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.
Epigraph-Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Epigraph Summary
The epigraph is a quote from a song by the protagonist’s favorite band, Konniption, titled “Come As You Were.”
Chapter 1 Summary: “Full Stop”
Ash is an American teenager who plays on his high school football team, the Tibbetsville Tsunamis. He is the first-person narrator of Game Changer and describes himself as a white, well-intended but occasionally misguided teenager. While playing the first game of the season, Ash experiences a strange cold feeling when he is hit during a play. He initially brushes it off, per his family’s motto of “walk it off,” even though it leaves him dizzy. While driving back home after a celebratory dinner with his team, he fails to notice a stop sign and is nearly struck by an oncoming vehicle—the reason he missed the sign, he soon realizes, is because all stop signs are now blue instead of red. When he comments on it, everyone tells him that has always been the case.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Sideways”
Ash continues to notice details in his life that are now different, such as football team colors and mascots. He confides in Katie, a female friend he has some romantic interest in, and Leo, his best friend and teammate. Katie tries to reassure him by suggesting that he just sees colors differently from everyone else. Leo worries that Ash may be having a mental health crisis. During another game, at the moment of another tackle, Ash feels a similar wave of cold. Later, when he goes back to his car in the parking lot, the vehicle is now an expensive BMW instead of his old Dodge. While giving a ride home to his twin neighbors, two peculiar skateboarders, he realizes that he now lives in a gated mansion.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Coke and Crayolas”
In this new reality, Ash and his younger brother, Hunter, are close, despite not getting along in his usual life. Ash’s family is wealthy, but his parents are absent, and as Ash’s store of memories from the present reality surface, Ash realizes that he sells drugs on the side. He soon finds that he can draw on this respective reality’s lifetime of memories as if he had experienced them himself. Later, Katie calls him over to show him her little brother’s coloring book, in which the boy initially colored a traffic light red instead of blue.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Horror/Comedy, but Mostly Horror”
Ash invites some of his friends over for a movie night. The group includes Leo and his sister, Angela, whom Ash likes but does not want to date out of fear of losing Leo’s friendship, as well as Ash’s math tutor, Paul. On arriving, Leo is upset that the new guard at Ash’s gate assumed he was a worker rather than a guest because he is Black; Ash dismisses Leo’s anger, suggesting it was an honest mistake. During the evening, Ash suddenly remembers that in this universe, he and Angela secretly hooked up, albeit months ago. He feels guilty and fears Leo’s reaction, but Angela reassures him that she has moved on easily; Leo, who overhears them, gives an underwhelming reaction. Leo already knew, and he respects his sister’s freedom—though he does indicate that if Ash had disrespected his sister, he would feel otherwise.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Exit Strategy”
Ash tells his drug dealer that he wants out, and the latter replies that he needs an exit strategy. In other words, Ash needs to find someone to replace him, or the people above this drug dealer in the chain of command will hold Ash accountable. As Ash closes his father’s store, where he works part time and from where he sells drugs, Ash is approached by the twin skateboarders he gave a ride home to a few days earlier. The twins ask about his headache, which has been plaguing him since the first cold wave he experienced, and Ash realizes that he has never told them about it. He also did not tell them his name. The twins explain that they are just fans of the Tsunamis, Ash’s high school football team. Later, Ash remembers that his team, in this reality, is not called the Tsunamis but the Blue Demons—determined to find answers, Ash sets out with his younger brother to look for the twins at the skate park.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Hostile Territory”
Ash shows Katie a sketch of the Tibbetsville Tsunamis mascot, which she seems to vaguely recognize. Later, Angela approaches him to talk about Katie’s relationship with Layton, one of Ash’s teammates, who appears to be controlling. At the next game, Ash shifts again and finds himself in a universe where everyone in his school is white. Leo is not on the field with him.
Epigraph-Chapter 6 Analysis
The first part of Neal Shusterman’s Game Changer introduces the novel’s main characters, narrative stakes, and themes. The protagonist and narrator of the story is Ashley “Ash” Bowman, a self-described stereotypical teenager who plays on his school’s football team. The story is told in the first person from Ash’s removed perspective, i.e., a more mature voice reflecting back on his adventures over the course of the novel. Throughout the book, the narrator occasionally directly addresses the reader, either to hint at upcoming developments and thus create suspense or to comment on his past inexperience and naivety. The novel’s opening sentence, for example, states: “You’re not going to believe me” (1). This comment immediately creates anticipation and foreshadows the fantastical dimension of the narrative.
Additionally, Ash’s characterization at the beginning of the story contrasts with his more mature narrative voice. He states that he is the type of person who “[tries] to live in the moment” (84), but he adds that the downside is that “when you live like that, you don’t think much” (84). His best friend, Leo, who is Black, adds some nuance to that self-description, accusing Ash of being one of the “well-intentioned ignorant” (13). Although Ash is somewhat aware of his privilege as a white, heterosexual young man on the surface, he is oblivious to the realities that marginalized communities face: “At the time, I thought having a diverse group of friends checked my box of social responsibility” (7). Overall, Ash’s characterization sets up the theme of Passive Privilege Versus Active Allyship, as well as the recurring motif of football.
Choice is also a running motif throughout the book that Ash introduces in the first few chapters. Reflecting on his decision to play football, the young protagonist comments: “But was that really a choice? Football was my father’s love. It was the way he and I connected, so I loved it, too. Sometimes it’s like that when you’re a kid. You eat up whatever your parents put on your life’s plate” (5-6). This assessment hints at the existential distinction between fate and free will, which the novel echoes later as Ash grapples with his responsibility to save the universe.
Other characters and relationships are established in the opening chapters. Ash’s family dynamics are framed as stable, if somewhat complicated. His father sells auto parts, and his mother is a nutritionist, so they “[scrape] by okay” (4), meaning they are likely working to lower middle class. As for Ash’s younger brother, Hunter, the narrator comments: “The thing is, no one ever fully trusts their siblings—that’s normal—but you do trust them to have your back when it really counts. Hunter and I didn’t even have that” (30). In this evaluation of this relationship with his brother, Ash seems to take no responsibility; at this point, he is not yet claiming ownership of how his actions—and inactions—affect the world around him. Ash merely states that his parents and brother can sometimes be petty and selfish, and Ash wishes things were easier between them. This attitude foreshadows Ash’s emotional growth, as he eventually learns to make peace with his family and actively work on his relationships with them.
After the strange occurrence at Ash’s first game of the season, the plot takes a turn toward speculative fiction. While the beginning of the book emphasizes normalcy and realism by depicting a stereotypical American teenager’s life, fantastical elements begin to emerge as Ash notices that the stop signs have changed color. That seemingly innocuous detail introduces the red-versus-blue symbolism, conveying a sense of eeriness and anticipation.
Ash then notices that his socioeconomic status has changed radically. His family is now wealthy and famous, and his relationship with Hunter is noticeably friendlier. When he realizes that he is neither happier nor worse off in this reality despite its material advantages, Ash wonders whether he should simply accept it. His temptation to stay passive, given his own comfort, plays into the theme of passive privilege versus active allyship, as Ash is willing to accept change because it benefits him. In short, his Identity and Perspective have not yet been challenged, which contrasts with the subsequent shifts to universes where he assumes different levels of privilege. In fact, Chapter 6 increases the narrative stakes because, rather than an innocuous change like road-sign colors, the shift brings about a radical social difference. Finding himself in a legally segregated version of the United States, Ash is now directly confronted with his own white privilege and social responsibility.
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