Sword Art Online - Episode 22 Discussion / Poll

[Awrya]

Originally Posted by Aqua Knight

I thought Sugu knew that Kirito was her brother , omg.

Well, if she knew, she wouldn't have told Kirito (ingame) that she got (indirectly) rejected by her brother (in real life) last episode.

There was no mention from the start of the ALO arc that she knew who Kirito was. If she knew who he was, she'd probably refer to him as Onii-chan from the beginning.

[Haak]

The first genuinely decent episode of this entire God forsaken arc. Something it desperately needed after sinking a new low in the previous episode.

[Insane]

Meh, this is why i hate harem element in serious story very much. There's no point in sugu's romance in this arc if KiritoxAsuna couple had been carved on the stone from the start with nobody (no girls) may interfere them. I could already imagine that Kirito gonna pull "i need your help" to heartbroken sugu in the next eps without her able to reject it, poor sugu.

KIRITO, YOU DAMN WOMANIZER!

[NoemiChan]

Another heart melting and heart breaking episode... We got two in one...

The Heart Melting Part

Yui crying out to Asuna... Kirito defying the difficulties of the Guardians just to save Asuna.. and Asuna crying for the knowledge that Yui and Kirito were just below is very touching... I got tears in my eyes.

The Heart Breaking Part

We all expected it... like I said... just..one word for Kirito to say.... "Asuna" will break Suguha... I wished Kazuto hugged Sugu to calm her down and told her that he will always loved her as his sister... his most beloved imouto..

[HandofFate]

rofl @ episode 22.
Kirito pretty dumb.

The whole rush thing inside the tower kind of went on for a while. Maybe you should have picked up that

Spoiler for LN chapter that got cut:

Excalibur Sword afterall, you baka.

Also, maybe time to call in the favor of those two faction leaders....since you kind of saved both their whole territory/countries.

Then the scene where Leafa and Kirito find out about eachother, was cracking up. lol.
Kirito should just open the door at the end,and stick it in sugu already.

[Esebian]

Originally Posted by ellessarr

well like i told this is what i get after get some spoilers from anime and novel, i told this because this is what almost happened since the start, since SAO arc where many girls fall for him and him ended with asuna and some of then get heartbrake too, now the author used a excuse to have asuna kidnapped just to "pop up that non-blood related sister" to fall for him i dont know in japan this is normal but on mine country is not that common non-blood related brothers and sister falling in love especially when grown together, maybe more easy when they are totally unknown whose parents just got married and one of them was recently adopted, but the point is:

[mod edit: remove spoilers]

mine point who this type of "romance" is a very "shit", if in the end kirito and asuna gona end together why the author need put all that too much girls on the screen, and if the focus is the love of then, why he need "pop up' girls to prove they love are "more strong" than wonderful girls, like i told if the author want show many pretty girls he can do this without need this, or if him want do a drama have many others ways to do this, and if the focu on this arc is the rescue of asuna why he need make her fall for him... just more shit to make kirito the "harem master" of the invisible harem who gona grow more and more biger

You are overlooking some obvious points:

Firstly you say that the author makes girls fall for Kirito although he is already in love with Asuna. Problem is the girls you are referring to is only Suguha. Remember both Silicia and Liz fall for him before he was together with Asuna. They both had the chance to make him fall for them but Silicia didn't show it to him, while Liz gave up because she knew her best friend Asuna was in love with him.

Secondly he isn't oblivous to their feelings, but seriously they have to show it somehow...what did Sugu do to show her love to him? She had that short sentence in episode 20 when she wanted to silence the 2 leaders of the 2 races; well I dunno if I would now assume that she is in love with me in his position. But we have an obvious case where he saw the feelings for him and that was with Lisbeth. The moment she stopped talking to Asuna as she saw that Asuna was in love with Kirito, he knew that she had fallen for him.

Thirdly I dunno from where you have your spoilers but... [mod edit: spoilers removed]

[The Green One]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I wouldn't say that this "diversion" is any more "pointless" than the arc itself, to be honest. This "romance" was doomed to fail just as much as our arc villain is doomed to be brought down. If you eliminate the one "pointless diversion" you're just left with the other, and it's not as if Kirito chasing after Asuna is all that compelling on its own (I mean, not the relationship, but the overall circumstance they find themselves in).

That may seem like a knock on the show, but if your engagement is limited by whether or not the destination is foreseen, I'm not sure there's much to this whole story arc. I think you have to enjoy the journey. I thought the journey of Suguha's feelings and how it wove through the story was fairly-well realized for what it is, even if a bit more of it came together at the end of this episode than might have otherwise. I also don't think this is the end of her journey either -- now that her feelings are out, she has to decide what to do next. This too isn't so unpredictable, but we'll still see how she is able to stand herself back up again. That's really the emotional core of this arc: Suguha learns to accept her doomed feelings for Kazuto and move forward, as he remains fixated on his one true love. I'd say she's really more the focal point than he is, to be honest.


Agree with this, by the way. The story isn't over yet, so it'd be good for them to have this chat to close these open plot threads.


I'm still surprised that people thought she knew. Wasn't the whole point all this time that she didn't?

Fair enough, but personally without any sort of actual tension on whether or not Sugu had any chance it was difficult to feel involved in her feelings of love. I personally have enjoyed this arc, it just this aspect of it failed to pull me in and make me feel what it was trying to convey.

You can't really compare Sugu's feelings to our much mocked villain wanna-be, this isn't the type of show to go all bad end on us. Sugu's chara development I suppose is an attempt to differentiate her from "random female party member of the week". The problem here is you can remove the "love" from the Sugu equation and replace it with familial affection/reconciliation with estranged family member for Kazuto, and curiosity over the weirdo newbie which grows into trust and close friendship with Kirito and still end up with the exact same message that Sugu's chara development is trying to convey.

From a certain point of view Sugu's romance sidequest is completely extraneous. I've still always had a soft spot for the runner ups in the romance department in shows but it still doesn't change my opinion on this ultimately.

[Yusei Fudo]

I don't really like Asuna at all...

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by The Green One

You can't really compare Sugu's feelings to our much mocked villain wanna-be, this isn't the type of show to go all bad end on us. Sugu's chara development I suppose is an attempt to differentiate her from "random female party member of the week". The problem here is you can remove the "love" from the Sugu equation and replace it with familial affection/reconciliation with estranged family member for Kazuto, and curiosity over the weirdo newbie which grows into trust and close friendship with Kirito and still end up with the exact same message that Sugu's chara development is trying to convey.

From a certain point of view Sugu's romance sidequest is completely extraneous.

I'm quite sure this same conversation was had last week. The key point of Suguha's role is as a love interest, not as a family member. You could eliminate her being a family member completely, but the essential point is that she's someone close to him in real life and falls in love with him in the game (thinking she's running away from her doomed real-life crush). This is the message that Suguha's character development is trying to convey. The "sister" aspect is rather inconsequential, and only explains their real-life connection to each other. She could easily be a next-door neighbour/childhood friend whose chance at having her feelings returned were "stolen" by SAO. The only benefit of being Kazuto's "sister" is that it helps explain why Kazuto feels nothing towards her and can't return her feelings (and also the way her feelings developed, as explained in this episode). It also, of course, increases the irony of the situation.

I'm quite sure that neither "familial affection" nor "reconciliation with an estranged family member" have any relation whatsoever to Suguha's role in this story. Perhaps it's an alternate plot that you would have preferred... but I can't see how it's at all connected to the point here.

[ellessarr]

Originally Posted by Esebian

You are overlooking some obvious points:

Firstly you say that the author makes girls fall for Kirito although he is already in love with Asuna. Problem is the girls you are referring to is only Suguha. Remember both Silicia and Liz fall for him before he was together with Asuna. They both had the chance to make him fall for them but Silicia didn't show it to him, while Liz gave up because she knew her best friend Asuna was in love with him.

Secondly he isn't oblivous to their feelings, but seriously they have to show it somehow...what did Sugu do to show her love to him? She had that short sentence in episode 20 when she wanted to silence the 2 leaders of the 2 races; well I dunno if I would now assume that she is in love with me in his position. But we have an obvious case where he saw the feelings for him and that was with Lisbeth. The moment she stopped talking to Asuna as she saw that Asuna was in love with Kirito, he knew that she had fallen for him.

Thirdly I dunno from where you have your spoilers but... [mod edit: spoilers removed]

lol mine final toughs on this post ^^(already get mine first warn!!!!!), make a girl fall for a guy to in the end hearbreak her is not fun this for me not a good way to do a "drama".
make a whole arc dedicated to a girl to do in the end she gets heartbroken, to me is not even something cool that love has been one-sided, to me what matters is how Kirito was unable to along the arc of not realize that their "good deeds" would not make her fall for him, or as mentioned by others could have been more honest from the start and said it was to save the person he loves.
by the way the only harems who i can like are the only like kore wa zombie desu ka where the "romance" is not the focus is just a excuse for the comedy.
by the way dont hate me ^^

[Dark Wing]

Originally Posted by Insane

Meh, this is why i hate harem element in serious story very much. There's no point in sugu's romance in this arc if KiritoxAsuna couple had been carved on the stone from the start with nobody (no girls) may interfere them.

KIRITO, YOU DAMN WOMANIZER!

Well can easily go the other way with the girls trying to steal him away...

[andy]

I have to say i feel nothing for Sugu she could ask him certain questions while they travel .
Also you have Yui that say papa all the time , i would think most people would ask if there's a mama even if it was just as a joke.
Just happy we can move on from it .

[Dauerlutscher]

I honestly could not care less about Suguha and her doomed romance story. I'm just happy that it ended and that we can finally move one from that forced drama nonsese we got with her.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I'm quite sure this same conversation was had last week. The key point of Suguha's role is as a love interest, not as a family member. You could eliminate her being a family member completely, but the essential point is that she's someone close to him in real life and falls in love with him in the game (thinking she's running away from her doomed real-life crush). This is the message that Suguha's character development is trying to convey. The "sister" aspect is rather inconsequential, and only explains their real-life connection to each other. She could easily be a next-door neighbour/childhood friend whose chance at having her feelings returned were "stolen" by SAO. The only benefit of being Kazuto's "sister" is that it helps explain why Kazuto feels nothing towards her and can't return her feelings (and also the way her feelings developed, as explained in this episode). It also, of course, increases the irony of the situation.

I'm quite sure that neither "familial affection" nor "reconciliation with an estranged family member" have any relation whatsoever to Suguha's role in this story. Perhaps it's an alternate plot that you would have preferred... but I can't see how it's at all connected to the point here.

Yes, this conversation does seem like a repeat of last week. I still disagree with you though, or at least feel the story would have been improved if the writer had decided to make it a family connection rather than a romantic one. Maybe I'm just not the romantic sort, but I have roughly zero sympathy for Suguha here. Whenever she's shown crying over it all I can do is roll my eyes. Perhaps I'm not the target audience, but I think a family story would be way more compelling than a "silly" love story. Even when I was in middle school I was more self-aware than that.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by ellessarr

not realize that their "good deeds" would not make her fall for him, or as mentioned by others could have been more honest from the start and said it was to save the person he loves.

I'm pretty sure that he wasn't deliberately trying to mislead her, and he made it pretty clear that he needed to get to the top of the tree to meet an important person. He didn't get into all the personal details because he didn't want to burden her with his own personal problems. There were also Yui's comments that helped insinuate what was going on... but of course, this whole thing was fundamentally a misunderstanding. If they both could have been more clear, the misunderstanding obviously would not have happened.

Basically, it's as if you're accusing him of taking off his ring when he goes out in public so he can flirt with girls and hope to "score". I don't think that was ever his intention. He only saw Leefa as a friend, and he wasn't thinking "oh no, if I'm nice to her she may fall for me!". Maybe from now on he'll have to think about that a bit more, but he doesn't exactly have a whole mountain of experience behind him either.

I guess I can understand that people say they don't like the fact that the author went here. But in terms of the characters "in-universe", I don't think either of them are really portrayed as being "at fault".


Edit:

Originally Posted by Clarste

I still disagree with you though, or at least feel the story would have been improved if the writer had decided to make it a family connection rather than a romantic one.

I don't have any problem with the latter argument, although I'm not really one to speculate too much about what "could have been". I just don't think you can say "you can eliminate this key plot and still convey the very same thing". You'd convey a different thing, and maybe you can argue that it would be a better thing... but it's not the same thing. That's really all I'm trying to get at here -- it's not extraneous because it is the point. Not liking the point is a different issue, IMO.

(And, well, it has been well-documented that I like plots that feature/highlight doomed romance, so I'm sure I do enjoy this plot element more than some do. )

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by Clarste

Yes, this conversation does seem like a repeat of last week. I still disagree with you though, or at least feel the story would have been improved if the writer had decided to make it a family connection rather than a romantic one. Maybe I'm just not the romantic sort, but I have roughly zero sympathy for Suguha here. Whenever she's shown crying over it all I can do is roll my eyes. Perhaps I'm not the target audience, but I think a family story would be way more compelling than a "silly" love story. Even when I was in middle school I was more self-aware than that.

God.. It was just fate playing with them... She doesn't know anything about Kazuto being Kirito.... She didn't care to ask at all... The girl in her aged will likely fall if partied with a cool guy like Kirito. Her only mistake was keeping her curiosity to herself and didn't bother to ask.... Suguha is a shy girl deep inside..

[The Green One]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

I'm quite sure this same conversation was had last week. The key point of Suguha's role is as a love interest, not as a family member. You could eliminate her being a family member completely, but the essential point is that she's someone close to him in real life and falls in love with him in the game (thinking she's running away from her doomed real-life crush). This is the message that Suguha's character development is trying to convey. The "sister" aspect is rather inconsequential, and only explains their real-life connection to each other. She could easily be a next-door neighbour/childhood friend whose chance at having her feelings returned were "stolen" by SAO. The only benefit of being Kazuto's "sister" is that it helps explain why Kazuto feels nothing towards her and can't return her feelings (and also the way her feelings developed, as explained in this episode). It also, of course, increases the irony of the situation.

I'm quite sure that neither "familial affection" nor "reconciliation with an estranged family member" have any relation whatsoever to Suguha's role in this story. Perhaps it's an alternate plot that you would have preferred... but I can't see how it's at all connected to the point here.

We may just have to agree to disagree. The romance aspect to Sugu just feels unnecessary to me regardless if she's family or some other random acquaintance. Though this and all previous points I've made on this are purely my own opinion and not necessarily valid for others. There's no real right or wrong stance on this.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by The Green One

We may just have to agree to disagree. The romance aspect to Sugu just feels unnecessary to me regardless if she's family or some other random acquaintance. Though this and all previous points I've made on this are purely my own opinion and not necessarily valid for others. There's no real right or wrong stance on this.

Of course it's an opinion, but the point I was disagreeing with was this:

Originally Posted by The Green One

The problem here is you can remove the "love" from the Sugu equation and replace it with familial affection/reconciliation with estranged family member for Kazuto, and curiosity over the weirdo newbie which grows into trust and close friendship with Kirito and still end up with the exact same message that Sugu's chara development is trying to convey.

The question is: what is "the message that Sugu's chara development is trying to convey"? You argued that it could be conveyed without the romance... but how does that convey "the same message"? This is the point I don't understand.

Like I said, I can accept if you argue that doing otherwise would have been a better use of her character and resulted in a better overall plot. And if that's what you were trying to say... then it's really just opinions, and there's no point in arguing. But I think it's difficult to eliminate/replace a central plot element and still convey the same message, and if that's the case I really wonder what said message is, in your view.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by GenjiChan

God.. It was just fate playing with them... She doesn't know anything about Kazuto being Kirito.... She didn't care to ask at all... The girl in her aged will likely fall if partied with a cool guy like Kirito. Her only mistake was keeping her curiosity to herself and didn't bother to ask.... Suguha is a shy girl deep inside..

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by Clarste

I'm not really sure what you're talking about here.

Ok, she just doesn't knew anything nor ask anything.... and fate ( or rather the author) made them look like idiots to not ask anything ever since they both entered the game.