Character Analysis
Comparing Apples to Apples
Ogden Morrow and James Halliday are described as the Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs of MMO gaming, in that they're a "partnership destined to alter the course of human history" (5.9). And Ogden Morrow pretty much looks and acts just like Steve Wozniak in every way. Does that make Kira Morrow's real-world counterpart Kathy Griffin?
We kid. But Ogden puts the "gregarious" in Gregarious Simulation Systems, the partnership created by Halliday and Morrow. If it were Halliday by himself, Nutso Recluse Simulation Systems might have been a better name, even if it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Og's the sane one of the duo, having better social skills, a more positive public image, and a marriage.
The most sane thing he did was, in fact, to get away from the OASIS, which consumed Halliday's life and his sanity. Distressed at the direction OASIS was heading, Og went on to create educational software (like a 21st-century Oregon Trail) for kids, in an effort to better the planet. If Halliday is a foil for Wade, who is purely focused on himself and his own personal gain, then Morrow might just be a foil for Art3mis, who wants to use her share of the money to benefit the world.
Gods and Monstrous Dancers
Og and Halliday had a falling out and ended their life-long friendship over a girl, which means the bromance either wasn't that strong to begin with or Halliday was more crazy and pathetic than anyone ever thought.
At the end of the story, Og acts as an almost literal "god out of the machine" a.k.a. deus ex machina, appearing out of nowhere in Aech's Basement chatroom and using his god-like super avatar powers (and bajillions of real-world dollars) to bring Wade and his friends to safety. He does something similar at his dance party when he eradicates all the Sixers with one blast of his magic red lightning fingers.
Speaking of dancing, one more thing to cement the Woz-Og link: Og's avatar is a pretty bad dancer, as evidenced by his "spinning around like a dervish" (18.32). This is something we've seen Wozniak do on Dancing with the Stars. We're glad he found his calling as a tech genius, because if he designed computers as well as he danced, we'd still have calculators as big as our living room.