Ready Player One Chapter 10 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
(Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
I forgot that my avatar was sitting in Halliday's bedroom and that, in reality, I was sitting in my hideout [...] entering commands on an imaginary keyboard. All the intervening layers slipped away, and I lost myself within the game. (10.38)
This explains how we, as readers, also forget sometimes that Wade is inside a game. It's so real to him, he forgets it himself. But note what he's saying here. He doesn't just forget what's real, he loses his self. So even though it's just a game, this is some serious existential business.
Quote 2
If there was already another gunter [...] my plan was to make a run for it, then steal a car and drive [...] to the next identical copy of Middletown. And then the next, until I found an instance of Halliday's house that was unoccupied. (10.9)
Early on in the Hunt, Wade shows his intention to go to any lengths and devote any amount of time to finding the egg. Even though this is a digital car he's planning on stealing, if the Hunt required him to hotwire and steal a real car, he'd figure out a way.
Quote 3
If and when I finally escaped from the stacks, I'd never look back. And I definitely wouldn't create a detailed simulation of the place. (10.24)
It's hard for Wade to see why anyone would re-create their childhood home in the OASIS because his own childhood was so terrible. Seeing these fond recreations makes him think that the world used to be some sort of paradise.
Quote 4
Halliday had preserved his childhood forever, here in the OASIS. (10.21)
Most of the OASIS seems to exist to preserve permanently Halliday's nostalgia. It's like a digital fountain of youth, a place that can take him back to his younger days, when life felt infinite.
Quote 5
The ability to save my place at any time basically gave me infinite lives. (10.39)
This might be one of the reasons video games unconsciously appeal to Wade. They give him the ability to defy death, to try things and again and again.