51 pages • 1 hour read
Ernest ClineReady Player Two
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 26-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 26 Summary
Based on information gleaned from Kira’s Seven Shards of the Siren’s Soul adventure module, Wade believes the Seventh Shard lies on the Xyxarian Mountains, located on the same planet as Anorak’s Castle. Once there, he inserts the six Shards into the Shrine of Leucosia to produce the Seventh Shard.
Upon touching it, Wade experiences a final flashback: Halliday asks Kira to test out an early ONI prototype. Wade realizes Halliday used that moment to copy Kira’s consciousness without her permission. This is the final straw for Wade, who no longer worships or even defends Halliday’s actions.
Suddenly, Anorak appears. Now is the time for Wade to carry out the plan he formulated: He hands Anorak seven fake Shards and uses the opportunity to steal back the Robes of Anorak. Wade immediately teleports to Anorak’s Castle, where only the bearers of the robe may enter and where the Big Red Button sits.
Chapter 27 Summary
Unable to enter the castle, Anorak teleports outside its window so he and Wade can talk. Wade threatens to push the Big Red Button if Anorak does not release Og, but Anorak refuses. Meanwhile, Wade uses a portable Telebot Control Station that allows him to use his OASIS avatar to control a robot in the real world. The robot, located outside the home where Og is held, joins other robots controlled by Art3mis and Miles, GSS’s head of security.
They storm the house and find Sorrento holding a gun to Og’s head. Anorak enters the room in his own telebot and orders Sorrento to stand down, but Sorrento refuses. As part of their deal, Sorrento wanted access to the Big Red Button. Now that this is impossible, he has gone rogue. Anorak shoots Sorrento in the head, causing Sorrento’s trigger finger to spasm and shoot Og in the stomach.
Unbeknownst to Anorak, Sorrento programmed an army of combat telebots to activate upon his death. Wade provides cover for Miles and Art3mis as they transport Og to an ambulance. Wade is quickly overrun, sending his consciousness back to the OASIS. From there, he activates a spider-legged protective shell where he stays in the real world during OASIS sessions to fight off as many of the telebots as he can, giving Art3mis enough time to get Og to a hospital. Miles, however, dies in the battle.
Chapter 28 Summary
Back in Anorak’s Castle, Wade tries to stall Anorak until Og can enter the OASIS and L0hengrin can deliver the Dorkslayer. As they talk, Anorak reveals that Og knew about Leucosia’s consciousness but refused to restore it. Anorak also says he programmed the ONI protocols so everyone who reaches their 12-hour limit—which Wade is fast approaching—will not suffer brain damage; they will merely fall into a deep slumber until the conflict is resolved. So, Anorak did not permanently kill anybody in the game; the only casualties were bystanders who died as a result of Art3mis’s plane crashing.
Suddenly, the Great and Powerful Og appears behind Anorak.
Chapter 29 Summary
Og and Anorak engage in a climactic superhero-style battle. L0hengrin arrives with the Dorkslayer, allowing Og to deliver a killing blow. With Anorak dead, every ONI user regains consciousness.
After sleeping for 15 hours, Wade wakes up in his private infirmary with Art3mis by his side. She tells him real-world Og died of the gunshot wound shortly after vanquishing Anorak in the OASIS. Before he passed, Og told her he was wrong not to resurrect Kira and that Wade should do it for him.
Chapter 30 Summary
In the OASIS, Wade, Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto gather at the Shrine to Leucosia to assemble the real Seven Shards.; a replica of Kira in her mid-20s emerges. The group explains everything, and though Kira is sad to learn that Og is dead, she is grateful the group resurrected her. She also reveals that for every user who logs into the OASIS using ONI, a massive .oni file is created that maps the user’s entire consciousness, just as Halliday did for Kira. Given the implications of this technology, both Halliday and Kira agreed to keep it hidden, unless one of Halliday’s heirs—Wade or Og—completed the Shard quest.
Since Og used ONI to battle Anorak, Wade is able to resurrect him in the OASIS. He also resurrects Art3mis’s grandmother Ev3lyn, who all but lived in the OASIS after her cancer and its treatments made real life too painful to bear.
Epilogue Summary: “Continue?”
Wade and his friends agree that the world is not ready to learn about consciousness-copying technology and digital resurrection. Instead, they upload digital versions of Kira, Og, and themselves to the Vonnegut’s ARC@DIA virtual environment, along with .oni backup files of every ONI user. Wade sends the Vonnegut off to search for a habitable planet.
Here, it is revealed that the book is narrated by Wade’s digital replica, who pilots the Vonnegut and maintains regular contact with his real-life counterparts on Earth. He states that Wade and Art3mis are married and expecting a daughter they plan to name Kira.
Chapters 26-Epilogue Analysis
There are a series of reveals in the final chapters that hold major significance for Wade’s character. The first is the revelation that Halliday forcibly violated Kira’s mind when he placed the ONI device on her head under false pretenses. This severs the final thread of hero worship connecting Wade to Halliday, as the former realizes how toxic he’d become over the past three years thanks to his adoration. There is a clear parallel between Halliday’s invasion of Kira’s mind and Wade’s earlier invasion of L0hengrin’s privacy, leading to much-needed introspection on Wade’s part.
Meanwhile, Kira’s long-awaited emergence exists largely to reveal that anyone who uses ONI automatically creates a digital replica of their consciousness. Her exposition provides Halliday with a redemption arc by casting Anorak as a corrupted version of the troubled tech founder. But even though Halliday is framed as having learned that invading people’s brains is wrong, his ONI still creates copies of users’ consciousnesses without their knowledge or full consent. It is also notable that neither Kira nor Wade have second thoughts about resurrecting Og, even though he never consented to having his consciousness copied or reproduced.
These events highlight one of the book’s key assumptions that not all readers may share: eternal life is an unalloyed good that no one would reject if given the opportunity.
This, then, leads to a third major reveal: The book’s narrator is not Wade’s human form; it is the replica of his consciousness that is presently flying through the galaxy in search of a new home for humanity—or, at the very least, humanity’s digital counterparts. This AI version of Wade views ONI’s powers of resurrection and eternal life in glowing terms, telling readers, “We were witnessing the dawn of the posthuman era. [...] One final gift to human civilization from the troubled-but-brilliant mind of James Donovan Halliday. He had delivered all of us unto this digital paradise” (359). Later, Wade’s copy is even more effusive about his state of digital eternity: “And best of all, we’re going to live forever. I will never have to lose them, and they will never have to lose me” (365).
As stated before, the desire to use technology to transcend human bodies and morality is a popular sentiment in Silicon Valley. German American entrepreneur Peter Thiel is perhaps the most visible figure in this regard, investing millions in efforts to achieve immortality and controversially believing that injecting young people’s blood into his veins will prolong his life. (Bercovici, Jeff. “Peter Thiel Is Very, Very Interested in Young People’s Blood.” Inc, 1 Aug. 2016, www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/peter-thiel-young-blood.html.) Readers may wonder, however, if the flesh-and-blood Wade is as enthusiastic about his digital counterpart’s vision of digital eternity. Real Wade has a wife and a child on the way, so it is probable that his priorities may have changed. This could even be the basis of an unconfirmed third book, in which digital Wade—having amassed all the knowledge of this world and countless other worlds—returns to challenge his real-life counterpart in an epic battle between human and artificial intelligence.
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By Ernest Cline
