(L) Sword Art Online - Light Novel Discussion

[Dann of Thursday]

Wouldn't it be more Kirito's life story given that he's a major factor in all of it, while we also get to see the stories of the people who are closest to him as well? It's just that, aside from MR where she is the main character, Asuna doesn't seem to be featured quite as much as Aincrad and Fairy Dance.

Granted, she is still quite present and their relationship is still a large factor of Kirito's motivations.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by novalysis

Granted at that, but at this point, it all boils down to what defines the end of a story, and that's quite hard to pin down. If you consider SAO as Kirito and Asuna's life-story, then definitely, Mother's Rosario is a part of their live story, though a separate chapter in their story. If you consider SAO a collection of stories on the other hand...

Of course, one could argue that SAO actually is comprised of four stories focusing on the same two characters:

Aincrad - which Fairy Dance is the ultimate Resolution of - Survival, Romance (Aincrad), Family (Fairy Dance, some of the Aincrad Side stories)

Phantom Bullet - Criminal Sci-fi Thriller

Mother's Rosario - Personal Sci-Fi Drama, "Chicken Soup for the soul" style story.

Alicization - Full blown Sci-fi meets Heroic Fantasy.

Personally, I'd say Phantom Bullet is just as much a continuation of Aincrad as Fairy Dance. Yes, it also has the trappings of a Thriller, but Red-eyed XaXa is basically going through the same things that Kirito did in Fairy Dance and comes to a different conclusion (because he's evil).

Kirito had the same feelings of being the "hero" of Aincrad yet finding himself completely powerless back in reality. The scene near the end of Fairy Dance where he's attacked by what's-his-face in the parking lot of the hospital was the climax of that particular subplot, when he realizes that he does have strength, and that the lessons he learned in Aincrad can help him in reality. There's a funny moment when he realizes the knife is nothing compared to the weapons he's used to fighting against, so he has no reason to be scared of it.

XaXa goes through the same thing. He was strong in Aincrad. People would be afraid of even his name. He had power over the life and death of others. And then he suddenly lost all that. And, ultimately, he learns the same lesson that Kirito learned, that strength isn't just a matter of levels and numbers in-game. He took the willingness to kill that he developed in Aincrad and brought it back with him, to the misfortune of everyone else. It's essentially the same story that Fairy Dance told, about the rejection of or acceptance of the real world, told from the other side.

...although I've always thought it was kinda stupid that the agent guy never considered that they were being attacked by someone else in reality.

[CNine]

actually what most of the reader of this LN didn't notice is that ALL MAIN ARC IN THIS SERIES IS STILL RELATED WITH A CERTAIN FLOATING CASTLE IN A GAME CALLED SWORD ART ONLINE. By set the romance aside of course

[Ghanw]

This maybe off topic, but what are your thought about how this LN series is going to end even though a new series just started?

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Ghanw

This maybe off topic, but what are your thought about how this LN series is going to end even though a new series just started?

You mean Progressive? It's still the same series.

[styr]

I've got a question here about the SAO arc, I vaguely remember Kirito saying something about it but now I can't find it to save my life!

Basically, Kirito said that the major "selling point" of SAO aside from not having magic was that it was all about <<Sword Skills>> or something along those lines, right? That's why most people use swords due to the sword skills, right? Kirito has his one hand sword/dual blade skill, Asuna has her one hand rapier, Kline has katana/curved sword, Heathcliff has Holy Sword, etc etc.

I could've sworn there was a quote where he mentioned that only 'swords' got named weapon skills like Linear, Horizontal Square, Slant, Vorpal Thingy, etc. I've been looking in Volume 1 mostly so far but I've read up to the beginning of Vol 7 and every side story. Regardless I am trying to find a quote to back this statement up, I kinda remember him saying such a thing, which is a big reason why the game is called 'Sword' Art Online, but idk. I just can't find the part where he mentions that only swords have weapon skills. So I may or may not be wrong, but does anyone know for sure?

I had been thinking about this for a while because if it is true, why would anybody use a weapon aside from a sword? Thus far, we've seen the ubiquitous sword (1h+2h) along with daggers, spears, hammers, staves*, axes, polearms, and maybe more. Honestly I thought dual wield being a <<unique>> skill was a bit... lame. Why would someone use a dagger if they couldn't dual wield, for instance? "Rogue"-ish classes dual-wielding daggers is extremely popular in MMOs and is generally more popular than dual-wield swords. Perhaps it is just the Japanese fondness for swords? I guess daggers would have a low str-requirement to equip or something and rely on agi/dex for damage since speed would be important for such a short range weapon.

Speaking about weapons, Asuna mentions something about how a shield would slow her attacks/movement down and I can buy that, but as Heathcliff showed shields can also be used offensively and seemingly gives more benefits than disadvantages. Still, a dagger would have incredibly short range compared to a polearm/spear and is still at a disadvantage length wise vs a short sword. It also seems like rapiers are quicker than daggers, nullifying any reason whatsoever to even use them.. At least Asuna made it seem that way, but I think rapiers are also like daggers and would have low-str requirements and depend mostly upon agi/dex, due to the weight of the weapon.. but who knows.

*There was a 2h staff user in the Black Cats guild in the LN, along with the dagger using "thief," the mace/shield user Tetsuo, and two spear users that Sachi belonged to. In the anime however no person is shown using a staff within their group, not sure what happened there? A staff would be a pretty bad weapon in SAO in my opinion if you couldn't use it to channel magic or whatever. There's also a part where Kirito mentions the four different types of damage a weapon can do: slashing, blunt, thrusting, and piercing. The author really should have consolidated thrusting and piercing as both are the same thing really. I believe Kirito discussed them in the Murder in the Area side story.

Back to the main point, in the Black Swordsman SS, Silica practices combos with her dagger inside the inn and uses them during the quest with Kirito, implying that there is weapon skills for non sword weapons (after my edit below this point is now null since she uses the 1h sword skill with daggers, but the next point still remains valid). Additionally, in the 2nd episode of the anime it looks like Egil/Agil uses a 2h axe based skill to parry Illfang's sword before it could hit Kirito/Asuna who was on the ground. Note the glow of his weapon that signals a weapon skill. edit: After looking up Silica's character skills on BakaTsuki's ME section it seems that she was using <<1h short sword>> skill with her dagger equipped; or rather, there is no <<1h dagger>> skill. Seems strange that daggers would be classified under swords, no? Agil is clearly using the <<2h battle axe>> skill though, and even Asuna has some proficiency with using "2h assault spears."

Am I just imagining things about the whole "only swords have weapon skills" or is this another author induced plot hole? Maybe I am just wrong and was a bit delusional from lack of sleep and read something wrong? I really thought I read it somewhere... but maybe not.. lol.


On another note, the author could have included magic/ranged weapons that used a degree of skill to use. Normal "magic" that has a guaranteed hit chance is indeed overpowered like Kirito mentions but there is at least one way to make it fair. Anyone here that plays League of Legends will know what I am talking about - skillshots. Sorry for linking to another site but it explains how it works to anybody not familiar with the term. Basically when you activate the skill, a targeting reticle pops up that shows you the trajectory and it is up to the player to aim, lead, and fire. It is not a 100% chance hit ever, even at close range they can be evaded. I guess the author did not know about such a system since it isn't all that popular yet.

The cone-based skillshots would probably be too OP for SAO but the linear ones would fit in perfectly I think, since it isn't as easy as it looks to hit something when both the caster and the target move around. Most skillshots in LoL have different projectile speeds but none are impossible to dodge because they are too fast. I imagine if it was hypothetically incorporated into SAO the more powerful skillshots would be slower and perhaps explode on contact. It seems like the author almost used a similar idea with the Blade Throwing skill but according to Kirito is limited at best. It's a shame they couldn't incorporate some real projectile weapons/magic via a skillshot system.. cause GGO just takes it to extreme levels. (Matrix bullet dodge anyone?)

[Meltyred]

Sword skills are basically the moves that you do for the cool attacks, it is there for every weapon, and still called a "Sword Skill"

[styr]

Originally Posted by Meltyred

Sword skills are basically the moves that you do for the cool attacks, it is there for every weapon, and still called a "Sword Skill"

Why would they use a specific phrase like "sword skill" and not something all encompassing like "weapon skill?" It would be a very confusing term to anyone that didn't know how the in-game mechanics worked, i.e. the audience. I'm sure if we had access to an encyclopedic list of in-game skills and what not this would be extremely easy to solve but the author so far has only listed skills performed by weapons in the LN/manga/etc that Kirito/Asuna/Coper use. I don't think there was ever a time when Kirito mentioned anything about a non sword-type weapon performing a skill... but maybe the author just didn't want to bog down the audience with a bunch of skills that are rarely if ever seen by the MC? Idk.

Since Silica does use 1h sword skill for using daggers, the only proof that I can think of that other weapons can use "sword skills" is Agil in episode 2, and the mace user in episode 3.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by styr

Why would they use a specific phrase like "sword skill" and not something all encompassing like "weapon skill?" It would be a very confusing term to anyone that didn't know how the in-game mechanics worked, i.e. the audience.

Because Sword Art Online sounds better than Weapon Skill/Art Online

No need to read too much into it really

[Awrya]

Originally Posted by styr

I've got a question here about the SAO arc, I vaguely remember Kirito saying something about it but now I can't find it to save my life!

Basically, Kirito said that the major "selling point" of SAO aside from not having magic was that it was all about <<Sword Skills>> or something along those lines, right? That's why most people use swords due to the sword skills, right? Kirito has his one hand sword/dual blade skill, Asuna has her one hand rapier, Kline has katana/curved sword, Heathcliff has Holy Sword, etc etc.

I could've sworn there was a quote where he mentioned that only 'swords' got named weapon skills like Linear, Horizontal Square, Slant, Vorpal Thingy, etc. I've been looking in Volume 1 mostly so far but I've read up to the beginning of Vol 7 and every side story. Regardless I am trying to find a quote to back this statement up, I kinda remember him saying such a thing, which is a big reason why the game is called 'Sword' Art Online, but idk. I just can't find the part where he mentions that only swords have weapon skills. So I may or may not be wrong, but does anyone know for sure?

What I can remember was how [Sword skills] led to the success of SAO, moving ones body to perform the special attack, I could be wrong though.
The sword was the best weapon in medieval times, but since it is (or should have been) a game with RPG elements, they had to introduce different weapons for different players who want to role play as assassins, monks (bare-handed) etc.

Originally Posted by styr

I had been thinking about this for a while because if it is true, why would anybody use a weapon aside from a sword? Thus far, we've seen the ubiquitous sword (1h+2h) along with daggers, spears, hammers, staves*, axes, polearms, and maybe more. Honestly I thought dual wield being a <<unique>> skill was a bit... lame. Why would someone use a dagger if they couldn't dual wield, for instance? "Rogue"-ish classes dual-wielding daggers is extremely popular in MMOs and is generally more popular than dual-wield swords. Perhaps it is just the Japanese fondness for swords? I guess daggers would have a low str-requirement to equip or something and rely on agi/dex for damage since speed would be important for such a short range weapon.

About different weapons, it probably depends on the style of the player, whether he wants to slice (sharp weapons), smash (blunt weapon), pierce (thrusting weapon) etc. Since the feeling and use for them are different, it is a matter of preference and/or habit.
About daggers, Kirito mentioned there was a jagged dagger that had an additional effect of damaging/breaking weapons, though there should be a lot of other weapons with additional effects. What is unique so far about daggers is that they could apply poison on them (LC's Johnny Black), which so far no other weapon could. Other weapons may have advantages as well, maybe a spear piercing through armour?

Originally Posted by styr

Speaking about weapons, Asuna mentions something about how a shield would slow her attacks/movement down and I can buy that, but as Heathcliff showed shields can also be used offensively and seemingly gives more benefits than disadvantages. Still, a dagger would have incredibly short range compared to a polearm/spear and is still at a disadvantage length wise vs a short sword. It also seems like rapiers are quicker than daggers, nullifying any reason whatsoever to even use them.. At least Asuna made it seem that way, but I think rapiers are also like daggers and would have low-str requirements and depend mostly upon agi/dex, due to the weight of the weapon.. but who knows.

Heathcliff had the unique skill [Holy Swords], which allowed him to attack with a shield. Without the unique skill, shields are mostly defensive, as tanks aren't designed to deal massive amount of damage, no matter what game.

Originally Posted by styr

*There was a 2h staff user in the Black Cats guild in the LN, along with the dagger using "thief," the mace/shield user Tetsuo, and two spear users that Sachi belonged to. In the anime however no person is shown using a staff within their group, not sure what happened there? A staff would be a pretty bad weapon in SAO in my opinion if you couldn't use it to channel magic or whatever. There's also a part where Kirito mentions the four different types of damage a weapon can do: slashing, blunt, thrusting, and piercing. The author really should have consolidated thrusting and piercing as both are the same thing really. I believe Kirito discussed them in the Murder in the Area side story.

What the author meant by thrusting are probably hurling weapons, like Kirito's knife throwing skill.
About the staff, maybe the studio felt the same and simply cut it out? He could also have doneBojutsu in real life and picked it as his weapon simply out of nostalgia, but his weapon type wasn't really important for RNR.

Originally Posted by styr

Back to the main point, in the Black Swordsman SS, Silica practices combos with her dagger inside the inn and uses them during the quest with Kirito, implying that there is weapon skills for non sword weapons (after my edit below this point is now null since she uses the 1h sword skill with daggers, but the next point still remains valid). Additionally, in the 2nd episode of the anime it looks like Egil/Agil uses a 2h axe based skill to parry Illfang's sword before it could hit Kirito/Asuna who was on the ground. Note the glow of his weapon that signals a weapon skill. edit: After looking up Silica's character skills on BakaTsuki's ME section it seems that she was using <<1h short sword>> skill with her dagger equipped; or rather, there is no <<1h dagger>> skill. Seems strange that daggers would be classified under swords, no? Agil is clearly using the <<2h battle axe>> skill though, and even Asuna has some proficiency with using "2h assault spears."

Am I just imagining things about the whole "only swords have weapon skills" or is this another author induced plot hole? Maybe I am just wrong and was a bit delusional from lack of sleep and read something wrong? I really thought I read it somewhere... but maybe not.. lol.

About the dagger, while its name is [Shadow Dagger], it is classified as a [One-handed Short Sword], so it makes sense she uses [1hand Sword] skill.
It's probably the same with [One-handed Curve Sword] using [1hand Sword] skills.

Originally Posted by styr

On another note, the author could have included magic/ranged weapons that used a degree of skill to use. Normal "magic" that has a guaranteed hit chance is indeed overpowered like Kirito mentions but there is at least one way to make it fair. Anyone here that plays League of Legends will know what I am talking about - skillshots. Sorry for linking to another site but it explains how it works to anybody not familiar with the term. Basically when you activate the skill, a targeting reticle pops up that shows you the trajectory and it is up to the player to aim, lead, and fire. It is not a 100% chance hit ever, even at close range they can be evaded. I guess the author did not know about such a system since it isn't all that popular yet.

The cone-based skillshots would probably be too OP for SAO but the linear ones would fit in perfectly I think, since it isn't as easy as it looks to hit something when both the caster and the target move around. Most skillshots in LoL have different projectile speeds but none are impossible to dodge because they are too fast. I imagine if it was hypothetically incorporated into SAO the more powerful skillshots would be slower and perhaps explode on contact. It seems like the author almost used a similar idea with the Blade Throwing skill but according to Kirito is limited at best. It's a shame they couldn't incorporate some real projectile weapons/magic via a skillshot system.. cause GGO just takes it to extreme levels. (Matrix bullet dodge anyone?)

There was Kirito's knife throwing skill, which was said to be the only range option.
When Kayaba designed the game, he wanted to create a world where [The Sword symbolizes the Player]. Even ALO only had a magic system at the beginning, with [Sword Skills] implemented after Vol. 4 .
If I as a player had to memorize all the relevant sword skills and magic incarnations from the beginning, it is too much to ask.

Haven't seen such a wall of text since someone decided to make original characters in a different thread, but at least there are paragraphs here

Edit: Editing this is a pain, I only see text text text

[Grey]

Oh man. So I thought I'd read the anime chapters, and started reading Volume 1, Chapter 1. I thought, "This is a little different..." but kept going for a few chapters waiting for the anime chapters to show up.

Then I gave up on spoilers and just read the whole volume. I figured it was too late to avoid spoilers anyway. The end was a real emotional whirlwind. But I needed closure on Asuna's story. So I kept going to volume 2, chapter 2 and AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH.

Then I skipped to the end of volume 4 because dammit, I wasn't going to wait 2 volumes for closure. Especially not after Sugou showed up to screw my happy ending.

Whew. I guess volume 1 was enjoyable enough. I did a fast scan of some early/middle chapters but I liked most of the later chapters.

Time to browse through volume 5 and 6.

[Sixth]

I had been wondering about this for quite some time.

The players were trapped in SAO for more than 1 year+ right? If that so, what will happens to the players if they were not able to wake up after 5 years? Will the government still want to continue "spoon-feed" these freeloaders?

In fact, I am surprised that government or any authority figures bother to extends/preserves the life of the SAO players more than 6 months. If these really happened on our current reality/world, you can say goodbye to those 10k players.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by noobita

I had been wondering about this for quite some time.

The players were trapped in SAO for more than 1 year+ right? If that so, what will happens to the players if they were not able to wake up after 5 years? Will the government still want to continue "spoon-feed" these freeloaders?

In fact, I am surprised that government or any authority figures bother to extends/preserves the life of the SAO players more than 6 months. If these really happened on our current reality/world, you can say goodbye to those 10k players.

Have you never heard of a coma patient? They usually get cared for for years, or even decades. Depending on where you live, it may not even be legal to stop caring for them, since removing their life support is "murder". This happens to be an unprecedented large scale coma incident, but the principle is the same.

As for who's paying for it, it wouldn't be the government directly but the families. It's just... a medical bill. I believe Japan has universal health care so in the end the government is paying for it, but it's not counted separately from them paying for all the routine doctor's visits and surgeries and whatnot. I'm not sure how much a coma patient costs, but I doubt it's much more than the kind of extensive medical treat old people need anyway.

[Netto Azure]

Originally Posted by noobita

I had been wondering about this for quite some time.

The players were trapped in SAO for more than 1 year+ right? If that so, what will happens to the players if they were not able to wake up after 5 years? Will the government still want to continue "spoon-feed" these freeloaders?

In fact, I am surprised that government or any authority figures bother to extends/preserves the life of the SAO players more than 6 months. If these really happened on our current reality/world, you can say goodbye to those 10k players.

Japan's Healthcare system doesn't really care about "freeloaders," this isn't the USA you know.

Universal Health Insurance aside, The government (Meaning the JSDF and American Military) apparently is using this incident to look into the effects of using VR technology for Military purposes. And everyone knows when the Military gets into things, there's unlimited funds coming out of thin air.

[Craxuan]

Optimistically speaking, the government wants to save as many lives as possible from SAO. Which we all know cannot be the only motive they have, and probably not even close to being a motive.

Their true intentions are to acquire the technology behind SAO which they have spent 1 year + trying to crack but still unable to understand anything at all. Impossible to reverse engineer, especially when the inventor himself is alive and constantly working against any outside interference. You can see how this is a very, VERY attractive technology, and the players, the people who are trapped inside the virtual world are the only ones who hold the answer to it. To be able to get any players to wake up at all - that is to save them as a process - is extremely important, because that would give them information about what's happening inside the world.

That being said, as revealed in Volume 10, the government's true intentions was to use that technology for military purposes. AI vs AI. I don't want to go in depth about the details so just read it yourself.

On an unrelated note, AGGHHH I need new volumes SO BAD!

[Wild Goose]

So basically the JSDF was getting involved partly for their own interests, and partly because it's the right thing to do.

Sounds a lot like Section Nine.

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by Craxuan

Optimistically speaking, the government wants to save as many lives as possible from SAO. Which we all know cannot be the only motive they have, and probably not even close to being a motive.

Their true intentions are to acquire the technology behind SAO which they have spent 1 year + trying to crack but still unable to understand anything at all. Impossible to reverse engineer, especially when the inventor himself is alive and constantly working against any outside interference. You can see how this is a very, VERY attractive technology, and the players, the people who are trapped inside the virtual world are the only ones who hold the answer to it. To be able to get any players to wake up at all - that is to save them as a process - is extremely important, because that would give them information about what's happening inside the world.

That being said, as revealed in Volume 10, the government's true intentions was to use that technology for military purposes. AI vs AI. I don't want to go in depth about the details so just read it yourself.

On an unrelated note, AGGHHH I need new volumes SO BAD!

If you put in that way, I guess this feel reasonable and better. I am pretty sure that everyone knew that Government is always corrupted. I am will truly surprised if you told me that Government helps those patient because they were genuinely care about citizen lives.

On second thought, this series is pretty dark due to political interference.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by noobita

If you put in that way, I guess this feel reasonable and better. I am pretty sure that everyone knew that Government is always corrupted. I am will truly surprised if you told me that Government helps those patient because they were genuinely care about citizen lives.

On second thought, this series is pretty dark due to political interference.

In addition to all the reasons mentioned above...

Do you really want to be the politician that says "Yea... let's pull the plug on these thousands of kids!"

This isn't some unknown aggregate number on a spreadsheet somewhere, SAO is an extremely high profile case that would no doubt continue to receive wide media attention, especially given the constant dying that goes on. Any politician that advocates pulling the plug on them to save mere pittance would be committing political suicide with a thermonuclear bomb.

[Netto Azure]

Originally Posted by noobita

If you put in that way, I guess this feel reasonable and better. I am pretty sure that everyone knew that Government is always corrupted. I am will truly surprised if you told me that Government helps those patient because they were genuinely care about citizen lives.

On second thought, this series is pretty dark due to political interference.

As a huge political junkie, this is what cemented my love for SAO. Plus of course the relationships, but mostly the various subtle and controversial themes the series tackles.

SAO Arc: Life and Death, the Boundaries of Real Life and Virtual Life
ALO Arc: Greed, Love and Dedication. Plus Familial relationships.
GGO Arc: Power and isolation.
Mother's Rosario Arc: Applications of technology in the Medical Field.
Alicization Arc: Artificial Intelligence, The Military and the meaning of the Human Soul itself.

Those are what pops into my mind, would be great if people could help me expand on it.

[sky black swordman]

WOW To be honest and serious Netto Azure, I never look at SAO like you just said.