NOTICE: This article is about the deceased good billionaire from Ready Player One. For the corrupted main antagonist in Ready Player Two, click here
| “ | Hello. I am James Halliday. If you're watching this, I'm dead. Before I died, I created what we in the biz call an "Easter egg". A hidden object in a game that gives special powers to whoever discovers it. The first person to find the egg I've hidden somewhere inside the OASIS will inherit my stock in Gregarious Games, currently valued in excess of half a million do... Uh, half a trillion dollars' worth, and total control of the OASIS itself. In the form of my avatar, (voice changes) Anorak the All-Knowing, I created three keys. Three hidden challenges test for worthy traits revealing three hidden keys to three magic gates. And those with the skill to survive these straits will reach the end, where the prize awaits. | „ |
| ~ Halliday hosting a video when he’s dead. |
James Donovan Halliday (1972-2040) is the posthumous overarching protagonist of of Ready Player One, and the posthumous overarching antagonist of its sequel, Ready Player Two. He was the creator of OASIS, a massive online simulation used by billions of people in the story's dystopian future setting. When the story begans, the late Halliday has just willed a major prize to whosoever finds a unique, hidden easter egg in his VR realm, the OASIS. The terms of the will would give the finder his half-trillion-dollar fortune, along with administrative control over the OASIS itself.
He was portrayed by Mark Rylance, who played The BFG in The 2016 BFG movie.
History[]
James Halliday is the creator of the OASIS. He described his childhood as "neglected".
James Donovan Halliday was born in Middletown, Ohio, on June 12, 1972. His father was an alcoholic machine operator and his mother was a bipolar waitress. He was a very shy, awkward kid and he had trouble interacting with girls and others, until a younger Ogden Morrow had confronted him in school, as Halliday was reading a module on Dungeons & Dragons. Og invited him to come down to his D&D gaming session at his house, and Halliday had made his first friends in Og's basement: a little band of über-geeks just as he was himself. Among his friends was Kira Underwood, his crush, whom he was too nervous to confess his feelings to.
Halliday would spend his evenings after school in the local bowling alley whenever his parents started screaming at each other. There, he would play Black Tiger to avoid going home to his constantly arguing parents. Black Tiger soon became one of Halliday's favourite games and was mentioned in one of the earliest ever entries in Anorak's Almanac.
AA 23:234: "For one quarter, Black Tiger lets me escape from my rotten existence for three glorious hours. Pretty good deal."
A lot of inspiration for his games comes from his childhood.
James was a social outcast who had trouble talking to girls growing up, and came off as awkward and unappealing. He is thought to have been on the autistic spectrum with the condition once referred to as Asperger's Syndrome.
Kira Underwood, referred to almost exclusively by Halliday by her Dungeons and Dragons nickname of Leucosia, may have been the only female that he ever contacted in a casual, social context.
Halliday took his primary avatar's name, Anorak, from a nickname Kira gave him in their youth.
Halliday was outwardly in love with Kira, but so were many others. He could never find the courage to ask her out. When Og married her, Halliday's dreams were crushed. Subsequently, given that James was thus smitten with Ogden Morrow's (late) wife, he chose to break contact with Og for the rest of his life. Their love for Kira created a division between the two men.
After Parzival wins his egg hunt, Halliday admits he only built things and spent most of his time in the OASIS near the end of his life, telling Wade that he can only experience true happiness in reality. This prompts Wade to begin to relish being in the outside world more, and for the first time in his memory, realize he didn't want to go back into the OASIS.
Appearance[]
Halliday has brown hair, grey with age, and is 5ft 7in and weighs 114 lbs.
As James Halliday[]
Halliday in real life, as seen in the movie "Ready Player One", was a rather medium height man with a pale skin color and dark-ish brown hair that is kept medium-long and untidy.
As Anorak[]
Halliday's famous OASIS avatar is a tall wizard in black robes and was described to be an older, more handsome version of Halliday himself. His sleeves on his robes are embroidered with a large calligraphic letter "A". His persona of a powerful, yet grizzled elderly wizard is highly reminiscent of many classical depictions of the disguise used by the Norse god Odin the All-Father to walk amongst the mortal realm.
Personality[]
Halliday is introduced as an eccentric and senile old man, as it was rumored that he had lost his sanity after he isolated himself from the people around him. These rumors are untrue, however, they are founded by his eclectic and reclusive persona, as it is likely Halliday suffers a form of autism. Despite being a sexagenarian, Halliday is shown to have his childish moments and loved the 1980s when he was a teenager, to the point of firing employees who bear no knowledge of 1980 pop culture. Halliday enjoys practical jokes and has a well-developed sense of humor, albeit with an often sheepish or timid delivery.
Throughout the book, it was speculated that Halliday has Asperger's Syndrome, an autistic spectrum disorder which affects a person's social interactions and non-verbal communication. Being celibate, Halliday died without having a wife, although he was in love with Kira.
Quotes[]
| “ | Off you go, keys. | „ |
| ~ Anorak telling the keys to go |
| “ | The keys aren't just laying around under a rock somewhere. I suppose you could say they're invisible, hidden in a dark room that's at the center of a maze that's located somewhere up here. | „ |
| ~ Anorak telling the OASIS players about the 3 Keys |
| “ | Let the hunt for Halliday's Easter Egg… begin! | „ |
| ~ Anorak, beginning his challenge to the OASIS players |
| “ | Goodbye, Parzival. Thanks. Thanks for playing my game. | „ |
| ~ Anorak’s last words to Parzival, in his original form as James Halliday |
Gallery[]
Promotional[]
Screenshots[]
Trivia[]
- James Halliday is Mark Rylance's third role in a Steven Spielberg film. Rylance had previously appeared in two other Spielberg films: Bridge of Spies (in which he played Rudolf Abel) and The BFG (where Rylance played the titular character).
- The inspirations for James Halliday's character are Howard Hughes, who was a successful businessman, and Richard Garriott, a video game developer.
- Michael Keaton was considered to play James Halliday, before the role went to Mark Rylance.
- Halliday can be seen Placing a TOMY Hand-Held Pac-Man Game when rising out of his Coffin actually being Spock’s Mark IV Photon Torpedo in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
- Halliday wears Pins for The Game SIMON and a D20 mostly known for being in Dungeons and Dragons.
- In the movie, Parzival lists several of Halliday's favorite things, when Art3mis tests him. These include:
- Favorite first-person shooter videogame: GoldenEye 007, playing as Oddjob.
- Favorite food: Hot Pockets.
- Favorite restaurant: Chuck E. Cheese.
- Favorite song: "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.
- Favorite music video: "Take On Me" by a-ha.
- In the movie its implied that the Anorak and Halliday in the OASIS are more than they appear. At the end of the movie, Halliday acknowledges that he is not an avatar and James Halliday is really dead, but dodges Wade's question of what he really is.
- The obituary for James Halliday that was published as part of the marketing for the Ready Player One movie, the birth and death years are shifted by one (1973-2040), matching the timeline established in the movie (takes place in 2045, five years after Halliday's death and the beginning of the egg hunt). PDF file: "The Oasis Visionary Dies at 67"