Themes

The theme of Utopia Vs. Dysopia is very prevalent in the novel since the beginning of the book, where we learn that the earth is in a horrible state, and that society is declining with the ongoing energy crisis and with the third decade of an ongoing economic recession, but we see how the OASIS is a place everyone turns to, to get away from their real life worries, and how it's like a utopia and a kind of beacon of hope for people because it gives anyone the power and accessibility to do whatever they want, dispite the state of the earth, just like it's name indicates. but as we move on in the story the theme of Utopia Vs. Dysopia has a different meaning, showing how true utopia and dysopia is impossible, how everything has it's faults, becuase there are many problems with the OASIS, just like there are still good things left in the real world. The theme also indirectly show how the people are neglecting the earth and how they are the ones that should be trying to fix it, rather than run away from it.

Competition throughout the novel is seen from the very start, where everyone is in a frenzy to try to find the Egg, and we also see it with how people refuse to help each other with anything related to the Hunt for the Egg, which creates a division and distrust among gunters, because everyone wants the egg for themselves, such as when Wade finds the copper key and doesn't tell anything to his friend, Aech, but Aech responds with " that's how the game is played." and we also see it with how Aech tells Wade to not hang out with Art3mis because it's suspicious, which means that the competition made it more difficult for people to just properly meet and talk to each other without being afraid that they'll slip out something or that they're being manipulated.

The themes of collaboration and independence are really central to the story of the novel. Since the beginning, It's shown that Wade and his friend Aech pride themselves in being independent that they dont want or need help from anyone, and that people who work together are just weaklings because it's pointless since there will only be one winner in the contest. As the story moves forward, we also see this further reinforced with how Aech warns Wade about his relationship with Art3mis, about how it defines common sense and that she could be just lying to him to get information. This gets amplified when Art3mis stops talking to Wade because their relationship caused them to neglect the Hunt, instead of maybe asking him to work with her. But the by the end of the story, we see that, without collaborating with other gunters, it would have been impossible to reach the end, whether it was Wade or even anybody else. We see how Wade is able to pick up the pace when Aech "repays his debt" by helping him obtain the jade key, which allows Wade to get back up to where everyone else is, despite being so far behind especially after Art3mis "dumped" him. And at the end of the book, we see how the only way for Wade and his friends to enter the last gate, was for him to ask for the help of all the gunters on the OASIS so that they can push through the sixer's forces, and he had to give Aech, Art3mis, and Shoto the location of the Crystal key so that they all had a key, because he realized that the only way for them to open the last gate, was to have 3 copies of the key, which meant that Halliday intended only for people who collaborate to win in the end.

At the beginning of the novel we see how people pride themselves in being alone, while at the end, we see how they were forced to work together, and how they actually are glad they did it all together instead of staying isolated.

The world of ready player one is taking place in a dystopian world, where there is lots of poverty and crime, so many people use the OASIS, the illusion, to escape that horrible place, into a more utopian world where they can do whatever they want, where even the poorest of people have more opportunities in the OASIS, than in the real world, so people often spend so much time there that the OASIS becomes their reality, not leaving it until they are forced to. Wade is just like the majority of people in reality, so he spends all his time there.

At the beginning of the book we see how everyone is trying to stay in the OASIS as much as possible, going as far as spending money in it to buy virtual cars, houses, and even getting married to people they've never met, in the OASIS. Wade goes through the same things and spends money on the same things as others, and he even falls in love with Art3mis, where he is reminded that he lives in an illusion when Art3mis says how he's never met her so he doesn't know who she could be, and when she said that She's "only showing the side [She] wants to show" in the OASIS meaning that whatever he experiences there, isn't really reflective of real life. We also see in the book the things people are willing to do to escape reality, where Wade spends thousands on an elaborate Gaming rig for the OASIS but he doesn't deny that what he's doing is too much, Stating that his rig is "an elaborate contraption for decieveing my senses, to allow me to live in a world that didn't exist. Each component of my rig was a bar in the cell where I had willingly imprisoned myself. It's only in the last few chapters in the book, where Wade forces himself to get off the OASIS, and makes himself a servant, when he realizes the problems in the world, and at the end, where he meets Art3mis and finally feels like there is something more to the world, that they can find happiness and that there is still hope.

There are many important characters within the book that are really obsessed with 80s pop-culture, like Wade, Aech, Art3mis, Shoto, Daito, Halliday, and many other gunters that are devoting their lives to winning the competition. We see in the book how these people pide themselves in their obsession and with knowing a lot of cool, but useless, 80s trivia.

We see obsession with Wade and Art3mis at the start of the book, where they keep neglecting many things in their lives for the egg. Both Wade and Art3mis say that they let their grades plummet, sacrifice hours of sleep, and don't even eat well just to win the competition. We see these same "symptoms" within Wade when he starts hanging out with Art3mis. He obsesses over her and neglects everything else, including his relationship with Aech, which he destroys, and the Hunt, despite it being the one thing that he said made him wake up in the morning.

Despite all of this these over obsessive geeks are the ones that win the contest. Their obsessiveness caused them to accumulate all the necessarry and obscure information they needed to get the three keys and compete the three eggs.

Throughout the book, we see that the reason all of them obsess with these things is because it's their only hope, the only thing that wakes them up in the morning. Like Wade, who was a poor orphan living with a cruel Aunt, or Halliday, who was an autistic boy with a bipolar mother and alcoholic father. The book shows that while obsession can bring success, it will come at the cost of neglecting everything and everyone else around you which Wade finally learns at the end of the book the moment he meets Art3mis, which becomes the first time in his life where he has lost interest in the OASIS.

Ready Player One teaches perseverance throughout the book, where gunters keep pursuing the Egg no matter what's ahead of them. One example of this is how gunters pursue the Egg even when millions of others have given up, and even when people are starting to doubt the existence of this Egg. Another really important instance of perseverance in the book is towards the final battle, where even weakest of gunters fought to defeat the IOI, despite there being a large chance of dying in the battle, and they kept going until they couldn't any longer to defeat the IOI.

The OASIS allows everybody to express themselves in ways that couldn't be done before. It allows people to alter their physical appearances. It allows people to express themselves no mattter who they are, so it especially helps people like Wade, who was bullied at school, to express himself without the fear of having anything happen to him. In the book, we see how Wade goes from being a "nobody" in real life, to being one of the most well known gunters in history, without ever needing to reveal his true identity. This also has some down sides to it of course, because it makes people never want to leave the OASIS, because they won't feel the same in real life as in the OASIS, just like with Wade, where it's like he has an identity crisis, not knowing who he truly is, and it's as if he's living 2 lives with two identities, where he says "in real life, I was nothing but an antisocial hermit. A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture-obsessed geek....... But not in the OASIS. In there, I was the great Parzival."