Sword Art Online - Episode 4 Discussion / Poll

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

If SAO had classes, he'd most likely be a ranger. His behavior in this episode is identical to every ranger who's ever appeared in a fantasy novel since Aragorn first showed up at the Prancing Pony.

If anyone's curious about what tanks are like in SAO, rewatch the fight from ep.2 and pay attention to Egil and his party.

Good point, especially with his "Tracking" skills that he showed off in the last two episodes.

[paraalso]

Originally Posted by Doria

(Unrelated, but about Rosalia, she's obviously kind of insane, and definitely obnoxious, but I think it'd be very tempting to believe that there was some kind of a joke or a bug, preventing people from logging out. That seems (on the face of it) a lot more realistic than thinking that someone actually rigged a bunch of people to die. I mean, they don't really have any way of knowing for sure what happens, anymore than we do in real life--but plenty of people still have firm beliefs about what happens after death.

I mean, I'd like to think I'd want to play it safe and all, but I'm sure some people would convince themselves there's no harm in killing other players.)

While they can't be sure that dying in the game means dying in real life, they have been trapped in the game for 1-2 years. It was 2022 in the first episode, and it's now 2024. If there was no danger and it was just a joke, then someone would have already gotten them out of the game forcibly.

The fact that they've been living in the game for that long means that the existence of some type of danger is guaranteed, and something is preventing people in RL from getting them out of the game. It's possible that the designer might have made it so dying frees you from the danger of course, but they have no way of knowing for sure, and it seems much less likely than actually dying from being killed.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by paraalso

While they can't be sure that dying in the game means dying in real life, they have been trapped in the game for 1-2 years. It was 2022 in the first episode, and it's now 2024. If there was no danger and it was just a joke, then someone would have already gotten them out of the game forcibly.

The fact that they've been living in the game for that long means that the existence of some type of danger is guaranteed, and something is preventing people in RL from getting them out of the game. It's possible that the designer might have made it so dying frees you from the danger of course, but they have no way of knowing for sure, and it seems much less likely than actually dying from being killed.

Well, what's more likely, that the designer is an insane mass murderer with a God complex or someone playing a nasty practical joke? And even if he is insane and has a God complex, he doesn't actually need to kill people to get them to do what he wants, as long as they believe in the threat of death.

[Endless Soul]

Well, apparently Kirito's chosen look (long black coat) has made him famous. Although the Titan's Head guild members didn't really make the connection until they heard Kirito's name, once they did, his fame made them think twice about what they were doing.

Good grief, he's a solo front liner! Mighty impressive.

Throughout the entire episode I was hoping, praying to Zod that nothing would happen to Silica. Well, things did happen to her, but fortunately nothing too serious. I chuckled a bit over her being more concerned with her skirt than she was with the plant monsters.

Interesting that he had a house on the 50th floor. This tells me that more that half the floors have been cleared. Also interesting that Rosalia doesn't believe that in-game deaths mean real life deaths, or at least she states that's there's no proof.

Endless "Dragon Tamer Silica" Soul

[paraalso]

Originally Posted by Clarste

Well, what's more likely, that the designer is an insane mass murderer with a God complex or someone playing a nasty practical joke? And even if he is insane and has a God complex, he doesn't actually need to kill people to get them to do what he wants, as long as they believe in the threat of death.

They know with certainty that the designer has placed them in danger. The proof is that they are still in the game. If you know that someone has placed you in danger, then would you really want to risk it that he was just bluffing and would spare you on a whim? It's true that the risk is enough, but he must be able to kill or seriously damage them to create the scenario. Otherwise they would not still be in the game, so they can assume that there is a real risk of some kind involved.

[farios]

I was surprised that Silica stayed alive, i was pretty sure that she was going to die to give another trauma to Kirito, a good episode overall and Kirito is growing to me as one of my favorite MC

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by Endless Soul

Good grief, he's a solo front liner! Mighty impressive.

Well it's not much different then what he's been doing since the start. It just means he doesn't have a party when he levels up even on the front lines, aka the highest floor reached.

Slight correction on the beast tamer thing, anime didn't mention the information regarding that.

Spoiler for Beast Tamer Explanation:

Basically a Beast Tamer isn't a skill trained or anything like that, there's a rare event that a player can get where a small monster type, like Scilica's feathery dragon Pina, will be friendly when the player comes across it. If the player then feeds the creature it's favorite food it will become the player's pet. Beast Tamer is more a title people use for the players that were very lucky to get a pet.

Anyway, this was a good break after the last two episodes of crazy pace. Hoping next episode will continue this.

[Craxuan]

A pretty good episode overall, the pacing was fine (though that's probably because the original short story wasn't that long either >_>).

[Wild Goose]

Seeing Pina die, on my second viewing, is heartbreaking. Especially since I have dogs and I've had to bury three of them. T__T I can totally understand Silica being stunned and unable to do anything. I remember when one of our dogs died just begore we moved - my dad went into depression, my mom dropped her tsundere and was also upset, and my brother cried himself to sleep and didn't go to school.

Me, I had to load her in the van and arrange burial. T__T

Also, there is something the anime couldn't convey on Pina's diving save:

Spoiler for Light Novel elaboration of a scene in the anime:

Familliars are NOT programmed to stop an enemy attack. Pina's base programming did not have any instructions to defend Silica if her life was in danger.

Pina took that blow for Silica because she wanted to. Because she loved her.

Scuse me. Got a little bit of dust.

[gunzblitz]

A solid episode.

It wasn't so hard to follow, unlike the previous episode where there was 4 time skips in the whole episode. This episode laid out some of SAO's mechanics pretty well. There wasn't much elaboration overall (Like the higher floors and his change of clothes/equips), but that's because it's not that significant in my opinion. I would think that an anime-only viewer would have no problems with this episode. I have a lot to say but I don't know where to start, so I'll just say that this is an excellent episode.

9/10.

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Seeing Pina die, on my second viewing, is heartbreaking. Especially since I have dogs and I've had to bury three of them. T__T I can totally understand Silica being stunned and unable to do anything. I remember when one of our dogs died just begore we moved - my dad went into depression, my mom dropped her tsundere and was also upset, and my brother cried himself to sleep and didn't go to school.

Me, I had to load her in the van and arrange burial. T__T

Also, there is something the anime couldn't convey on Pina's diving save:

Spoiler for Light Novel elaboration of a scene in the anime:

Familliars are NOT programmed to stop an enemy attack. Pina's base programming did not have any instructions to defend Silica if her life was in danger.

Pina took that blow for Silica because she wanted to. Because she loved her.

Scuse me. Got a little bit of dust.

I got a little emotional myself when Pina died. Of course I have 4 cats for pets, and am very familiar with losses.

Great episode, giving this a 10 as I believe it's as good as the first episode. Nice to see Kirito having his own nickname in the game and is still kicking ass as a solo-player. This anime is making me that much more anxious to be playing Guild Wars 2 in a month...

[Dengar]

Hm.. Compared to the last two episodes, this one is VERY straightforward.

Which is fine with me. I'll take breather episodes to take a break from trying to uncover all the hidden meanings.

The girl was cute, and the episode established that Kirito has now gained infamy.


We also learned a bit more about the game. There is apparently an auto-healing property available for some characters.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Endless Soul

Interesting that he had a house on the 50th floor. This tells me that more that half the floors have been cleared. Also interesting that Rosalia doesn't believe that in-game deaths mean real life deaths, or at least she states that's there's no proof.

That's just a very flimsy excuse. If she really believed that, she'd kill herself to get out of the game.

[Friday]

even there are still more to come.....

this is my favourite.

this was a brilliant episode

[GoddyofAus]

And just like that, SAO regains its momentum are stumbling a bit. A very good episode.

[orpheus2]

Great episode. I am surprised that there are still people who do not know that game death=real death. They are making the situation even worse. Although, the real fault lies with the creator for making this death game in the first place.

[Minoye]

Are the plant monsters inspired from Ragnarok? (1st = geographer with... mandragora attack pattern? Then flora and last one chewing Silica = hydra)

Overall, nice episode. Let's see how cute Silica will evolve later. Meeting Kirito was a good way to boost her moral.

Even though he's not a tanking build, it seems understable why Kirito choose an autoregen skill : in a world without healing magic, it saves a lot of money from potion/healing items and as a solo player, allows him to level up more efficiently (i.e. with minimum rest between fights).

Adding this to all the details about PKing this week shows that the author knows his stuff about MMOs.

[Netto Azure]

Originally Posted by Minoye

Are the plant monsters inspired from Ragnarok? (1st = geographer with... mandragora attack pattern? Then flora and last one chewing Silica = hydra)

It's been mentioned before but in the authors notes it was mentioned how the author liked RO and Ultima Online at the time and based much of SAO on that experience.

That probably translated into the anime during script writing as the author gave a lot of input into the Anime

[Wild Goose]

If you're referring to the guy who was green, he's another scout who hasn't attacked anyone yet.

Still, for a character voiced by Megumi Toyoguchi, Rosalia went down like a chump. Wonder what happened to her afterwards...

[Raviel]

Pretty good episode and I would have attributed its success completely to the animation studio if it wasn't for the loli fanservice

.....just kidding......sort of.....maybe