Sword Art Online/Headscratchers

Sword Art Online II's Dethroning Moment of Suck
(Written by Digibro, part of Your Anime Sucks: Sword Art Online Part 2)

(Episode 9)

And now, my friends, we come to the scene that finally broke this entire arc for me. I mean, other than the nine-thousand other things I’ve already talked about, but this is the first really big one! Something so immersion-breaking and stupid that it put a crack in my skull just trying to wrap my head around it.

Death Gun murders a man. On. Fucking. Camera.

So okay, let’s take a step back for a moment. Kirito was sent on a mission into Gun Gale Online in order to confirm the existence of Death Gun and find out if it’s possible that Death Gun is really killing people. That’s it, that’s his mission. It’s not to fight Death Gun, it’s not to win the Bullet of Bullets, it’s a quest for information given to him by a government agent.

Kirito already has reason to suspect that the character with this avatar is Death Gun, and that he’s a former player killer from Sword Art Online. Hell, he’s even convinced that Death Gun really does have the power to kill people by the time he’s about to pull the trigger on Pale Rider.

So Death Gun murders a man. It’s obvious that’s what happens, because when he shoots him it only takes out a speck of life, yet the man starts convulsing in possibly the most hilarious death scene ever. (I guess they didn’t wanna hire a voice actor just to make death noises.)

Pale Rider is marked as disconnected, and then Death Gun brags to the cameras that if he runs into you, he will bring you true death with his gun. What. The fuck. Even if we don’t immediately assume that Pale Rider has just died in the real world, it’s pretty obvious that some kind of foul play is going on. Why did Pale Rider freak out like that? Death Gun seemed to know it was going to happen. Is he cheating? Did he use a hack? Even if we assume it was staged, it still seems like cheating. More importantly, Kirito not only has reason to suspect that Pale Rider was just killed, but he should have some kind of direct line of communication to a government worker who suspects that Death Gun might be killing people. Can Kirito not contact the world outside his headset? Cause if not, ew, creepy, once again I can’t imagine ever playing one of these games, but even if he can’t, he doesn’t have a reason to be here anymore. He could just disconnect, tell the nurse “that’s the guy,” and have the government agent contact the authorities to check out Pale Rider’s house, and contact the game administrators to have the tournament postponed so they can investigate, and maybe have Death Gun’s character suspended. But no. None of that happens.

Death Gun just murders a guy on-air, and no one does a damn thing. Even after Klein realizes that Death Gun’s slogan, “it’s show time,” was the slogan of the old Laughing Coffin guild leader and tells the girls, no one does anything. They keep bringing up how Kirito and Shinon can’t figure out what Death Gun’s name is because he’s always off the radar when the satellite goes by, but are the names not displayed on the live stream? Why can you not see a player’s name just by looking at them in this game, anyways?

That seems like a really asinine plot convenience. Everything about this entire setup seems like a really asinine plot convenience. How much shit does this show expect me to try and buy into just to keep following along with its ridiculous plot? How many rules which serve no logical purpose other than to push the plot along am I going to have to accept to keep any suspension of disbelief?

See, that’s the problem, there is no anchor with this series, no ground on which to gain your bearings. The entire world, the whole setup of Gun Gale Online as a game, is built around the narrative that Kawahara wanted to construct, without ever attempting to work as a setting on its own.

I can’t imagine any reason why names would be hidden in an MMORPG except that it makes for a convenient plot device. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to sense or communicate with the outside world in any way, no reason there should be a satellite to prevent camping which you can easily avoid, no reason that Death Gun can just kill a motherfucker on camera and get away with it... except that it makes for a convenient plot device.

This is the fundamental flaw at the heart of Sword Art Online, and it’s why the show fails on such a basic level. It’s why I can’t get invested in the setting or characters, because nothing in the series feels organic. Everything is forced, broken, and a huge insult to my intelligence.

The plot demands a Final Showdown!
Your Anime Sucks: Sword Art Online Part 3


 * Kirito monologues about how he’s going to fight Death Gun, and says “if he points that gun at me again, I might just abandon you and run.” SO EDGY! But here’s the thing. Why does Kirito have to fight him? When did that become a thing? What would fighting Death Gun even accomplish? May I remind you that the whole point of this mission was to find out what Death Gun’s deal is and whether or not he’s killing people. That mission is already complete, so what’s left to gain from Kirito putting himself at risk to fight this guy? Sure you could argue that Kirito wants closure over his past, but isn’t it much more important that he gets the information about Death Gun out there and gets him out of this game as fast as possible? You can’t even use the excuse about them not knowing his name anymore, because at this point they’ve already confirmed that Death Gun is Sterben. Why aren’t they doing anything about it?
 * You see, there IS a reason that Kirito has to fight Death Gun, but it’s got nothing to do with what makes sense in the context of the story, and everything to do with how the story was written. Death Gun has been built up as Kirito’s big rival, so of course it stands to reason that the two of them are gonna fight in the end–you could’ve figured that much out from the opening scene alone. But it’s precisely because it’s so obvious that you never stop to think about how little sense it makes. Given everything we know about Death Gun, about this situation, and even about Kirito who was reluctant to take this job in the first place, it seems like the most logical course of action would be to logout now, have the tournament postponed, and open an investigation on Death Gun’s character. But because it’s already been determined from the beginning at the conceptual stage that Kirito and Death Gun need to have a gigantic final battle at the end, that’s exactly what happens, regardless of how it fits the narrative.

You Can't LOG OUT?!?!
Your Anime Sucks: Sword Art Online Part 3

[While Kirito and Shinon take cover in a cave, she] explains that during BoB (Bullet of Bullets) you can’t log out on your own. WHAT?! Wait, what?!

Hold on… hold on, what?! Wait, but you can forfeit, right? Kirito just told Shinon that she should log out like a minute ago, wait hold on this can’t possibly be legal, you have to be kidding me. Please say you aren’t telling me that you physically cannot log out during BoB, please tell me that this is not still a fucking thing. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is still happening. How many people have to die before this shit becomes illegal? At this point, anyone who puts on one of these helmets which makes your real life body completely useless, and then willingly subjects themselves to a scenario in which they can’t logout, deserves a Darwin award after their inevitable homicide. So I guess that answers my last question, Kirito really DOES have to fight Death Gun if he wants to get out of here, assuming there’s really no way for him to contact the outside world from inside the game. It’s not stupid cause of the narrative, it’s just stupid because all the characters are fucking morons!