sociopathic tendencies). Halliday was in a dangerous state and Wade followed suit. He took one step further than Halliday, however, in releasing the ONI. That being said, Wade turned back from that path when the ONI was hacked by Anorak. Wade learned. We also know Halliday learned something from creating the ONI.

You are all entitled to your opinions on this book. It is a good sci-fi book (and if you dislike sci-fi, well, you may not be into it). I will close with a challenge, though; I challenge you to read before you judge. Ditto for games and movies. There is no shame in liking a series of books, games, or movies that isn't popular. Don't let one or two bad reviews stop you from trying it out. You can like it or dislike it. Get it from a library or watch another gamer play it on Youtube if you are afraid to spend the money. Don't let one person who hated it tell you what to think. Most people only post reviews if they love or hate it, so read the content of the reviews when you look at any review. Amazon sometimes has reviews from unrelated products in review sections because some people type in the wrong place.