Sword Art Online II - Episode 3 Discussion / Poll

[Keijto]

Originally Posted by Jan-Poo

I think the guy that talks at the end of this episode is heavily hinted to be Death Gun, however there is a possibility that it could be all a misleading.

So do I. Who the hell, excluding the mysterious Death Gun, would keep pictures of victims and future victims of this same Death Gun?

As for the real person behind Death Gun, there is still a chance that we haven't seen him yet, moreover you are not including in the list characters that we have seen inside GGO (which are still valid candidates).

Yeah, the possibilities are infinite if we consider the fact that it could be an unknown character since the start of the season. Notwithstanding, I still hope that the guy we heard, even if it looks like there's some physical traits that are the same as Shinkawa's, wasn't him. It's a little too much predictable and easy scenario: the savior that is, in the end, the bad guy.

Anyway, we'll see, right? But for now, everything is pointing at Shinkawa's head if we stay in the "we already seen the character" category.

[M.A.D]

Originally Posted by Traece

She's not afraid of guns, she's afraid of the memory of her traumatic event. What she actually needs is to face the event and learn to accept it, but she's afraid of that experience and she's afraid of what she did and who she was in that moment. It doesn't help that it also seemed to cause some problems with her mother.

Hopefully that helps explain why it's such a problem.

So, you're saying that she's having PTSD because she's afraid of the memories of shooting someone and killing him with a real gun. In other words, it's the experience of someone getting killed by a gunshot that she's afraid of. In that case, if for example, Asada Shino sees Sinon as her other self, like a consciously-made split personallity, and that personality is living in a different world, an environment like GGO where shooting someone wouldn't kill him IRL, wouldn't that grant her enough of a sense of security that she wouldn't be afraid of guns there?

...On second thoughts, just attribute it to the suspension of disbelief effect. It's not worth mulling over RL science details in a futuristic novel

[Houreki]

Asaka probably is the best Character so far in the whole SAO world.
I'm still unsure if someone can have a big trauma like that and yet act normal in a videogame, because no matter how you see it, the trauma is in your brain whenever you're in the real life or in a game but, anyway, I like her character so far.

[Traece]

Originally Posted by M.A.D

So, you're saying that she's having PTSD because she's afraid of the memories of shooting someone and killing him with a real gun. In other words, it's the experience of someone getting killed by a gunshot that she's afraid of. In that case, if for example, Asada Shino sees Sinon as her other self, like a consciously-made split personallity, and that personality is living in a different world, an environment like GGO where shooting someone wouldn't kill him IRL, wouldn't that grant her enough of a sense of security that she wouldn't be afraid of guns there?

...On second thoughts, just attribute it to the suspension of disbelief effect. It's not worth mulling over RL science details in a futuristic novel

Think of the worst thing that ever happened to you, and think of a highly notable object associated with that event. Now imagine you have severe PTSD as a result of that event.

Every time you see, hear, imagine, or otherwise that object, you immediately associate it with that event. It's like if you're in a car accident and every time you look at a car you're reminded of that accident.

Broken-tier PTSD: Every time you look at a car, be it real or on TV, you're reminded of your accident. If it's a video game car though, you're not. Even when the video game car is crashing you're completely unphased.

All things aside though, her character is definitely breathing a lot of life into SAOII.

[~Yami~]

aww... Asada-san's life is very sad....
I wonder why her mother didn't console her... *rather than that, it seems her mother leave her to her uncle*

and Asuna is okay with everything Kirito wants to do... I'm expecting she would be a little protective toward her boyfriend but.... okay... Kirito is in a big danger currently for being alone with cute nurse for few hours... he could be raped anytime

lastly, Death Gun's identity is almost obvious now...

Link Start!! finally the game on

[The Green One]

You can't really understand just how bad it truly is to have PTSD unless you have it yourself. It can be hard enough to have a normal life with it, much less having a group of people who go out of their way to torture you with it and everyone else around you just looks the other way.

[Arturia Polaris]

Someone asked why would best friend san would want to kill Sinon. Well if he is Death Gun, and he knows Sinon IRL, I imagine he could blackmail her with her life or something for free raep. Or even necrophilia?

Don't act like it's news a lot of people get raped. I think we're seeing the future version of rapists.

[hamazura]

guys, its not asaka, its asada
it hurts my eyes so much

[eiyuuou]

Seems kind of weird Sinon is on the hitist

[Parousia]

Originally Posted by eiyuuou

Seems kind of weird Sinon is on the hitist

Well it isn't that weird because Death Gun targets top players for some reason, and Sinon is the best Sniper in GGO so she would likely have a chance to be on the hitlist

[Craxuan]

But she hasn't even participated in the B... B whatever that thing is yet. She's famous, but there probably are more noteworthy targets.

Actually this does strongly suggest that her friend is Death Gun... his attitude feels slightly off (no wait, actually that's pretty normal in real life... ah whatever). I guess it's not entirely impossible that the two of them are licking each other's wounds because... I don't know really.

[Friday]

imo....poor episode

hopefully Asada doesn't have a flashback at the moment of truth......

[Gundamx]

Originally Posted by Craxuan

But she hasn't even participated in the B... B whatever that thing is yet. She's famous, but there probably are more noteworthy targets.

Actually this does strongly suggest that her friend is Death Gun... his attitude feels slightly off (no wait, actually that's pretty normal in real life... ah whatever). I guess it's not entirely impossible that the two of them are licking each other's wounds because... I don't know really.

she as famous as Behemoth or more since she defeated him
(you don't need to be one of top solo pvp players to be famous)

[Parousia]

Originally Posted by Craxuan

But she hasn't even participated in the B... B whatever that thing is yet. She's famous, but there probably are more noteworthy targets.

Actually this does strongly suggest that her friend is Death Gun... his attitude feels slightly off (no wait, actually that's pretty normal in real life... ah whatever). I guess it's not entirely impossible that the two of them are licking each other's wounds because... I don't know really.

I think it's BoB(Ballet of Bullets or something similar to that).

In episode 3 her conversation with her friend hints that she have entered it once before, you could check it out if you want to.

[Jan-Poo]

Perhaps Death Gun only targets top players that have high STR improvements.

Darkwind (who was said to be AGI focused) seems to be completely outside Death Gun's radar even though he is ostensibly as much as famous as Zexceed.

[eiyuuou]

Don't make much sense since Behemoth is a walking STR character and he's ignored.
Perhaps BOB participation is also a requirement?

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by HolySin

Well it isn't that weird because Death Gun targets top players for some reason, and Sinon is the best Sniper in GGO so she would likely have a chance to be on the hitlist

I feel Death Gun has some sort of inferiority complex. Targeting strong players because he himself might be weak. Which is probably why he takes so much pride in his Death Gun.

Still waiting for things to kick up. Seems like we're done with introductions and such.

[Fellen]

If Death Gun is only after top players that have high STR then Sinon's friend being Death Gun is even more likely since he said that he's an AGI character and can't do much because of it. If it really is Sinon's friend the reason could be jealousy.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Fellen

If Death Gun is only after top players that have high STR then Sinon's friend being Death Gun is even more likely since he said that he's an AGI character and can't do much because of it. If it really is Sinon's friend the reason could be jealousy.

The more I think about, the more I find it hard to escape the idea that Death Gun is the same guy that helped out Sinon in this episode, namely Shinkawa.

I'm not fond of the idea, because it would be both sad (for Sinon) and predictable. It also could rob the anime of a possible likeable male protagonist not named Kirito.

Still, it's very hard for me to think that Death Gun isn't Shinkawa. It's the sort of plot twist that many anime/LN/manga/VN writers like to go for.

Also, in fiction in general, "the person behind the mask" is typically somebody you've met in the narrative before, and usually a character of some note.

Meta-reasons aside, there's also the fact that I already see some possible similarities between Shinkawa and Death Gun.

As Fellen wrote above, it's quite plausible that Death Gun is motivated primarily by jealousy. And Shinkawa's conversation with Sinon betrays, at the very least, a sense of inferiority and inadequacy on his part, which could easily imply jealousy as well. Then there's the subtle but significant red flag in Sinon noting that Shinkawa seems to be logged on to the game a lot, which could point towards him doing a lot of stuff in-game on the sly, or using a different account as a cover for Death Gun perhaps?

I hope that Shinkawa isn't Death Gun, but there's a lot of reason (both meta and in-canon) to suspect it. If Shinkawa is Death Gun, I just hope that the reveal will be executed well.

[Arturia Polaris]

Originally Posted by eiyuuou

Don't make much sense since Behemoth is a walking STR character and he's ignored.
Perhaps BOB participation is also a requirement?

BoB participation is basically what makes you a "great" player. Since they are all pros, it simply makes sense that they go into the world cup of pro players, not going into it would make you either A) Not strong enough B) Not a Pro