Sword Art Online - Episode 23 Discussion / Poll

[miroku2192]

Originally Posted by Awrya

Shown in Ep.21, most likely they will meet up, Kirito/Yui using a GM console with the stolen admin card and log her out.

If the mind controlling scheme comes to light, RECTO will likely go bankrupt like Argus did, and the amount of VRMMO players will decline.

Exactly how did you think of a next '--O' game, where Asuna will be imprisoned (again)?
The reason she is in ALO is because her fiancé is locking her up, in the game his department produced, as to allow no objections to his marriage into the Yuuki family.
If Kirito successfully logs out Asuna, she won't magically transfer into another game without reason, unless another villain we never heard about spontaneously decides to redirect Asuna to his VRMMO game for some grand evil plan, it is very unlikely Asuna will be imprisoned again after the ALO arc.

Was a misunderstanding on my part. I was under the impression that even if she successfully hit the "log-out" button, it wouldn't have changed the fact that her mind is still stuck in limbo. Given that Kirito auto-woke up, and outsiders not having any access to SAO at all, it would've been hard for her "finace" to perfectly time it and lock her up instantly into the new game.

That's why I just assumed that her mind is still stuck in "limbo" if you will, and that the whole point is they're also trying to figure out a way to bring her back to the Real World, because simply logging out won't do much good. Part of me just really wants Kayaba to come back and do some good, that's all.

edit:
Hence, it's not imprisonment by another villain per-se, but rather a way for her and kirito to still be together and interact as they figure out why she wasn't granted the ability to wake up like Kirito.

[Dengar]

I do believe that he'll be able to recue Asuna at this point.

All this about research into the human brain however, sounds like an obvious plot hook into the next arc.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by miroku2192

Given that Kirito auto-woke up, and outsiders not having any access to SAO at all, it would've been hard for her "finace" to perfectly time it and lock her up instantly into the new game.

Yeah, in an earlier episode, Sugou said that this is exactly what he did -- that, at the time when SAO was falling apart (since they were running the SAO servers at that point), he "routed" their connections to the ALO servers rather than letting them wake-up. So her not waking-up wasn't really an accident or anything; she never disconnected from the game world (just got auto-rotated to another server in another game). This is, incidentally, why there are so many glitches relating to using Kazuto's NerveGear in ALO (as if they were the same game just morphed a bit). The two games had to be compatible to that degree so that the captives could have that sort of immediate, seamless transfer from one game to the other without any disconnections or errors.

(I remember we had that big debate at the time about how some thought it was unrealistic for SAO/ALO data to be so "compatible". I wonder why I never thought about the captives back then? Actually, I guess maybe I didn't know about it at that point.)

[Krono]

Originally Posted by miroku2192

edit:
Hence, it's not imprisonment by another villain per-se, but rather a way for her and kirito to still be together and interact as they figure out why she wasn't granted the ability to wake up like Kirito.

We and Asuna already know why she didn't wake up like Kirito. Specifically Sugou's interference and grabbing as many SAO players for his experiments as he could manage.

[miroku2192]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Yeah, in an earlier episode, Sugou said that this is exactly what he did -- that, at the time when SAO was falling apart (since they were running the SAO servers at that point), he "routed" their connections to the ALO servers rather than letting them wake-up. So her not waking-up wasn't really an accident or anything; she never disconnected from the game world (just got auto-rotated to another server in another game). This is, incidentally, why there are so many glitches relating to using Kazuto's NerveGear in ALO. The two games had to be compatible to that degree so that the captives could have that sort of immediate, seamless transfer from one game to the other without any disconnections or errors.

Ahh thanks for clarifying that, totally went over my head/i forgot completely.

That's good to know then, yay for Asuna.

[FlareKnight]

No doubt that Suguha pretty much had to force herself a bit in order to get things done here. It's not like she wanted to break down last episode anyways. They can play things off as "Kirito hasn't really returned until Asuna wakes up" and leave it at that. Both of them are going to have to adjust to the realities of the situation and they will have time to do that after this is taken care of. For now it's time to get the job done.

But I have to say bringing in the Dragon Riders really is a way to call in the cavalry . Even still the best they could do was get Kirito through the hole. To be fair it was set up to be impossible without appearing that way. Like hell Sugou wants people clearing the game or bothering his science experiment.

And Recon.....most fail self-sacrifice I've seen in a while. At least it got him out of the picture.

[Krono]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

(I remember we had that big debate at the time about how some thought it was unrealistic for SAO/ALO data to be so "compatible". I wonder why I never thought about the captives back then? Actually, I guess maybe I didn't know about it at that point.)

Yeah, clarification on the captive status of Asuna and the others came an episode or two later after Kirito had logged in to discover the glitch. Which made bringing up that the game had been specifically designed to transfer players still using the SAO client to it difficult to do without spoiling things. By the time that fully came up in an episode, the argument over compatibility had been mostly settled.

[Dr. Casey]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

And Recon.....most fail self-sacrifice I've seen in a while. At least it got him out of the picture.

And here I thought nobody could treat Recon more coldly than Suguha does.

[Insane]

I'm utterly surprised that the purpose of entire raid armies was to ensure Leefa's safety so that she could loan her sword to Kirito in order to him executing his drill-like finishing move.

[dark998]

Not as good as the previous one but still it was nice that Kirito and Suguha patched up things quite fast. The battle could have been better, it had too much recycled footage (unusual in SAO).

[Krono]

Originally Posted by Insane

I'm utterly surprised that the purpose of entire raid armies was to ensure Leefa's safety so that she could loan her sword to Kirito in order to him executing his drill-like finishing move.

Well, their intent was to break through. The effort required to get just Kirito through made it pretty obvious that they were unlikely to break through themselves, and more likely to take heavy losses and/or get wiped out if they tried. At that point it makes sense to retreat, rather than get wiped and lose all their shine new expensive gear.

[relentlessflame]

(Edit: beaten by a few minutes, but anyway...)

Originally Posted by Insane

I'm utterly surprised that the purpose of entire raid armies was to ensure Leefa's safety so that she could loan her sword to Kirito in order to him executing his drill-like finishing move.

Well, the purpose of raiding the tree in the first place was to see if it was possible to beat the quest and ascend the tree. When it became clear that the enemies themselves were unbeatable, the objective just because to provide enough support so that Kirito could break through. They said they were in their debt after all.

It just goes to point to the point you said in your previous post about the unfairness of the quest being unbeatable. No matter how many armies they assembled, it could never be beaten. Finding a way to get someone through was the best they could do, and even then the door was locked. So yeah.

The "drill-like finishing move" is just clearing the path, but he couldn't do that without everyone else thinning the horde. So it took all of them working together just to get one single person through. That's just how unfair that quest was.

[Insane]

Ya~ But seeing Kirito managed to grind so many troops with a single drill-like finishing move, he should have just pulled it off from the start (when the troops number are still few), no need to wait for the alliance's help. And the sudden intruding of alliance forces which felt very . . . forced. And is was totally facepalmed seeing how fast Kirito and suguha made peace as if all those tear-jerking drama on the previous ep mean nothing. How should i put it, while watching this eps i got a feeling of playing jigsaw puzzle where several pieces have no places at all.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

. Finding a way to get someone through was the best they could do, and even then the door was locked. So yeah.

The bad thing is that after that stunt and the lock door.. another horde is waiting or rather on guard...

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Insane

Ya~ But seeing Kirito managed to grind so many troops with a single drill-like finishing move, he should have just pulled it off from the start (when the troops number are still few), no need to wait for the alliance's help.

No because he couldn't even get that close to the end on his own. It's only because a) he was being healed, b) people were stealing aggro, c) he was able to get high enough to clear enough of the last wave to break through. He couldn't have just drilled his way through to the top to start with.

Originally Posted by Insane

And is was totally facepalmed seeing how fast Kirito and suguha made peace as if all those tear-jerking drama on the previous ep mean nothing.

Well, Suguha doesn't really want Kazuto to hate her or to avoid her again. She thought she said something terrible to him that could really cause him to close the proverbial door to her again (like he did in the past) and so when he kept the door open for her ("I'll be waiting for you"), she knew she needed to gather herself and take the step. I suppose they could have had more time elapse, but she knows he's also in a hurry. All those "tear-jerking drama" definitely weren't for nothing -- it's because of all that that they're able to start the reconciliation.

So, I don't know... I thought it made sense as far as it goes.

[Swordstriker21]

Well about the "Shining Giga Drill Breaker" Kirito pulled off in the end...

Spoiler for Novel Comparison:

It was just A1 pulling off some "artistic" flair. In the novels it was just him slicing through the horde at very high speeds w/ the dual swords. Just enough that the spawn rate didn't have time to keep up w/ the kill rate. And he did it fairly close to the top and only managed to get through a very small opening. Like threading a needle. It was all they managed to do even w/ the entire Sylph/Caith Sith army backing them up.

[Insane]

Originally Posted by Swordstriker21

Well about the "Shining Giga Drill Breaker" Kirito pulled off in the end...

Spoiler for Novel Comparison:

It was just A1 pulling off some "artistic" flair. In the novels it was just him slicing through the horde at very high speeds w/ the dual swords. Just enough that the spawn rate didn't have time to keep up w/ the kill rate. And he did it fairly close to the top and only managed to get through a very small opening. Like threading a needle. It was all they managed to do even w/ the entire Sylph/Caith Sith army backing them up.

That means the studio was lazy as shit to animate such scene and simply went ahead with that "Shining Giga Drill Breaker", huh?

[The Green One]

Self Destruct Magic. The ultimate rage quit.

[miroku2192]

^I would like to know what the supposed "harsh" penalties relating to self-destruct are. According to Sugu, it's pretty bad.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by miroku2192

^I would like to know what the supposed "harsh" penalties relating to self-destruct are. According to Sugu, it's pretty bad.

Think of the bright side. The anime shows that suicide is serious offense.