Wade Owen Watts a.k.a. Parzival Quotes

Okay, we get it. Wade hates the real world. Maybe if he hung up a poster or something, his spartan apartment wouldn't be such a miserable place. But really: is virtual reality a good way to handle one's dissatisfaction with their lot in life? Sure, he may be wearing a haptic suit, but isn't he still actually sitting in a trailer park?

This is Wade's philosophy. As someone who doesn't believe in organized religion, it makes sense that Wade is unconsciously searching for another form of immortality: heroism, which he finds online.

The lich is also Halliday's "perverted form of immortality" because it was programmed by him and kind of acts like him. It's like a self-designed zombie.

This is a plot gimmick to raise the stakes on the Hunt. If Parzival "dies," he has to restart at level one and lose everything. It's also a way that the OASIS mimics real life. You only have one identity, so be good to it.

There are no saves in real life, and the OASIS's lack of save points adds to the tension of the plot. Sure, it may not be real life, but sometimes the stakes are the same.

The whole egg Hunt is a game against Halliday. It's Halliday's legacy, giving him eternal fame. Or at least fame that will last as long as the OASIS does. But is this the kind of legacy people should be striving for? Can Halliday shake the fact that people also remember him as a disgruntled lover scorned?

Halliday didn't even like his childhood, but he preserved it anyway, like an insect in amber. He might have done it so he could pretend to go back in time whenever he wanted. To him, having a crappy childhood was better than a crappy old-hood. To which we say: fair enough.

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.

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.

If Wade himself can't achieve eternal life (and who knows, maybe he can with his zillions of dollars), at least his avatar is immortal. Except, if there's no one left to control it, does it technically exist?

Even though Wade is miserable in his aunt's trailer, he's able to escape and feel safe inside the world of a videogame. Home is where the (virtual) heart is, we guess.

Wade feels safe imagining he's home with the Keaton family. Wade's real life is so terrible, he'd probably feel safe at home watching Breaking Bad.

Safety is a big priority for Wade, and is probably the main word he would use to define a "home." But is any place really safe? Even in the OASIS, very real dangers surface—it's just that their consequences affect the real world, rather than the virtual one.

This must be Wade puffing out his chest and trying to act all macho for us. We see right through it. His biggest hope in life is to find a safe zone of his own, a place he really feels at home. For now, that place only exists in the OASIS.

Home is a fast internet connection. No, this isn't just advertising propaganda for your local ISP. When Wade's home is online, it's important to have a fast, safe connection so that his avatar doesn't get any glitches.

Once again, Wade uses the "safe" word. Even though his apartment is basically an impenetrable fortress with an airlock, he still only feels safe inside the OASIS. He's at home there.

Wade's apartment is less a home than it is simply a means to an end. It's a stronghold, as home-y as a fortress. He blocks out all light and doesn't even bother to decorate. All his efforts go into personalizing his digital home because that's the one that counts.

Remember what we said earlier about Wade finding a safe zone inside the OASIS? He creates one for himself, a high-tech base on an asteroid with no neighbors. Here he isn't stuck, he's free to come and go as he pleases, and that makes it the perfect home.

Sometimes fond memories of home aren't even from the house you grew up in. They're from a place you had fun, met new people, and fit in. The arcades of the '80s were homes to many people.

Aech's home isn't even a house. It's an RV, which proves home isn't only where the heart is, it's where your Internet connection is, and if you can take it with you wherever you go, well, more power to you.