Avatars & Wizards & Gunters & Muggles
Wade Watts and Harry Potter are the protagonists of their respective tales, and the parallels between the two begin to appear quite early in both stories. For starters, both are orphans. Wade’s mother dies when he is young, and he is sent to live with his Aunt Alice. He is fully aware, however, that Alice only allows him to stay because she wants additional monthly government assistance which his presence provides her. Given that knowledge, it is unsurprising that Aunt Alice treats Wade poorly. She steals Wade’s laptop so she can pawn it for rent money and Wade, knowing that she won’t let him stay in any other part of the crowded double wide trailer they share with two other families, is forced to curl up in the laundry room, next to the dryer, for warmth. (For an excerpt from Chapter 1 describing Wade's surroundings, click here.)Harry, of course, is in a similar plight. His parents are murdered while he is still a baby and he is sent to live with his only remaining relative, his mother’s sister, Petunia. Petunia and her family emphatically do not want Harry and so treat him quite poorly. He is shown no love or affection, given hideous hand-me-down clothing that is far too big for him, and sleeps, at the beginning of the series at least, in a cupboard under the stairs. Both Wade and Harry must cope with their painful home situations until their significant skills ultimately lead each of them to the start of their quest.
Quests, of course, would not be all that interesting without a truly diabolical villain, and both Ready Player One and the Harry Potter series meet this requirement. In the world of Wade Watts, this enemy is Nolan Sorrento, the leader of the egg-hunting division of evil tech corporation Innovative Online Industries, usually known as IOI. After Wade secures the first key, Sorrento and his superiors realize that Wade is their biggest rival in the hunt for Halliday’s Easter Egg. If Sorrento and IOI succeed in finding the egg first, they will win billions of dollars and gain complete control of the free-access OASIS, able to destroy most of what is good for people living in this dystopian world. Sorrento is cold and ruthless, showing no concern for the value of human life and willing to murder to complete the quest. In an attempt to murder Wade, he sets off a bomb in the stacks, which kills Aunt Alice and many other innocent people. (This event is described in Chapter 14, an excerpt of which can be read here.) And, as an overseer at IOI, Sorrento has built-in followers called Sixers, IOI employees whose only job is ensuring that Sorrento is the first to find Halliday’s Easter Egg. More like an army than a company, the Sixers carry out Sorrento’s every order, regardless of the sometimes-bloody consequences. Harry’s villain, on the other hand, is Lord Voldemort, the cold, ruthless, dark wizard who also murdered his parents. Spurred on by a prophecy which suggests that Harry and Voldemort cannot both remain alive, Voldemort makes Harry his archenemy. If Harry fails to defeat him, then evil will overtake the wizarding world, and the innocent Muggle-born wizards and witches who inhabit it will be enslaved, or worse. Harry alone has the power to destroy Voldemort, and along the way he frequently encounters Voldemort’s most ardent followers, the Death Eaters. These characters follow their leader out of fear, but also because they believe in the status their association will eventually yield them, all of which mirror the behavior of Sorrento and the Sixers (harrypotterfandom.com).Fantasy stories often feature a mentor to the main character, usually in the form of a wise, old man. (blog.reedsy.com/fantasy). Ready Player One and the Harry Potter series are no exceptions. Wade Watts’ mentor or guide is James Halliday, creator of the OASIS. Halliday is dead, but the challenge he has presented to the gamers of the world is the quest which consumes Wade. Wade has become an expert on all aspects of Halliday’s life, and that knowledge is necessary for him to complete the quest and find the Easter Egg. When he does, Halliday, or his electronic ghost, appears to him virtually inside the OASIS. Halliday congratulates Wade, but also offers him some good advice: that he should live in the real world, not just the OASIS. (See an excerpt from Chapter 38 for this scene, available at this link.) Similarly, Harry Potter has Albus Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard in the entire wizarding world, as his mentor. Dumbledore’s guidance helps Harry complete his mission to destroy Voldemort, even though Dumbledore is killed before that mission is finished. As in Ready Player One, however, Harry's mentor returns from the dead to offer him some final advice. In a famous scene, Dumbledore appears to Harry in what looks to Harry like an empty King’s Cross Station but which seems to actually be some kind of liminal space between life and death, not unlike the secret room of Anorak’s castle in which Wade and Halliday meet. Armed with wisdom and perspective from his mentor, Harry is able to face and finally defeat Voldemort. For both boys, their mentor’s advice is both pseudo-miraculous and indispensable.
Through Ready Player One and the Harry Potter series, Ernest Cline and J. K. Rowling each pay homage to an eternal story form, the quest narrative, in ways which are both unique and intriguingly similar. They have introduced readers both young and old to characters, settings, and challenges that are at once engaging and relevant, reminding readers that there are no new stories, just creative new ways of telling them.
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“The Art Of Ready Player One Book Review.” Halcyon Realms - Art Book Reviews - Anime, Manga, Film, Photography, 2 Aug. 2018, http://halcyonrealms.com/books/the-art-of-ready-player-one/.
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This page references:
- Wade Watts on dryer as found in The Art of Ready Player One, Gina McIntyre, 2018
- Anorak presents Parzival with the Crystal Key in the OASIS
- Harry Potter's room under the stairs, from Illustrated Edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
- Recruitment billboard for The Sixers.
- Lord Voldemort • Evil Power // Epic trailer
