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Originally Posted by Clarste
Absolutely nothing important happened in FD though. They woke up and went to school together, but that's just a "happy ending" that you could have easily inferred from the end of SAO volume 1. Kirito wakes up, and has his whole life ahead of him. It was a very optimistic ending.
Now, stuff did happen in ALO. But it wasn't important to Aincrad. Suguha suddenly existed, and had her own character arc. But her character arc was irrelevant and unless you're particular romantic frankly it's hard to care about her when you really just want to see Asuna finally wake up like you thought she should've 2 volumes ago. And then there's this bit about accepting VRMMOs as not inherently evil because they're fun to play. Which is... somewhat undermined by the fact that the owner of ALO was also an insane villain.
Frankly, I think you could even cut Fairy Dance out entirely, 100% don't even mention it, and the rest of the stories would still make sense. You might confused as to why they're playing a new MMO and why his sister plays too, but other than that it has no long term effects on any of the characters, other than solving the problems it itself introduced.
I'm not saying this would happen, because it definitely won't, but Fairy Dance simply doesn't fit in at all.
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To me, Fairy dance is the Denouement of the Aincard arc. Indeed, I think if the Aincrad arc was told in full, Fairy Dance would have been a contentious, though in many circles, an adequate After-story. That besides, without Fairy Dance, the later volumes don't make as much sense.
Call me weird, but I loved the Fairy Dance Arc. Perhaps it's because I'm a fast reader, so I didn't feel it draggy, and it deliciously destroyed the Imouto-First Cousin romance angle, and it actually makes much more sense after noticing that quite alot of the Pre-Asuna stories are dedicated to Kirito's Imouto complex (and he has a huge, huge one to overcome, just read First Day)
The thing is, Sugaha existed in a "spiritual" sense of sorts, throughout much of the Aincard arc. Almost half of Kirito's time in SAO, for a period stretching from his joining of the Black Cats to probably shortly before Murder is a product of his strange relationship with his Sister-Cousin. She didn't come out of no-where- Sugaha is probably why Kirito had a Dulcinea effect filtered for younger Imouto like figures in distress. Ultimately though, we'd have to wait for Progressivi to see the full details of this.
The thing I didn't enjoy about the Aincard arc was it's fragmentary nature. That being said, the Aincard arc indeed is the longest arc, in terms of implied materials, and the most critical arc of all. Indeed, I think you can see the Aincard arc taking place in several phases. Pre-Aria, Pre-Black Cats, Black Cats, Red Nose Reindeer, Black Swordsman, Murder to Main plot, and the bulk of Volume 1 itself. Each have a rather different paradigm - I think that Kirito's troubled relations with his Sister took prominence in various phases - asserting that Sugaha is irrelevant only holds true if you look at SAO from the prism of the Volume 1 Arc, where Kirito's social needs were being fulfilled on a completely different paradigm via Asuna.
But the Kiri-Asu Paradigm was not the predominant one Kirito held until the last six months in Aincrad.
If you take the whole Aincard arc together though, then Fairy Dance makes quite alot more sense. Since Sugaha has always been with Kirito's consciousness in "spirit", it underlies his decision making processes, and character in the Black Cat, RNR and Black Swordsman Phase, and even Warmth of the Heart - Fairy Dance concluded that Imouto Complex bird for good, while developing the Asuna-factor of Kirito's psyche further in place of that Imouto Complex. So, I won't be that quick to dismiss Sugaha's relevance, especially after the Volume 8 Side stories.
GGO would have been seen as something utterly new, though still set in the SAO Universe. The whole feel is different from SAO - that's not to say it's worst than the Aincrad arc, it's just in a different genre altogether, with a different, not inherently worse premise.