Liberation from Reality VS True Freedom

In Ready Player One, Wade is quite obviously obsessed with the virtual reality world provided in the OASIS. From the beginning of the novel, his obsession is clear, however, it begins only to grow even further as the story goes on. As he pushed to find each new clue and each new key, he is immersed into the OASIS for even longer and even deeper than he ever had been before. More than a mission to win a prize, it seems he is motivated to reach the absolute peak of success in this world separate from reality. However, as he pursues the ultimate status of the OASIS, his understanding of his reality grows more transparent as it fades away.
Wade was a legend in the OASIS, but quite the opposite in the real world. Although he was always aware of his social ineptitude, unpopularity, and economically disappointing situation – it seems that as his rise within the OASIS skyrockets, the disparity between the sweetness that and his real life widens greatly. Around the middle of the novel, there is an important dialogue Wade has with the reader which helps put this concept at the forefront of Wade’s consciousness. “Over the past few months, I’d come to see my rig for what it was: an elaborate contraption for deceiving my senses… I had willingly imprisoned myself.” (198) Wade realizes he has nothing of actual worth – either monetary or conceptually – in the real world, and the OASIS has taken the place of those holes. Even as he pursues his greatest dream and most intense life goal, he realizes that he is just another person wasting his life away for nothing.
Immediately following this stark self-awareness, Wade then proceeds to enter the OASIS and his distracted mindset right in front of us as we read. “In there, I was the great Parzival… International celebrity. I was a legend. Nay, a god.” (198) Despite having just revealed the most deep and sobering thoughts of his true conscience in reality, Wade delves into the exact representation of how the OASIS provides a synthetically satisfying experience for him. While wade is aware that the very thing that liberates him from reality actually imprisons him, he chooses to remain in the prison to resume the chase for the ultimate prize of exactly the institution which robs him of true freedom. “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful” (199) is all too accurate. In that moment, for wade, it’s an excuse. The real world can’t give him everything he wants and that is why he chooses the OASIS. Where he can have everything. However, he can’t every truly have everything because the OASIS is a part of the world. Wade can never have everything, and the OASIS is only an excuse to distract him from that fact.
True freedom can only be attained in true reality as we know it. This is something that Wade only realizes at the very end of his journey. He spent almost every waking moment of his life playing in an alternate reality. He believed he had nothing to live for, except for the community and life within the OASIS. What Wade has to endure in order to win Halliday’s game has pushed him to the very brink and brought him to the pinnacle of success in the OASIS. However, his happiness and freedom can only come from meeting the true Art3mis. Instead of a virtual prize, Samantha is the ultimate version of happiness in the real world. Wade goes from one victory to the next because it takes his complete realization that reality  and human connection is what truly matters for civilization to punctuate his journey. “It felt like all those songs and poems had promised it would… I had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS” (372) Songs, poems, and love, were products only possible through the imagination and emotional capabilities of human connection. Finally, Wade was able to experience the power of the true world.