46 pages • 1 hour read
Neal ShustermanGame Changer
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Identity and Perspective
Throughout the story, Ash’s identity changes both literally as he travels to other universes and symbolically as he gains emotional maturity. By shifting his perspective, Ash is able to learn about lived realities outside his own and grow into a more empathetic, active ally to marginalized groups.
At the beginning, Ash embodies the typical stereotype of the popular high school football player: He is white, heterosexual, and able-bodied. As a result of his privilege, his best friend, Leo, who is Black, describes Ash as “a horse with blinders [who] never [sees] anyone’s point of view but [his] own” (59). Ash implicitly supports people with marginalized identities, but his lack of active involvement contributes to the status quo, which is evidenced by his memories of minimizing Leo’s experience with systemic racism.
Throughout the novel, Ash’s literal shifts in perspective help him confront his ignorance and challenge his own identity. When he first finds himself in a seemingly better world despite some minor drawbacks, Ash states: “It’s amazing how a simple shift in one’s point of view can make things better. I can live with this, I told myself. [...] it’s all about perception” (47). His life is not perfect in that universe, but Ash is aware at some level that he benefits from even more privilege since his family is now wealthy. When he shifts into a world where society remains racially segregated, he begins to grasp the severity of the challenges that Leo has faced all his life as a Black person; at this point, Ash starts to contemplate the importance of taking on a more active role as an ally. Finally, when Ash comes to embody marginalized identities, his perspective changes:
We vilify the difference in others; we glorify the differences in ourselves. […] But that basic human need for identity is, and has always been, a double-edged sword. Because the closer to our feet we draw that line in the sand, the more we see everyone else as the enemy (350).
Ash’s increasingly fractured identity throughout the story as he shifts from universe to universe reflects the painful process of expanding one’s perspective. Ash’s conflicting memories and experiences, as well as the emotional and sometimes physical changes he goes through, become more and more disconcerting and unpleasant. When Hunter remarks that his brother does not seem like himself, Ash comments that he has “no specific ‘self’ anymore. Just versions. Like a human operating system” (294). Ash goes on to jokingly ask: “Well, if I’m not myself, then who am I?” (294), which implicitly reflects the teenager’s identity crisis.
At the end of the story, though, Ash has grown more secure in his identity. Learning to empathize with different perspectives has led him to better accept his place in the world. He concludes that it is the very nature of identity to encompass complex—and sometimes conflicting—impulses, as one keeps growing and evolving: “like humanity itself, there are parts of my multiple selves that will never be reconciled. Gaps that can’t be sealed but can only be bridged” (386). However, Ash’s new emotional maturity, gained through his journey across these varied perspectives, allows him to view this complexity as a strength: “as any engineer can tell you, it’s the tension in the cables that makes a bridge strong” (386).
Passive Privilege Versus Active Allyship
Game Changer explores the theme of privilege and systemic oppression by depicting its protagonist, Ash, learning to empathize with marginalized communities. Significantly, Ash does not start as an actively cruel character but rather as an oblivious one. He is generally aware of his privilege as a popular, heterosexual, able-bodied, white young man. The issue is really that he does not grasp the intricacies of the systems he benefits from. His friend Leo, for instance, tries to get Ash to understand that parts of their lives are very different because of institutionalized racism. However, the latter repeatedly minimizes Leo’s experience out of ignorance, leading Leo to comment: “This country is filled with the well-intentioned ignorant [...]. It’s a freaking plague, and you’re a carrier” (13).
In short, Ash starts off believing that not actively being an oppressor is the same as supporting marginalized people. His narrative voice, which tells the story from a removed, more mature perspective, explains:
At the time, I thought having a diverse group of friends checked my box of social responsibility. Like there was nothing more for me to do than have some brown at the table. ‘Color shouldn’t matter’ I was always taught—and always believed. But there’s a big difference between ‘shouldn’t’ and ‘doesn’t.’ Privilege is all about not seeing that gap (7).
However, over the course of the story, Ash comes to recognize lack of action as a form of privilege. In other words, Ash realizes that he can afford not to be involved in the fight for social justice only because he is protected from the consequences of those oppressive systems. In the reality where racial segregation is still the norm, he wrestles with this new knowledge on seeing how few fellow students have joined the school’s desegregation club: “It made me wonder how many important causes were crushed not by opposition, but by lukewarm support” (143). In other words, Ash comes to realize that inaction does more harm than good. Additionally, as Ash progresses, he faces examples of how active allyship involves not only the most obvious actions but also thoughtful and proactive consideration. When Ash decides to organize an unsanctioned desegregation dance, for example, Leo and Cerise warn him that, should there be backlash to the event, the Black members of the club would bear the brunt of it.
Significantly, the narrative places the onus of institutionalized oppression on social and political systems rather than on individuals. As one of the Edwards emphasizes: “Only a self-centered, privileged fool thinks they can single-handedly fix problems it took all of human history to create” (331). This approach provides necessary context and frames systemic oppression as a more complex issue than merely an individual choice. Within this context, over the course of the story, Ash learns to navigate his legacy and social responsibility, which is symbolized by his very name. With the aim of prompting Ash toward action, Leo asks at one point, quite bluntly, if the name bothers Ash:
‘Does it ever bother you,’ he asked, ‘that you were named after a guy who was named after a guy who was in a movie that glorified the Confederacy?’ […]
‘I’m not him!’ I told Leo.
Then Leo leaned close and whispered, ‘Prove it’ (293).
In the end, Ash concludes that true allyship is active and constant work—but work that is core to his identity and critical to protecting his friends.
Gray Morality
Although Game Changer explores complex topics like identity, privilege, and social inequity, it does not provide a clear moral message. Ash, who is the narrator, often questions his own choices, and the ending remains morally ambiguous. This ambiguity allows the narrative to encourage critical thinking from the reader, as it leaves room for nuance, questions, and mistakes. In fact, Ash’s character arc seems to support the idea that one’s perspective is constantly shifting and growing.
The theme of Gray Morality is tied to the theme of privilege. When Ash shifts to the segregated universe, for instance, Ash realizes that he is still the same person: “I thought this version of me—this product of segregation—would be some terrible fun house distortion. But I wasn’t any more clueless or insensitive than before . . . because I was already clueless and insensitive. [...] Because [my eyes] only saw what they wanted to see. What was easy to see. What was convenient” (106). This observation implies that Ash’s morality is tied to his social context, and that although he is not explicitly racist, he benefits from white privilege in a way that complicates the inherent morality of his social standing.
This theme is further developed by the changes in Leo’s life throughout the universes. At first, Leo is the star quarterback of their high school team. He has a promising academic future too, with scholarships on the horizon. In the segregated world, Leo is not able to play football or attend college. Later, he is sent to jail for defending an unarmed man. As Leo’s situation worsens, Ash increasingly realizes that even in their original, seemingly better universe, Leo experienced systemic racism despite Ash’s obliviousness. As Ash explains to Leo when trying to spark Leo’s memory of their original world, even that world was far from perfect, as racial injustices—among others—exist there too.
Furthermore, the morality of Ash’s actions is questioned several times throughout the story. When he shifts universes and accidentally erases his attackers, for instance, Ash expresses confusion at how he should feel:
I had deleted three people. Granted, it was in self-defense, but still…if I had a knife would I have stabbed them each through the heart? If I had a gun would I have shot all three of them dead? What actions are justified in self-defense? Is erasing them from all versions of existence fair punishment for being sleazy rat bastards? They were human beings with mothers who loved them. But now, since their mothers never had them, they didn’t even have that (239).
The narrative does not provide a clear answer to Ash’s questions as his morality crisis unfolds. These unanswered questions encourage critical thinking, as even the very definition of “deleting” remains ambiguous: Is it, for example, akin to murder? Such open-ended questions are then echoed at the end of the book, following Ash and Layton’s accident:
As I looked at Layton lying there, his body broken, I had to wonder if this was a tragedy or karma. Does a man who would hit a woman deserve to lose the use of those hands, like some sort of biblical judgment—and to suffer months in intensive care for something that took place in an entirely different reality? Layton was clearly capable of that kind of abuse here—but did capable make him culpable? I honestly don’t know (383).
Ash accepts that he is unable to answer those complicated moral questions. This ambiguous ending underlines the novel’s very message, which is that morality is shifting and depends on many factors, including social context, ethical implications, and individual intentions.
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By Neal Shusterman
