⭐Sword Art Online Volume 1 Chapters 23-24: Read Along & Analysis
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Sword Art Online Volume 1 Chapter 23:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12BdjeA8_dQtYMckucxdU_ASdNa3tBepx/view?usp=sharing
Sword Art Online Volume 1 Chapter 24:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MgPGX73GC8Q9mGPbJRBXlZbKOHbJL9kc/view?usp=sharing
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Chapter 24: It’s interesting, how after all of the comparison of death in SAO with bodies being «glass or ice sculptures» – in the end, after death, Kirito Asuna and Kayaba all appeared as half transparent «colored glass» like figures (which anime did not show). Well, now that I think of it – it’s only during his own death that Kirito used «ice» instead of «glass», which adds to my previous comment. It’s thanks to Asuna, that «emotions that had been frozen» would melt Kirito away and bring Kazuto to the surface. As for a reason they "survived" the death – Kayaba said, that he wanted more time to talk to them. But the more I thought about the whole situation, the more I believe – he did not wished to kill anyone at all. Yes, that sounds like a twisted logic – a man who’s responsible for death of almost 4000 people, to not have such an impulse. But, I think, in his mind – nobody was supposed to die *by his sword*. As Kirito thought – «even Kayaba was only a part of it now», he wasn’t the force that killed every SAO player. He brought the system into motion, he saw it as a necessary step to achieve the world he wished for so long, and he acted on it. But then he assumed the role of Heathcliff, hero, who cannot interfere too much into the lives of the players because of his knowledge and power. So, killing someone would go against it. I think, that the only duel he was supposed to have with this sword, was meant to have a single person as his opponent. Someone, he would like to have a word with afterwards, no matter the outcome. So, it’s purely my speculations, but I believe – his sword was programmed from the start, to transfer a player upon "death" to coordinates outside the Aincrad. Same rule is applied to his own "death". This is something I thought over and over again, trying to figure out Kayaba’s mind. The line, about Kayaba forgetting the reason he done what he’s done – it’s very powerful, but became a generator of lots of hate and memes about SAO. For some reason, haters cannot comprehend a single word that Kayaba says after that point. The fact that he explained *why*, right after saying it – they deny the very existence and ignore it… And I just noticed something new in his words about the castle in the sky. «In fact, with every year the picture grew larger and more real» - and this is exactly what is happening to our Aincrad too. It started with that vision, small story, and year after year, it received more and more stories, pictures, games, and now even a Progressive series which describes it floor by floor. The Aincrad *is* becoming more and more real. Interesting little detail – as Kirito wished to see the castle from the outside one day, it took his life to actually see it, only to see the destruction of that world… When people say that Reki knows nothing about games – it’s basically them saying that *their* understanding of games is lacking the depth, and it’s in best cases. As someone who’s been playing for as long as I remember myself – I still find more and more to learn from SAO, and other Reki’s books too. It’s not the knowledge of how the most effectively grind levels, or how the boss fights have to be designed. It’s the understanding of yourself as you play these games. Understanding of games and their relation with you. When I was 10 or 11 years old, I for the first time played Max Payne. And I still remember, the realization that hit me in the process – games are something more than just *games*. At least could be. They have a storytelling potential. It’s one of the fundamental concepts for me as a gamer. Years and years later, I played through first Life is Strange, a few times, and as I’ve heard a lot of complains about some of the choices «not matter» to the overall outcomes, I realized for myself – choices in games aren’t defined purely by their influence on the world. They shape the characters you interact with as you go through the story, the very image of them that you create in your head in the process. Later with Mass effect trilogy I thought to myself, that it’s the journey that matter, not its end alone. And there are many less visible examples that create the foundational ideas for my gaming philosophy. But reading this series – it updated many of them. Like the choices, decisions we make in games – they also represent us in one way or another, and as much as they shape the characters, sometimes they shape us. Time after time replaying some game and doing all the same familiar choices, I had a feeling of missing some other outcomes from not choosing something new, something to discuss with other players. But still couldn’t bring myself to alter them, if the situation they create are feeling wrong to me. As I realized the influence of myself on these choices, that they just represent myself – I solved this conflict in my mind. I feel like Reki walked the path I’ve been following for a long time, and has a lot to share about that path that I haven’t yet discovered. If that is something that people see in him as «knowing nothing about videogames» - they’ve got so much, so much to learn. That line in the very beginning of every volume – «This might be a game, but it’s not something you play» - it’s a perfect one-line representation of the first foundational thought about games that I just described, that I follow to this day. And some of the deeper ones, like the choices we make in games – they oftentimes could be applied outside them, in real life too. Wrapping up the thoughts – what Reki writes, is something on the very edge of modern understanding of the world by people like us, from emotions and relationships between people, to our understanding and relationships with modern media. And with videogames being very recent development in culture, it makes his work even more important. And yes – we’re close to an end. We have only chapter 25, and the afterword of author, which is a part of every book and shows the journey it took for Reki to come where he is now : ) Chapters to episodes: Ch 1 – Ep 8 (Before intro) Ch 2-3 – Ep 1 Ch 4 – info chapter Ch 5-9 – Ep 8 Ch 10-12 – Ep 9 Ch 13-16 – Ep 10 Ch 17 – Ep 11 (Before intro) Ch 18-21 – Ep 13 Ch 22-25 – Ep 14
Саша Одинец
2021-10-04 19:36:20 +0000 UTCChapter 23: You know, I’ve heard a lot, that the first novel of SAO is «probably the weakest one» in the series. «Especially», coming back to it after the rest 20+ novels in it. And a lot of it, I feel like, people base on the amount of lore updates since then. But for me – the first novel will always have a special place in my mind, in my heart, and in terms of quality be its own thing in the series. Yes – lore-wise it was updated. Yes there is a huge timeskip, later characters have more time to develop and etc. But the structure of it, the way every single line is written – it is something that is very difficult to comprehend completely in terms of quality in just one read. Pretty much every time there’s a description of the surrounding world – it doesn’t just show us where we are, but also serves as enhancing component for what is happening in the inner world of our characters. The surroundings are in tone with situation. We have Kirito’s main town as gloomy unwelcoming labyrinth in the beginning, switch to Asuna’s beautiful and warmer Selmburg, to cold and metallic world of Heathcliff’s residence. To Kirito and Asuna’s little warm cabin in the woods, happiness isolated from the rest of the world. To the end of the world in the sunset. Even the temperature usually aligns with what is going on. And it brings me to a vision, that when Kirito held Asuna’s rapier and «not a single fragment of its owner was present» - I can literally feel the cold blade in my hand, since in the virtual reality, it would not save a single amount of Asuna’s warmth in it. Because, her presence to Kirito was always described as warmth. And I’m not even exaggerating – I just wrote the word «warm» into the search across the book, and out of 18 results found, 16 of them were either near Asuna or about Asuna. 1 was in the eyes of Heathcliff towards players who survived 75 floor boss, and 1 was in Asuna’s description of the moment with Kirito under the tree. Similar goes for the opposite – even during Kirito’s death, there’s a line «I was freezing cold». And it is interesting in itself – since, when (until a certain point) we’re colder, it’s easier to feel the warmth in something that is usually much colder to our sensations. And by the end of that act against the system, Kirito did felt «pulse of warmth gripping my left hand». All throughout the book, Kirito repeated that Asuna is stronger than him. And in his final moment, it was exactly her strength that guided him to go against the system. She already broke the system twice in this book, both times to save him. Gave her life to protect him. How could he have «let her sacrifice go to waste». And this brings us, again, to an interesting conclusion – even in that moment, it wasn’t purely Kirito alone fighting with the system, «being OP». He did not come and saved the day. He was confronted by the opportunity to free everyone, attempted, but failed. Failed not only to free everyone, but also to protect the closest one to him in the entire world. It was only after that fail that he managed to defeat Heathcliff, and not even in battle, no. Kirito and Asuna together managed to defeat the rules of the world that Kayaba created, and only in respect to that Heathcliff did not fought back that last strike from him. Because he was, ultimately, defeated. The whole idea of setting up the world that worked by his rules and laws was defeated. And it brought him back to his senses. Because, as I see it – up to this point, he was still *playing*, was still in the role of Heathcliff, not Kayaba. Asuna broke paralysis? *Well, that was an interesting RPG twist*. He was still thinking in that direction, this mindset, failed to see the deeper meaning of what had just happened. He knew she was alive, "anyway", it’s part of the play. But for Kirito it was real. And when Heathcliff saw it in his opponent, he made «pitying look» - he both understood, that he just lost his best opponent, lost him to his game, and also he knew Asuna is alive. I believe – that is why he immediately made the decision to «kill» Kirito – to stop the suffering and send him to his beloved one. And I also believe – being in that role for so long, is what gave Kayaba away. For a year, he knew there’s a player with unique skill that he, in his dreams, envisioned as his final opponent. But instead of leading forces as he did, using all this strength to guide others - Kirito did not join any group and hid the existence of the skill altogether. It must’ve made Heathcliff curious. To the point of asking him for a duel the moment the Dual Blades were discovered, since everything "all so happened to be" that he had Asuna in his guild to use as an opportunity. I mean, the fact that she was in his guild and she had relationship with Kirito – it was accident for him, but an «appealing scenario» he couldn’t ignore. Not after such a long time of anticipation. And that is where he ended up making a mistake. Now, moving back to the moment of realization – when Kirito fought against the system, it was a second time something like that occurred in front of Heathcliff. And Kayaba in him finally connected the dots, and was happy, glad to see it. And yes – the way Asuna and Kirito broke the system – it ended up evolving into the technique in itself in later stories, as you’ve noticed :D Also, it was amazing to see the reaction to every line of Kirito’s death, for them to have such an effect, because moments like that are exactly what makes the *writing* of Reki so powerful. Every line has a visible weight in my mind as I read it. I could feel Kirito going through all this too. It’s hard to describe as *seeing*, but you *see* every emotion going on inside his head. All of his logic, all that he sees, his willpower somehow too. And this is exactly the moment that, in my opinion, has a poor adaptation in the anime. Of all the seasons – the 2nd one is probably the best in terms of pure adaptation and dedication to details. Each book was transformed into ~7 episodes. While, for example, entirety of season 3 has less than 50 episodes for 10 books, thus less than 5 on average. But what also makes second season so great – they did showed the inner world of both Shino/Sinon and Asuna. Let us hear or see their thoughts. Which is the biggest problem of Kirito in season 1 – they actively tried to avoid it. And what happened in this scene in particular – was a mystery to me for a long time. The decision to make it the way they did - remained the mystery. During that scene, you see Kirito fall, shatter, die, and then in a glow of light come back to life to kill Heathcliff. First time watching it – I thought that maybe Klein used the resurrection crystal on him? Even if it’s not following the book, it at least makes some sense, and many, many people still believe that is what happened. Once I’ve read the book – I realized it shouldn’t have been the case. So, after some research, I found the answer. Apparently, during episode one(!), there was a scene, where Kirito imagined himself dying, falling and shattering to pieces. And here, they reused the same exact animation, but in different outfit and place, to represent Kirito imagining himself dying, but not agreeing with it, and coming back to fight. It’s hard for me to understand, why they made it so overcomplicated, I can only see this as a solution that did not worked, thus a mistake in adaptation. They did not even show Asuna in his mind, but himself. Made it more about him…. Maybe, now that we have novel 1 as audiobook – we could try to place the inner monologues of Kirito in these scenes ourselves and see how it’ll work – thankfully, the voice is the same as in the dub anyway :D
Саша Одинец
2021-10-04 19:26:22 +0000 UTCThe Kirito persona, or more accurately, the black swordsman persona, is a very important aspect moving forward. I also think it’s the thing that most people completely missed when watching the rest of the show. To everyone, except for Asuna, Kirito is still the black swordsman, even after they escaped Aincrad. This by itself means they have certain expectations of how he is supposed to be, or at least that’s what Kirito thinks. This is why, despite of having people around him, he still doesn’t feel like he could be himself around anyone he met in Aincrad. All of this becomes very evident in Alicization, (Which I really feel like you caught some of) I really can’t wait till you get there since the anime cut out a lot, if not all, of Kirito’s important internal monologue. The only people he ever showed his true self to in the entire series is Asuna, Suguha, Sinon, and Eugeo. Vol 2 is the first of a few short story collections. I think I’ve already mentioned it before, but just in case, not everything in this series is told from Kirito’s perspective. Vol 2 has a few stories told from the third person but with a focus on whatever character is important for that story (Lizbeth, Silica, Asuna). This also happens for the other arcs with Suguha, Sinon, and biggest of all Eugeo. Kirito is the only one who’s story is told through first person. Kayaba is an interesting character, especially since regardless of all he did, he really doesn’t feel like a villain (At least to me). Even every moment after this he helps a lot more than anything else. I do wish Reki would go deeper into his character. I don’t know how important he will be in Unital ring, but I don’t doubt he will have some sort of appearance (I also can’t wait till you get to UR. But that’s 20 volumes away). The experience you get when you read the novels really is different compared to the anime. Season 1 and 2 got pretty close to what the novels provide, but I feel like Alicization really dropped the ball. I do want to see what you think about it. Again, my comments are really getting shorter and shorter, but I have a lot of things I’m working on (Apart from college).
Gen
2021-10-04 01:22:01 +0000 UTC
