Ready Player One: Difference between revisions

* [[Bash Brothers]]: Shoto and Daito.

* [[Battle Royale With Cheese]]:{{spoiler|The final showdown between the Sixers and the gunters.}}

* [[Black Best Friend]]: {{spoiler|Aech turns out to be one}}.

* [[Bland-Name Product]]: Thankfully averted in most cases; the book quotes portions of movies like ''[[War Games]]'' and Monty Python verbatim, references countless bits of 80's culture by name and impeccable detail.

* [[Butch Lesbian]]: {{spoiler|Aetch, who behaves so similarly to a boy her age that no one seems to doubt her gender, even her best friend}}.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: The quarter {{spoiler|and the Cataclyst}}.

* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: Nolan Sorrento, the head of the egg-hunting division of IOI.

* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Wade suffers this as {{spoiler|Art3mis breaks up with him, he loses touch with Aech, and worst of all, the head of IOI clears the second gate and finds the third key before him.}}

* [[Hidden in Plain Sight]]: Wade finds the first key {{spoiler|on the planet of the school he attends. It was an hour's walk from Aech's school for years}}.

** It has completely increased in big numbers, especially in Japan, thanks to the OASIS being popular.

** Wade is certainly one himself, especially during his time in Columbus.

* [[Love Is a Weakness]]: {{spoiler|Art3mis}} breaks up with Wade because their romance is getting in the way of the hunt.

* [[Love Triangle]]: {{spoiler|Halliday, Ogden and Kira}}

** The Sixers of IOI are named because the first number of their employee numbers begins with a six and are six digits long. Also a subtle reference to a six switch Atari 2600 console.

** Wade's handle "Parzival" references the Arthurian knight who quests for the Holy Grail.

* [[One-Letter Name]]: A variation - "Aech" is pronounced "H" (probably because OASIS wouldn't allow an actual [[One-Letter Name]]). Aech also calls Parzival "Z".

* [[Only Smart People May Pass]]: The Easter Egg requires Encyclopedic knowledge of 80s pop culture.

* [[Player Versus Player]]: Usually Gunters vs. Sixers en masse in story

* [[Post Cyber Punk]]: The setting. If IOI wins, it will quickly become classic [[Cyberpunk]].

** There are three keys and three gates {{spoiler|With the last gate requiring 3 keys from three different users, and consisting of three parts, because three is a magic number}}.

** IOI progressively offers Wade three deals: {{spoiler|become the head hunter and get a $50 million bonus upon finding the egg, $5 million in exchange for his information on the first gate, or take the second offer and not die in real life.}}

* [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]]: Pretty much IOI's strategy.

* [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them]]: Both Ogden and Halliday's avatars can do pretty much whatever they want, including snoop on private chat rooms. {{spoiler|An unusual benevolent example, as Ogden is using his powers to keep an eye on the High Five so he can help them out if they need it.}}

** Halliday's Easter Egg hunt is Serious Business, because it comes with a cash prize of a quarter of a trillion dollars.

** 80s nostalgia is serious business because Halliday has ingrained it so thoroughly into OASIS culture and the multi-billion dollar Easter Egg hunt.

** The vehicle Parzival uses to go to Ogden Morrow's party. It's a [[Back to The Future|Delorean]] with an onboard computer named [[Knight Rider|KITT]], complete with flashing light and it has [[Ghostbusters|Ghostbusters decals]] plastered on the side.

** The Beta Capsule appears as a [[Infinity+1 Sword]], turning its user into [[Ultraman]] for three minutes.

** The mechs at the end include Mechagodzilla, Gundams, Voltron, Evangelions, and tons of other classic giant robots.

** Wade has two space vessels on his asteroid base: an [[Star Wars|X-Wing]] and a [[Firefly|Firefly-class]] ship.

** At one point, the elections in OASIS are held and [[Cory Doctorow]] and [[Wil Wheaton]] are re-elected as President and Vice-President. This becomes doubly funny when you realize that the audiobook is narrated by [[Wil Wheaton]] himself.

* [[Total Party Kill]]: The Cataclyst wipes out every player in the ''entire sector of space'' when active. {{spoiler|This includes the entire party of heroes and the entire army of Sixers. The game isn't over for only two reasons: the Sixers hid a backup contingent just outside the sector, and Wade had the extra life he unknowingly obtained in his perfect game of Pac-Man.}}

* [[Trapped in TV Land]]: Not totally fitting, but at one point, Wade {{spoiler|has to go through all of [[War Games]] as [[Matthew Broderick]]'s character, saying all the lines}}. It's later mentioned that the OASIS creators expand this to other movies and TV shows.

* [[Underdogs Never Lose]]: Wade is virtually penniless. He has to scrounge in a junk heap to find the right equipment to run his console and has no money to actually go anywhere or do anything in the OASIS until he finds the first key. He's up against a ruthless, billion-dollar corporation.

* [[Up to Eleven]]: At one point, Wade {{spoiler|plays a perfect game of Pac-Man}}, a feat only ever done by six people in the real world.