Ready Player One: a rant about a thing I love (SPOILERS)

**SPOILERS ahead**

So, I'm about to bitch about a thing that I intensely love from beginning to end. This is a thing that us nerdly types do. We nitpick a thing that is 95% perfect for that 5% that fell short.

So, here's the 95% good of this book:

*The book includes rigorous details about '80s culture, of which I love.

*The book includes painstaking minutiae about video games and arcades and movies like "Real Genius". It makes references I get and mostly identify with, as a nerdly-type hewwwMAN.

*Of the four main characters in this book there are TWO people of color, one mayyyybe transgender/non-binary character, one gay individual, two overweight peeps, one possibly asexual character and TWO women. These other-than straight white male cisgender characters are treated, mostly, on equal footing with the straight white male cisgender character...other than the fact that the straight white male cisgender character is the one that is the main protagonist and won the contest at the end.

Here's the other 5% of the book that I take issue with:

*Most of the "other"ness character traits were thrown into ONE character. Aech is an overweight black gay woman that plays a man in the simulated online world of the book. She probably did this solely to gain respect and not because of gender identity, which I think is a great nod to feminist issues. Throwing almost all diversity into one character is a minor complaint. Art3mis is overweight and has that scar on her face and Shoto is Asian, but seriously. Ok, maybe I can let this one slide.

*The BIG problem I have with this book is the love story. I'm completely ok with Art3mis and Parzival having a love story. The problem I have is how Parzival handled it. One, when Art3mis told him to back off, he pulled a Lloyd Dobler and PUSHED the issue. Cline could have EASILY just kept the hounding-the-girl portion of the story out of his self-loathing after she cut things off.

Second, the LAST SCENE OF THE BOOK! I dislike MANY things about this last scene. Ok, so Parzival had to find Art3mis in a garden maze, for one, like she was the final prize in the video game of the entire plot. Ew. THEN, when he sees her in person for the first time he tells her she's beautiful and she's all like, "really?!?" and acts all timid like she'd NEVER been in any other part of their relationship. Because she has a birthmark on her face. There was a lot of buildup to her "disfigurement", how she cut herself off because she was so hideous when it was just a damn birthmark on part of her otherwise gorgeous face. Why not give her an actual disability? Why not NOT make the first thing Parzival fucking says to her about her beauty? Gross! So gross.

And THEN he tells her he wants to spend his life with her. Whoa. Hold up there, buddy. You are literally meeting in person for the first time. Yes, you know her really really well online and it's safe to THINK you want to spend your life with her but she has withheld a lot of affection from you. For all you know she just sort of wants to date you at this point. Don't tell her you love her and want to spend your life with her yet! Calm the fuck down! This whole time she's still being all timid and shy, in disbelief that he could possibly hold her in that esteem when she has proven herself to be, on multiple occasions, way more of a badass than he is. Ew. And then they hold hands for awhile. That part is sweet. It should have ended there, but then there's a kiss. Again, they JUST met. I could overlook that part if the "beautiful timid girl" shit hadn't happened, but I cannot. I just want to rip out the last five pages of the book.

Or rewrite it. If I rewrote it it would end with Art3mis taking her walk outside, but not hiding at the end of a maze. She's not a fucking conquest. Then, they'd meet and be all shy and awkward, because it's the first time they've met face to face IRL but Parzival would say nothing about her beauty. She wouldn't be more timid than the situation itself would warrant. She would be her usual badass take-no-prisoners self. They would absolutely take a walk and then maybe hold hands on a bench, but no kissing.

Overall, I reread one of my top five books of all time this week in the form of an audiobook read by Wil Wheaton and it was super lots and lots of fun. Last scene aside, I'm in total love with this dystopian Matrix-y gay romp in a video game world of a book. I'm sure I'll read it at least ten more times in my life. Yay for things that are awesome.

They are SO going to fuck it up with the movie, though. You KNOW they will.

The Matrix (1999)

I never noticed Cypher was betraying them from the beginning until this watching. I really don't pay that much attention to movies, apparently. I usually just sit back and enjoy the pretty words/pictures. It's going to be difficult for me to give this movie any less than tens across the board because every shot is meticulously beautiful. The only complaint I have is that it's a typical hero/Christ story and that the "One" is male. If Joss Whedon had written the screenplay with the Wachowskis, this movie would be fucking unstoppable.

Agent Smith is perfect. How is Hugo Weaving not the biggest star ever? I mean, he lipsyncs better than most drag queens I've seen in person, has the vocal cadence of I don't know--God?, and the versatility of a contortionist. He's pretty much my favorite character in these movies. Ugh, I hate Morpheus, though. He's soooo tiresome. Fucking believers, man! What's their deal? And he's SUCH a drama queen. He's so patronizing and cryptic and self-righteous. Of course, I didn't feel this at first before I knew what was going on with this movie. So, ok, obviously, he's the audience surrogate and I need to let him do his dramatic thing and shut up about it already.

I think the pills are really just DayQuil and NyQuil. I've always loved the idea of questioning reality. I'm very much a pluralist in the way that I believe that we are only as good as our perceptions and our perceptions cannot...wait, I have to watch Neo unplug...our perceptions cannot be assured as reality. We can never see through someone else's eyes, truly. That's the true true. Sorry, I know...

So, was the pill just a symbol? No, it made him hallucinate...ok, so it loosened his perceptions of what he thought of as "reality". I wonder if fat people in the Matrix are really just people with bad self-esteem, because if everyone is really just a "battery" no one would be overweight. So, is no one overweight IN the Matrix?

Morpheus: Your appearance now is what we call residual self-image: the mental projection of your digital self.

God, I love that line! What would be the mental projection of YOUR digital self?

I don't really mind the doofus-ness of Keanu Reeves. Never have. Yes, I find him attractive. He's pale, skinny and dark-haired. That's my type. But, I don't mind his daftness simply because some of us are like this, but aren't actually daft. I choose to believe Keanu is this type.

Ok, so essentially Morpheus speaks in zen koans. I suppose I see his purpose, but I still respect a direct-talker.

I heart the Oracle! So, when the Oracle tells Neo he isn't the one, that he has "the gift, but it looks like you're waiting for something" this supports my theory that everyone is "The One", we just haven't, most of us, self-actualized yet. I hope that was an intended message by the Wachowskis, because I like it!

How many times have you handed someone a cookie and said those famous "right as rain" words? I've said it dozens! Ok, I'm calling it. Scores below. It's almost midnight and this might be the only "winter" night we have this year (if last winter is any indication) so I'm going to cuddle up without the computer for the movie's last half hour.


replayability: 8
music: 10
character average: 7.3
atmosphere: 8
dialogue: 7

TOTAL: 40.33