Sunday, March 13, 2016

Midterm

 

Make some connections between class content (a blog post or class discussion) and Ready Player One.

At first glance, Ready Player One may not seem like it could possibly have any connections to our "real" world. However, if you look just a little bit deeper into the content, it reflects much of our society and even does a little foreshadowing into our future. Take media and technology, for example, in both worlds (Wade's Ready Player One world and ours) and you will find that it rules both societies almost completely. These days, everyone has a smart phone with them at all times and if they don't they are completely dysfunctional. People need to constantly be plugged in to the virtual world and the same goes for Wade and his world. In his reality, though, he is more concerned with Oasis, the online world and virtual video game, than his own life. So much so that he even skipped school to continue to play the game or slept right through school as a consequence of playing on Oasis for too long. I know more than a few people that have delayed going to sleep or any other important obligations to play videogames.

The opening line of chapter twelve is, "I slept for over twelve hours and missed school entirely." Wade completely rearranges his sleeping schedule and life for this online world, which isn't too far off from the world we live in now. Another very brief conversation from class was about the Sixers threat, turned reality, to blow up Wade's home with all of his family inside. They made the comment,

"With everything going on in the world, do you think anyone will care about an explosion in some ghetto-trash rat warren in Oklahoma City?" and continued with, "No one will care. And the authorities won't even blink." This relates back to our society in a different way. Crimes are happening everyday all over the world, but the difference is that some are reported and cared about more than others. Just like what Sorrento stated, society tends not to care about the crimes that take place in the poorer areas. The crimes that take place to the wealthier folks in nicer areas are reported at higher rates as they are "more valuable humans". Sorrento even goes as far as to say that people will be glad that there are a few less hundred people using up food vouchers and oxygen, which is often times how people feel about those on welfare in our world.

One blog post we were assigned recently was about female characters in videogames, whether or not they were damsels in distress, and what characteristics they had that reinforced the previous question. I decided to examine Art3mis on those grounds and was glad to find that Ernest Cline had incorporated a female character who was not a damsel in distress. Quite the opposite actually, she is fiercely independent and protective of herself. She even named her avatar after Artemis, goddess of the hunt and fertility, which gives the egg hunt a whole new meaning. I couldn't decide whether or not Cline had thought about that or if it was just a silly coincidence. She is extremely capable of holding her own even if she trips up sometimes as she is an extremely skilled character in Oasis with the best weaponry that she earned all on her own (or with her money).

-Alison Provost          



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1 comment:

  1. Your point about the ghetto in Oklahoma city makes me think of Flint, Michigan and so many other poor communities in the U.S. where people and children are poisoned by the municipal water sources that they have trusted.

    I appreciated your bringing up Art3mis as a strong female character. She does have very strong qualities, especially when referencing the video game genre. Lots of great points here. I agree her character resists stereotypical ways females are portrayed in video games. As a counter-point: are there ways that the character of Art3mis feeds into stereotypes, either through character traits or how she functions through action in the novel? She seems like a complicated character to me.

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