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Originally Posted by relentlessflame
I agree with you; there is a lot more to Suguha than "pandering", and her role is critical to this arc, not least of which because it helps emphasize Kazuto's feelings for Asuna. She serves as the bridge between the real world and the online world, and helps emphasize the things that have changed in him in the time since he was gone. It helps us to see Kirito from another perspective than his own (and other than Asuna's, whose we generally already saw). It's also valuable in that sense that she's someone who knew him both before and after, and whose love (and her very participation in ALO) may have been precipitated by his absence. Everything is very closely connected.
I too can understand why some might not like it, but I really strongly disagree with the suggestion that it's "tacked on and doesn't really serve any purpose". Couldn't be further from the truth, in my view.
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I don't think it's otaku pandering or a harem fantasy or anything like that, I'd call it melodrama for melodrama's sake. I mean, just as his sister she can still serve the same role of being affected by absence, starting to play ALO, etc etc. I don't think she's a useless character by any means. But the extremely specific "I fell in love with this person who loves someone else and now my heart is broken wah wah" bit seems to me like it could be surgically excised without affecting her important supporting role as Kirito's sister. Heck, you could even still have her falling in love with Kirito's avatar and have a similar heartbreak reveal in the end. It's just that her "I fell in love with my cousin while he was in a coma" doesn't really add anything to her family dynamic role, and arguably detracts from it.