Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Sword Art Online: Alicization War of Underworld Part 2
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Kisuke525
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Incoming wall of text! Sorry I just can't seem to help it  . You don't have to read it, but I would appreciate it if you do.
You aren't wrong about a lot of this. Incarnation is used A LOT in the war part of Alicization I won't deny that, but the part about it just boosting things and changing clothes until the war just isn't true. The first time it's ever used is by an Integrity Knight pushing things with his mind. The 2nd time "might not be noticeable in the anime" you see Incarnation it negatively effects Kirito by paralysing him, because he's so scared. And yes it was also used at the academy to simply boost power and grow Kirito's sword, but how powerful Incarnation can truly be is shown at a different time. While it may not seem like a big deal in the anime "maybe it does I dunno" the whole flower thing at the academy is a big deal. Incarnation is stopping the flowers Kirito is trying to grow from growing, because people have been told that they can't grow in that part of the world. While people may not be thinking it all the time, because somewhere in the back of their mind they think that the flowers don't grow there Incarnation makes it so they won't even though they should be able to. Incarnation is being used to completely overwrite a rule of the world. The Seed was used to create The Underworld and it allows the flowers to grow wherever, but since the brains connected to The Underworld have the final say on what is what they basically decide the rules of The Underworld and pretty much have the ability to alter reality. That is what Incarnation really is. The ability to alter reality. That is why the characters compare being in The Underworld to like being in a dream, because like a dream everything is decided by your mind. Now if you've read this far you may be wondering why Kirito was able to grow the flowers even though the minds of many more people say they shouldn't be able to grow there. That's because, it was only in the back of their minds. Before a person/persons thought is made reality in The Underworld it has to go through the Main Visualizer. Now regarding the flowers the Main Visualizer sees that the brains say "nope those flowers don't grow there" so they don't. But since people aren't actively thinking that and it's just in the back of their minds someone actively thinking that they can grow there and strongly believing and visualizing it as something possible can temporarily trick the Main Visualizer into thinking that should be the true reality. That's how Kirito was able to make the flowers grow there. By this point in the story the true power of Incarnation should be clear. The reason you don't see it used as much before the war is, because most people in The Underworld don't really know what it is. Some of the Integrity Knights know how to use Incarnate Arms and Blades, but they don't really understand why/how it's happening. Most of the uses of Incarnation are done by PoH/Vassago, Gabriel, and Kirito. Kirito understands Incarnation and Gabriel figures it out over the course of the war. If I remember correctly Vassago doesn't really know about Incarnation, but in his case it doesn't matter. Now I don't know if you've read this far because it seems that I have already written a lot, so I'll do my best not to say too much more, but I wanna cover a few of the cases of Incarnation you talk about. If you wanna hear more from me just let me know. First off you say the show wasn't above breaking the rules, but I can't think of a time it did. Can you give an example? Now I wanna talk about Vassago. For starters him controlling people with Incarnation is anime original bullshit. I kinda touched on this in an earlier post, but Vassago isn't really convincing people with some crazy level of charisma either. The anime does not handle this well, but most of the Korean and Chinese players are really confused about what exactly is going on and Vassago is doing his best to further agitate and confuse them. This made a bit easier for him because there is already some hostility between Japanese gamers and Chinese and Korean online gamers in real life. And when I say real life I mean our real life not the series real world, but it applies to the series as well. Reki Kawahara actually mentions this in the afterward of one of the volumes, but says that part doesn't hold up so well since that isn't really the case anymore in real life and that it made more sense when he first wrote it. Vassago is also taking advantage of the fact that each side can't talk to each other to try to explain or figure out what is going on. Vassago is the only person there who speaks English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. How he knows all those languages is explained in his flashback, but the anime changed his backstory and actually created a plot hole in the process. Now I can't really explain in detail how he tricks everyone since it's basically just a ton of things building up overtime, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Now as for his actual use of Incarnation he actually doesn't do much. As I said earlier I'm pretty sure Vassago doesn't know what it is, but he doesn't have to. His weapons ability in Aincrad was to gain power from killing people and it still does it here it's just amped by his belief that it's a powerful ability. The reason it keeps him alive is because of the MASSIVE amount of death generated tons of resources which his weapon absorbed and since resources naturally give life it keeps him alive as long as it's in his hand because the weapon is overflowing with resources. As for Gabriel I'll just explain the mind lock one. If you want a detailed explanation about the others I'll give one if you want. First off Gabriel is absolutely insane. I won't even say this guy needs help because he is just too far gone. However, there is nothing more dangerous than an absolute mad man in The Underworld. Gabriel ACTUALLY believes that he can see and absorb souls and I don't just mean in The Underworld I'm talking about the real world to. Now I wanna get one thing out of the way because I have seen some people get a bit confused on one thing "you might have been one of them I can't remember" Gabriel cannot see and suck souls in the real world. He thought he did as a kid, but he didn't. The whole soul thing was just the imagination of a kid who was obviously not well. But since he 100% believes that he can The Underworld makes it so he can. Gabriel sees the soul the same way most people do "at least I think this is how most people that believe in the soul do" it is basically a person's everything. Their thoughts and feelings, basically everything that makes you you other than your physical body. So he basically thinks that he can absorb a person's everything. The Underworld sees that as a person's fluctlight. So when you see a character being mind locked by Gabriel what is happening is he is using Incarnation to rip the Information stored in a person's fluctlight out of them and absorb it into his own fluctlight. That's why they can't move, because he is basically in the process of ripping out their mind. As for the Laughing Coffin and Vassago stuff... Yeah I get what you're saying, but I think Reki always wanted to use them more in Aincrad, but he just couldn't. I dunno if you know this, but Reki created SAO for a contest. He had to tell a complete story or they wouldn't take it. His first submission was too long so they told him to cut it down and when he came back again they told him it was still too long, so he decided not to send it in, because he didn't wanna cut anymore. However, not wanting it to go to waste he posted it on the Internet. Now keep in mind that what he posted was very short, shorter then some might think actually. Since what he posted was originally for a contest that had to tell a complete story in a single submission it still did here. The web novel and eventual first LN volume only cover a few events in Aincrad. The Lisbeth stuff, Silica stuff, Yui stuff, the first floor boss battle, the murder investigation Kirito and Asuna do, and the Sachi and Moonlit Blackcat stuff were not a part of what he first submitted for the contest or what he first posted on the Internet and it wasn't in the first LN volume either. All of those things were written after he wrote of Kirito beating SAO. His story became popular and people started asking things like "Where did Kirito get his second sword?" and "why doesn't Kirito wanna join any guilds" so he wrote the Lisbeth story and Moonlit Blackcats story. Eventually people wanted to know what happened after Kirito got out and that's when Reki decided to continue the story. So yeah based on how the story mentions the impact Laughing Coffin has on Aincrad, but never really gets the chance to show it I'm sure Reki always wanted to write more about them and that's why he eventually does in further arcs. Now that Reki is writing Progressive he has the chance to tell the full story of Aincrad and show the impact Vassago and Laughing Coffin had on the game and the people in it. As for Vassago I found him to be better in the LN. He's still pretty much the same, but he feels different to me. I saw him as a crazy killer who just seems to love what he does and he came off as crazy but fun. Maybe he just doesn't really work in anime form or maybe the anime cranked up the cheesey evilness of him like the anime usually does with the villains. Sorry for the really long post . If you made it this far then thank you I really appreciate it!
quote="Key"]
As much as I agree with you on other points, I am one of those who will continue to disagree with you on that point. [quote] Forgive me Key. I tried to quote you as well here, but it just didn't seem to work right. Yeah I know you disagree with me and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But come on throw me a bone here! The adaptation has at least confused people on some points a bit lol. As for the Reki thing... I agree he should stick to novels and that's why he does. I don't think he meant to say that it would be better with 12 episodes or more, but that it would be needed to properly cover everything and that's true. I actually do kinda agree that the anime would most likely turn out less enjoyable, but things would make more sense. Cutting what they did in a lot of cases does make sense and in most cases was probably for the best, but some could have been kept in. Honestly, LNs in general just aren't really fit to be anime and always seem to work best in their original form. |
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1113 Location: Puget Sound |
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At the climax of Ordinal Scale too. |
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Yuvelir
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@Kisike525 I actually forgot all about the flowers. At the time it just seemed like a neat and modest element of a complex whole rather than a shallow excuse for a barrage of "cool scenes".
About breaking rules, they never did, technically. But the show was so willing to sacrifice so much to deliver spectacle with ever-increasing stakes and firepower that sacrificing their ruleset next seemed plausible. On the topic of sacrifices, I'm disappointed that the only Underworlder that got to do anything this cour was Bercoulli and even that wasn't too meaningful since the guy he defeated came back right after with godlike power. |
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Dr. Wily
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The problem isn't that the show broke the rules. After all, incarnation is a rule, and if anything I think it's kind of smart to basically outright codify the trappings and tropes we associate with this genre as a system rule. It's just that the system itself was so poorly established that when things start getting really wild, it strains credibility and makes the writing/show look stupid. You're right in that we've seen incarnation many times over the whole franchise, but up to this point it has demonstrated itself in relatively small ways**. Kirito gets a power boost, Kirito gets paralyzed with fear, Kirito overcomes a long-held belief that flowers will not grow in a region, etc. Even the larger feats we've seen incarnation do in previous parts like when Kirito defied death to slay Kayaba/Heathcliff back in Aincrad were few and far between. But this season, or specifically from the minute Vassago and Gabe entered the game in WoU, (especially when they re-entered the game in their SAO/GGO accounts this season) Incarnation went bananas. Vassago's refusal to die even with a big hole in his torso is dumb, I don't care how you slice it. If his weapon was keeping him alive, then he should have dropped dead/logged out after Kirito broke it instead of standing around talking until Kirito tree'd him. The only time we've seen something like that is with Administrator/Quinella in part 1 and since she literally hacked the game, even if that was incarnation, it was poorly demonstrated since the viewer could easily write it off as being part of her many powers granted from being Administrator. And as for Gabe? Woo boy, all I'll say is it's pretty wild that he was weaker in his literal dark god account. His feats are numerous and I won't bother listing them. The problem isn't Incarnation, it's the scale of power to which Incarnation became at the end. **Ways that, I would argue, could be easily confused with the show just taking dramatic license with the material to make things seem more epic/exciting, like when Niemon-Kayaba reactivated in this most recent episode. For example, Kirito getting paralyzed with fear or his sword getting a power boost is incarnation at work, but I've seen many a shonen protagonist over the years get frozen with fear because the villain's power level is so high or get sudden powerups through force of will/because their friends are in danger/etc without it being part of an in-show system. But let's set all that aside since whatever, it's Incarnation. Here's the real issue/my thesis: I really don't think the Incarnation system is ever really explained as well as it should've been, if at all. Especially in this season. I'm not about to do a full series rewatch, but I am genuinely having trouble remembering if the rules of Incarnation were ever really laid out. The closest I can think of is the scene with Kirito and the flowers, and that is a pretty lackluster explanation for what we see Incarnation as truly capable of later on. If incarnation was going to be such a heavy factor of this series' end game, or if it was going to be capable of granting the insane amount of power that it did at the end, that should have been either told (or preferably shown) to the viewer over the course of the entirety of Alicization instead of suddenly becoming so big right near the end. And maybe that's an adaptation/A1 problem, or maybe it's a Kawahara problem, but as problems go, it's a biggie. Sorry if this is too many words. ...also I really wanna know how incarnation let Kirito turn those dragons back into eggs because like what the hell, dude. |
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Kisuke525
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Honestly I'm starting to wonder what you even wanted the series to do to make Incarnation acceptable in your eyes. How The Underworld works is explained from a technological standpoint in the real world in a way that pretty much states that you can do anything if you're using an STL or are an Underworldian, because the whole thing is basically like a dream. The series then shows you examples of using your mind to do impossible things. Moving objects, causing paralysis, making you stronger, altering the shape of your weapon, and finally completely changing a law of the world by growing the flowers. Obviously Incarnation was gonna be used more often and more effectively in a freaking war and did anyone really expect the final boss to be weaker than the other fighters? When is that the case in any series that has battles? As for sacrifices... How can you even say that? Bercouli's sacrifice was pretty damn meaningful. If he didn't stop Gabriel Alice would have been taken to the Altar and The Underworld would have been destroyed. Yeah, he didn't permanently kill Gabriel, but if he wouldn't have stopped him for as long as he did the good guys would have lost. I understand being disappointed by the lack of Underworldians doing stuff this cour, but who else was really left to do stuff? The only genuinely strong Underworldians are Integrity Knights and the only ones left on the battlefield were Bercouli, Scheta, and Renly. Bercouli has his moment, Scheta stays behind to buy the rest time, and Renly is in charge of managing the rest of the Army because he's the only Integrity Knight left. I'm also gonna explain some stuff below to Dr. Wily that you may be interested in reading.
First off let me say two things before I dive into things further. No need to be sorry for writing a lot. I mean geez look at the freaking walls I've been throwing out lol. Second, I'm not sure how much rewatching would help you understand Incarnation anyway, because the anime does not explain Incarnation in as much detail as the novels. Now on to Incarnation. I get what you're saying. Incarnation is powerful and yes the uses of it get more impressive from a combat standpoint over time, but what you can do with it shouldn't be too surprising, because as I said above when talking to Yuvelir knowing how The Underworld works from a technological standpoint already tells you everything you need to know and the novels explain it in a pretty detailed way. I will say that the anime may not have done the technological part well, but I won't say that it failed for sure, because I can't really remember. Then after the technological stuff the series begins to give you examples of Incarnation over the course of the Alicization arc. After you see the flower scene you should know for a fact that anything is possible in The Underworld. And you guys act like Vassago and Gabriel started all of the impressive combat uses of Incarnation and that it wasn't used at the same level as they are using it by anyone else before this cour, but that just isn't true. First off Vassago would have died VERY shortly after his weapon broke, because his Life was starting to drop again, but Kirito transformed him first. You act like they talked for a long time, but they really didn't. Vassago talks for like 10 seconds and all Kirito really says is that it's the end for him and that he won't log out. And surviving when you should be dead by using Incarnation was used MULTIPLE times before Vassago did it. Eldrie did it when he sacrificed himself "you can even see his life go into the negatives" and Shasta "The Dark Knight Commander" also did it. The Shasta example may not be as clear in the anime, but he does continue to survive for awhile even though he should be dead thanks to his Incarnation. As for Gabriel he isn't really using Incarnation in some super crazy miles above everyone else type of way like you guys seem to think, but he is the most suited to use it. First off the Vecta account really isn't that wild. It's durable, has good gear, and has one special ability. The ability is to manipulate Underworld fluctlights. That's how he can control his dragons and also how he makes Bercouli's mind go blank. Now Gabriel wasn't weaker in his Vecta account "I can see why you might be confused though" he was actually stronger it's just that it doesn't really matter, because Gabriel's Incarnation is what makes him so dangerous. He only appears to be stronger after he loses it because he begins to better understand how Incarnation works during the rest of his time in The Underworld. Gabriel's main use of Incarnation is basically the ability to absorb things. It starts with souls, but as he begins to understand Incarnation better he starts using it to absorb attacks as well which you see him do with his hands in his fight against Bercouli. Then he starts to apply that absorbing ability to more than just his hands by stretching his ability away from his body by creating that black vortex and those dark tendrils during his fight against Sinon. And finally in his fight against Kirito he covers his body with the aura. Other than that he doesn't really do anything that other characters haven't done already. Transforming a weapon was already done by Sinon and flying was already done by Kirito. Being able to absorb everything isn't even that crazy since by this point you already saw the incredibly powerful Incarnation Shasta used. Now Shasta did more than just survive longer "like I mentioned before" he also transformed his body into a tornado of death. I can't remember how clear this was in the anime, but that tornado was INCREDIBLY dangerous. Anything that touched the tornado was completely obliterated. And I mean COMPLETELY as in if Gabriel didn't have the ability to absorb souls Shasta's tornado would have killed him and I don't just mean the Vecta account I mean Gabriel himself, because the tornado's ability was to completely destroy the fluctlight of anyone it touched. As for the dragon egg thing... I'll be honest I never really liked that part even though it technically makes sense. Kirito uses Incarnation to shrink their maximum life to a very low number and then he heals them to their new max life to stop them from dying. The reason they turn into eggs is because that's what they were like when their max life was really low. The reason Kirito is able to do this so easily is not explained in the anime, but one of the main reasons is because of Higa. When Higa went into the shaft to fix Kirito he connected Kirito directly into the Main Visualizer which makes it easier for Kirito to use Incarnation. Anyway I think if you consider all the things I said Incarnation and how it's used shouldn't really be a problem. Sorry for writing so much. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
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1. Do you care about Kirito and/or Asuna and the rest as characters/people and what happens to them? 2. Do you find them relatable? 3. If so to either, would you say it was because of what is in the anime or the LN? I suspect it is the latter and that I suspect is the root of my problem. The anime S1 started to make them relatable and created some investment, but then that ended for me fairly rapidly in the Fairy Dance Arc and has been gone for me since. Since I don't read the LN and if that does create those elements for you and fans, I finally understand. I'm not sure that is fully the fault of A1 because if 99% of the many LN volumes contains the elements to cause investment, it would be extraordinarily hard to translate that to a screenplay without bogging it down as Key mentioned. I already appreciated from your last link that you really liked Reki's prose (or at least that of his English localization writer) so that helped a little and I agree with that. Good wordsmithing, but my problem is at the plot level. On the subject of textual analysis, I would hope everyone understands that what we discuss and critique here are artforms and that there is a level of subjectivity involved. However, literature academics have been spending well over a century to understand what makes stories that a wide range of readers find "good" and "bad" (or "not-so-good" if you prefer) that way. The reference "The Elements of Style" is still considered a definitive result of some of that work even a century after it's initial printing and there are others more to the point of plot construction and other elements. I keep trying to hold these up to counter the criticism that "it's art, you can't legitimately say anything about it's quality" as there are indeed agreed standards from these references that can be applied in analysis. However, those still don't "prove" that a writer is good or bad, but their work can be graded to standards and that was my point. All I'm saying is that I see SAO having at least two big violations of "good practice" that show up in the anime and from what you say of the LN, they are there too. My supposition that there would be a claim made that the real and virtual worlds are the same (not that the real world is virtual) seems to be hinted a number of places as I mentioned and at 6:30 of the latest episode is another example. I know some will claim that Alice's statement is rhetorical to make a point to the reporter, but when such keeps coming up in SAO I think Reki is moving the story in that direction and it's not ridiculous. It doesn't matter what I think is reasonable, it's what the story seems to be telling me and that is called "approaching a story on it's own terms". The only way the latest episode avoided proving me right is that we now have to believe that Rath can make a completely lifelike android indistinguishable from a living human in a week or so after starting with Ichimon and Niemon. Talk about a quick progression... |
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Yuvelir
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Well, what an episode. Definitely more interesting than the rest of the cour put together, even if the first half was pretty naive and cheesy... and Alice confirming that she's an official member of Kirito's harem isn't something that was needed, but this line made up for it https://i.imgur.com/OQPFzJU.jpg
A wizened Kirito was intertesting to hear and watch, together with that hint of arrogance that comes from being a king for two centuries. Although I had to raise an eyebrow at that "promise" (if only Kingrito survives, he gets to save the world. If only Queensuna survives, she commits suicide). All in all, the implications and what's to come are more interesting than any previous ""cool"" battles although I have to wonder how they pretend to wrap it up within just one episode. It was also nice to fall back to Eugeo and what his death meant to Kirito, by far Kirito's best haremette (I kinda wanted to see him raise a family with the redheaded kouhai, but that's just some gut-level wish that ignores both of their circumstances). And even though I don't have any further complaints on a fundamental level, there are several puzzles that I would like answers for if possible (and if I'm not getting ahead of the show): -What transpired after the raid was over? Alice's body is overly complex so I can't imagine it being built in just a matter of days so quite a lot of stuff must have happened to get her there. -Assuming they reset the Underworld's speed back to normal right after they took back control, why did it still take extra time to wake up Kirito and Asuna? They even seemed to have been moved to a different facility (unless Alice can teleport/switch bodies). -Why did Asuna recover so much faster than Kirito even though they went through the same process? She was discharged 3 days earlier+whatever it takes to worry about Kirito's eating habits.
In a nutshell, I didn't want the Incarnation System to be a crutch used to explain away any and every outlandish event or detail. It was nice when it could add dramatic tension and contribute to the arc's themes, but not so much when everything is allowed because the system exists. |
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Dr. Wily
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I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the matter because while I understand the basics, I don't think the way it's implemented or used in the story is well handed at all. Anyway, regarding this episode, didn't they basically say the fluctlight isn't designed to last 200 years even if they wipe their memories? But then like... both Kirito and Asuna seem fine aside from Kirito's Eugeo-related PTSD. I mean, I don't want some twist where they're gonna die soon from having their souls' memories spent, but that whole fact seemed to get glossed over pretty quick. Also also, pretty wild that we went from robots that can barely walk even with Kayaba's fluctlight to a robot shell with perfect skin and hair for Alice pretty damn fast. Hey though, maybe now with this technology and the ability to copy Kirito's soul, all the harem can get their own Kirito! 
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Kisuke525
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I'm gonna try and keep it brief this time, but based on my past posts.... I'm gonna get my feelings about #4 on that site out of the way first. I don't really think that the series suffers from that. The series did a combination of show and tell near the beginning of Alicization "I'll admit it was more tell than show" but the tell part I thought was neccessary. From a technological standpoint there was a lot that needed to be explained for the Alicization arc to work and while a bit of what was told could probably have been shown I do think most of it needed to be told. Fluctlights, Artificial Fluctlights, the STL, the Ocean Turtle, and The Underworld all needed to be explained in detail or some stuff just wouldn't make sense. I don't really know how some of those could have been shown instead of told without important aspects being missed. Besides, that stuff only took up a small amount of the arc anyway, so I don't think it's that big of a deal. As for the rest... 1. Yes. I absolutely care about the characters. 2. I find some of them relatable. 3. Definitely the LN. I "kinda" agree with Key about the anime. I REALLY think A1 could have done a better job with the anime "and oh boy there's an army of people who agree with that lol" , but I will admit that the anime would move a lot slower if everything was kept in. I don't know if it would have been a bad or good thing "no way to know for sure" if everything was kept in, but I do know that the anime would feel very different if nothing was cut. Honestly, after talking with some friends and thinking about some stuff I've come to a conclusion. IMO this series just isn't really fit to be an anime. I'm not saying SAO is alone in that, because a bunch of other LN series don't/wouldn't adapt well either. Now I'm not saying they don't work at all as anime, but they just don't feel how they should imo. Oh and about Reki's writing... I think you misunderstood me lol. I like Reki's writing in Japanese. I'm not sure how good the fan or official translations are because I haven't really read them. I don't really wanna go too far into the textual analysis stuff, because I think it would be a bit too time consuming, but I am curious about the two big violations you mention. What are they? As for the real and virtual world thing... I'm still not sure what you're getting at. What do you mean when you say they are the same? As for the lifelike android body... First off the anime doesn't make it clear, but it has been a month. And second... The anime makes the body look better than it actually is. In the LN It does look really good, but it isn't perfect. The LN mentions that every single person at the conference could tell that her body was fake and that the people watching the broadcast could tell that it was as well. You can even hear the motors inside her body making noise when she moves.
Glad to see that you enjoyed the episode  Also happy to see that people are interested in 200 year old Kirito I was wondering what anime only viewers would think of him.
As for the promise between the King and Queen... That's kinda just how Asuna is. Her feelings about The Underworld, the real world, and living without her husband in a world where she has to put The Underworld before all of the people she cared about in the real world are a bit different from Kirito's. Her killing herself is her own choice though it's not something Kirito made her do or anything like that. As for your other questions... As I mentioned to Hiroki above it's been a month and the body isn't as good as it appears in the anime. -Yeah the speed was set back to normal. I can't tell you why it took a bit longer for them to wake up. And yes they were moved back to the mainland. Alice just has one body. -Their recovery was just them doing physical rehab. It didn't have anything to do with their fluctlights or anything like that. Asuna recovered a bit faster because she is just an overall more healthy person than Kirito. As for Incarnation.... I kinda get what you're saying, but because of how The Underworld and the technology works it's kinda unavoidable. I mean it was established early on that the world is created by peoples thoughts, so it's not like that came out of nowhere. Hell, one of the things that interested me the most about The Underworld was that it is a world where pretty much ANYTHING is possible since its basically a dream world.
Yeah I guess we will just have to disagree, because I thought it was fine. Maybe the anime is at fault a bit? I mean it pretty much never tells you when it's being used and they never really explained it in detail either. As for the 200 year thing... It was just Higa guessing and playing it safe. When he first mentions it he says it's just speculation and that he doesn't know for sure. We the viewers/readers already know that you can go past 200 years by deleting memories because Administrator was over 300 years old. The REAL danger was reaching a high number WITHOUT deleting memories. How Kirito and Asuna survived that amount of time before Higa deleted their memories is not something that will be answered in this arc though. As for the robot body... As I said above to the other two it's not as good as the anime makes it out to be. I know the Kirito thing is probably a joke, but that just wouldn't work. They cannot copy REGULAR Kirito's soul it would just break down like the others. Even if they could copy him regular Kirito would not get with any of the other girls. Maybe the anime doesn't make it clear, but Kirito doesn't have any romantic feelings for anyone other than Asuna. |
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Gina Szanboti
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While Kirito forcing the decision on her would be worse, that's not what the complaint was (or at least that's not my complaint about that bit). The Asuna in Aincrad arc would not make that choice. Only the dependent waifu she was turned into by the author after that would. You make the excuse that she would prefer to die than to live having to care for the people of the Underworld (didn't she love them too?) in Kirito's place, to continue the work that was so important to him, rather than the people she loved in the real world. That makes no sense. If she's dead she can't care for anyone, so who has priority in her affections is irrelevant. I'm not one to hold suicide against people suffering from depression, but a pact like this is just cowardly on Asuna's part, and very out of character, especially since she chose to stay there. It's like willingly throwing herself on the funeral pyre to follow her husband, to hell with everyone else, and it really left a bad taste in my mouth, despite it being a moot point and a throwaway line. |
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Key
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 Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Frankly, I think you're both way off track on this. Neither the anime or the novel elaborates on why the two of them would decide as Kirito's copy said, but Asuna has always been portrayed as having a firm sense of personal identity. Hence she probably surmised that being a copy (or perhaps even just being disembodied) would be something she wouldn't or couldn't deal with. Kirito, who identifies more with the virtual world, would be less bothered by it. |
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Yuvelir
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Huh, that never crossed my mind by a long stretch... I guess Asuna hasn't been shown to be that way in recent arcs? Considering the very brief exposition and how Alicization has played out, it reads like Kirito can exist beyond Asuna, whereas Asuna's existence can only go as far as Kirito's does. I guess it's yet another unfortunate implication from a stilted adaptation. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18182 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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There's nothing stilted about it; the anime version of that scene is nearly word-for-word what the book says and doesn't change any explicit or implicit meaning. This whole "Asuna cannot exist beyond Kirito" interpretation of that conversation is the most cynical possible way to interpret it, and not an interpretation that I saw myself either when I read the novel or saw the episode. I don't think I'm getting my point across with the way I worded the previous post, so let's try again. While Asuna has acknowledged the virtual world as "her world," she is still much more a creature of the real world than Kirito is. Remember Yuki's words to Asuna in episode 23 of SAO II - about how Kirito "isn't living in the real world"? The impact of that observation can be seen here. Asuna isn't the same; I've always gotten the impression that she enjoys the virtual world more for the connections that she can make to people there, rather than its own sake, whereas Kirito's heart is as much invested in the virtual world as it is in Asuna. Hence he would be more comfortable existing in a purely virtual state. In context, I suppose that could make Asuna look weaker by comparison, but you could just as easily interpret that as Kirito being more detached. Hmmm, the more I write about this, the more Kirito comes across as being a more ethical version of Kayaba. That parallel, I suspect, is intentional. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
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 The bolded part is exactly the same conclusion I came to in thinking of what you said about how SAO is written but since it started as a "short" story for a writing competition that lent well to an anime adaptation, we are "stuck" with that going forward.
Here is another link that gets more to the point that my other linked article was talking about https://www.creativindie.com/the-six-signs-of-weak-writing-how-to-tell-if-your-book-sucks/ as items #3 and #5 are really the point of item#4 in the first article and is the first of the "violations" I was thinking of. It's not so much about violating the "show don't tell" rule but "Bad writing usually involves endless exposition dumps within dialogue — characters that are either saying what they already know for the benefit of the audience or reader alone or telling us stories of actions that have happened off screen or away from the story being told." The second "violation" is item#2 in the link above which describes "focus". It is related to the main point or message of a story and everything that is written, from description to action, should have an integral relation to that. A famously good author said (paraphrase)"a writer needs to constantly re-evaluate while writing whether something is needed to convey the central concept/message or furthers the plot". So as an example, here is a question I was having a really hard time answering What is the message of SAOA? How does that relate/add to the message of the SAO series? To illustrate, starting with the message of SAO S1 (which is easier to answer) it is "when trapped in a computer game and facing death as a consequence of mistakes, people change and display their worst and best characteristics". At least, as far as I can determine, everything Kirito and Asuna encounter and say or do S1 relates to and elaborates on this and it was done well. The NerveGear and game mechanics were mostly passively shown or only described in enough detail so the viewer would appreciate what was happening without having to be a "gamer". After being freed from Aincrad, the story focus got lost and while it seems the message became "living in a computer game gives freedom and can change people in ways that affect them in the real world", much time and exposition was given to explain what was going on relative to various intrigues such as the plot to develop mind-control and The Death Gun Murders which were superfluous. Now, I can't really even find a focus for SAOA at all. We have the Kirito/Eugeo buddy story, the quest to free Alice, US-NSA plot to steal Alice, the battle to free UW from Administrator and fight a lot of superfluous Integrity Knights, the Dark Territory Battle, the Revenge of PoH and Subtilizer, The Return of Kirito, the Battle to Save UW, etc. It seems to have no relation to the series except that it uses many of the same characters and it adds Incarnation and your processor-less dream-scape generation that undercuts the series' grounding in computer VR hardware. What I mean about real versus virtual is that SAO made the point that since what we know of reality is information that gets fed to our brains through our senses, when a computer game has direct sensory input to the brain, the virtual world that is experienced and what happens is real in the same sense as the "real world". While this didn't rise to the level of a central message IMO, it has been a main running theme through the series. |
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Yuvelir
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It's hard for me to not be that cynical. The show just hasn't let me see enough of her psyche to reach those conclussions. What it has allowed me to see, however, is how she's the character worrying about and caring for Kirito at all times (Mother's Rosario was such a breat of fresh air in part because it let her break out of that mold). So the stilted adaptation wasn't so much about the scene otself as it was about Asuna's characterization throughout the series. So when confronted about what they would do if one of them revived while the other stayed dead, I just drew from what the story has showed me the most consistently about them: Kirito being a heroic adventurer and Asuna being Kirito's "wife". (Kirito being a light version of Kayaba is easy to see...what murks it the most is that from Aincrad's finale the show has tried to depict this mass murderer as morally gray and even good. IMO this guy has no business being a hero and mentor) |
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