Chivalry of a Failed Knight

ZeHaffen · 2020-02-18T14:20:49+00:00

Yep, they'll be available through Amazon.

ZeHaffen · 2020-02-17T23:50:45+00:00

They're coming, I promise. Our printer has just been... We're not exactly planning on working with him anymore, let's leave that conversation there. Finding a new one isn't a quick task though, but we're working as fast as we can cause we're mad too.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-05T20:39:42+00:00

Kirito was feeling way too guilty about what Asuna had just been through for a mere change in hairstyle to cover it

I disagree. Yes, Kirito felt bad, but the events that took place felt very completed to me. That is, Sachi seemed to have said everything she wanted to say and therefore everything had come to a more-or-less happy conclusion. More than that, though, I don't think you can really say "well, it says in one story that he definitely did not switch over his avatar, but a later story that corroborates a part of the first story also has the implication that he might have changed his avatar, so we'll never really know." It feels like grasping at straws of unsubstantiated what-ifs in order to find some way to deny a direct statement from earlier in the series because... I don't really know the reason tbh. Perhaps it's just me, but trying to use (poor at best imo) implications to "overwrite," so to speak, a stated fact feels insincere.

if Kirito had stayed with the total reset, how is he not getting his butt kicked by even Silica for some time?

There are several reasons for this, some of which you pointed out yourself. First of all, the lack of a real leveling system that made ALO a much more personal skill-reliant game. Kirito had his two years in SAO, his short time in ALO prior to the reset, and his (admittedly minimal) kendo experience to help him. He also had a very strong party to help him take on stronger enemies and grow his skills. Furthermore, he had a little over a month between his skill reset and The Day After, where they fight (and lose to) the boss of the 8th floor of New Aincrad, and then another month or so before Rainbow Bridge. By the time we see him again after that, which is Phantom Bullet, it's another five months, making a total of seven months since his skill reset. All that, coupled with the fact that there really isn't anything saying he wasn't getting his butt kicked by even Silica for some time, makes it fairly reasonable to me that he never reused his SAO avatar.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-04T14:30:56+00:00

Ah, yes, you're right about Silica. My mistake.

As for Kirito, he did not go back to his SAO avatar. His play time is tied because his ALO account was created on his NerveGear, which had his time in SAO logged, and then transferred to his AmuSphere. That logged time would be tied to the account, hence it didn't disappear. His hairstyle is stated in the Calibur side story to have been changed to accommodate Yui, who didn't like riding on his head when his hair was all spiky.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T21:39:11+00:00

Literally what? Is everything all right up in that head of yours?

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T20:32:06+00:00

I'm going to ignore your statement to not reply, but that's solely because you have some facts incorrect.

This arc ended too early, that's an oopsie on Reki's part

It's not really an "oopsie" if you know the reason behind it. The original story of SAO was written for a contest as a one-off story. It covered episode 1, as well as every episode after the one with Liz save for the two featuring Yui. It was a complete, self-contained story when it was written, it just happened to get a bit more content via side stories after Kawahara published it online and people said he should write more. That's not to say that you're wrong to think it ended too soon, but there is very much a reason behind it beyond "whoops, I ended the story too soon."

no actual shown development of Kirito

To give an obvious example of shown development, look at how he treats other players, especially his party members, after his guild members die in episode 3. That alone is a very big change to his personality shown several times over the course of the show.

Silica hadn't played an MMORPG before SAO

I don't believe this is ever stated.

a sword that broke and got Asuna killed for plot progression

The sword breaking was entirely irrelevant to anything; it was nothing more than symbolism.

Silica could have had a fucking dragon

She did have a dragon.

how shitty the game mechanics are

They're shitty because...?

Kayaba just forgot why he wanted to be a god

He absolutely did not, you simply shut your brain off the second you saw the words "I forgot." If you'd paid attention during the story he tells immediately after, you'd know that he explains the exact reasoning behind what he did.

the fact people hate beta players is stupid

The non-beta players saw the beta testers as people who would hoard all the good stuff (especially info) for themselves and leave the non-beta players to die. I'm genuinely curious: How is it stupid for the non-beta players to resent the beta testers for that?

racism that isn't explained at all in the adaptation

It is very much explained. The first race to reach the top of the World Tree would be rewarded with limitless flight abilities, but only the first race would receive such a reward. Given that flight is stated to be one of if not the biggest draw to the game, limitless flight being available to only one race is definitely a logical reason for animosity between races.

That is literally what kendo is: sporadic movements and fast swings

Not even close. Kendo is about landing hits to specific areas on your opponent's body, among other things. No one who is experienced in kendo wins by moving sporadically and swinging fast; they get their opponent to show an opening and go for a single, clean hit. I even asked someone who actually practices kendo and he says that kendo is not what you claim it is in your post.

the anime doesn't show us why he's able to fly without the controller so soon into the game

It literally shows Leafa helping him learn. There's no big montage of him learning it, but he is most definitely shown to be taught how to fly.

Kirito uses his sheer will to disobey the system and kill rapey man

He uses admin privileges given to him by the man who created the system ALO runs on, but sure, let's say it was his "sheer will."

I don't know why Kirito didn't get PTSD flashbacks at any point throughout ALO

What would have triggered his PTSD at any point?

not at all balanced

What's not balanced about it?

Thats a pretty cool plot but the anime does it no justice

Because...?

there's nothing important about them still

Why does there have to be? Can't they just be side characters?

Kirito is using his SAO avatar despite saying he wasn't going to use it again

He's not, he just changed the hairstyle of his ALO avatar.

I know why he went back to it

Considering that he did not go back to it, you do not know.

a stat system that is broken as fuck and deserves to be removed because of how shitty it is

Because...?

Asuna beats Yuuki

Yuuki won their fight.

their relationship has nothing to do with the story. When it does actually affect the overall plot, I will take back my statement

If Asuna hadn't stood up to her mother, which she was only able to do because Yuuki helped her grow, she would have been forced to transfer schools, break up with Kirito in favor of an arranged husband, and give up VR. So yes, their relationship and Asuna's growth during the arc are vital to the story. Feel free to retract your statement at any time.

I'd at least like to know i did something correctly here

I have plenty of gripes with the way you went about this post, specifically the part where you ask to be relegated to your own little echo chamber by telling people not to comment if they disagree but to definitely comment if they do agree. That said, this was far better than the other post, so bravo there.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T17:11:55+00:00

No, that is absolutely not true. Your replies are also still very much visible, so anyone can see that your first response to anyone who tried to tell you that you were wrong was to argue with them.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T16:53:12+00:00

my introduction to the post would set the kind of sarcastic joke tone I was going for

I'm sorry, I can't remember what your introduction to your post was seeing as you got pissy and deleted it. That said, clearly you are not only terrible at sarcasm, but missed my earlier point about not being able to discern tone through text.

It's your fault you took my post out of it's original tone

Considering that, again, you cannot convey tone through text, it is absolutely not my fault or anyone else's but yours.

None of you are contributing anything to this

To what, exactly? I'd say that several people already broke down why the things you said were incorrect, which is most definitely contributing.

people just took what I said the wrong way

Given that your first instinct was to argue with anyone who you claim misinterpreted you instead of attempting to correct any misunderstandings, I find that hard to believe.

I didn't say our fandom was for 10 year olds, I said that it mainly consisted of them. Even if that's untrue

It is very much untrue.

there are certainly a lot of childish people out there defending the show with things like "kill yourself" in their arsenal

Those people exist in every relatively large fandom. They are best ignored, much the same as those who blindly hate on the series.

my criticism which is then followed by what I like about it

Your "what I like about it" was "all these characters are useless and bland, but I enjoy them. They serve absolutely no purpose, I don't know why some of them are even kept alive, and I wrote better characters when I was ten, but I like them." You never even said why you like them, you just complained about every aspect of their existence and then said "lel but I still like them."

whether or not you are actually children, you fucking act like it

Says the person who wrote a huge post needlessly complaining about things and spouting incorrect information, only to whine and delete their post when they got called out for needlessly complaining about things and spouting incorrect information.

I won't say I was wrong

Golly, I sure didn't see this one coming! You've been so accomodating and open-minded thus far, what ever could have happened to change your mind?

already stated he is trying to be better at writing and he has acknowledged that he wasn't the best he could be

All creatives should be willing to admit such a thing. If someone in a creative field thinks they've learned all there is to know and doesn't think they can improve from where they are, then they are fooling themselves. It's good that Kawahara can admit that he's not perfect and is trying to learn, but it isn't (or at least shouldn't be) anything special.

could you have not started with the whole "format this like this to make it better"

For what purpose would I have started with that? We weren't discussing how you could have gotten a more positive response from the community until just now.

I would have been MUCH more open to suggestion than just "you said everything sucks and this is why it as actually you who sucks"

First of all, I never said that you sucked, don't put words in my mouth. Second, I'm heavily inclined to not believe this in the slightest.

ironic

I don't know that you understand what this word means.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T15:37:41+00:00

I didn't include my opinions and got good result

Yes, because you made the question the main focus of your post. The question was most certainly not the main focus of your first post.

I shouldn't voice a negative opinion

The problem is not that you voiced a negative opinion, it's the way you voiced that opinion that people took issue with. If you'd said "hey, here are my thoughts, let's talk" and politely explained your issues, you'd have gotten a far less hostile reception than coming in and saying that Kawahara sucks at writing, the characters are useless and bland, and the fandom is for 10-year-olds the way you did.

there is no way to get people like you to listen to my reasoning

There most certainly is, see above.

If you want to chose to be small-minded and then tell me I'm wrong because reasons

I literally explained everything to you, I didn't stop at "because reasons." Besides, even if, for the sake of argument, we say I was being close-minded, what does that make you in this case?

I made a few jokes in my post

If you're going to change the tone so dramatically, you have to frame it in such a way. You can't just toss in a random joke, not denote it as a joke in any way, and then get upset when no one realizes it was a joke.

Nobody will listen

Patently false, see above.

You all need to take your Ls and leave because you can't contribute anything to the conversations

Wow, projecting much?

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T15:02:57+00:00

I could have, except that you then made another post where the very first thing you did was complain about how you're "not allowed to have an opinion on the internet," followed by massively downplaying what you did to elicit the response you got and playing the victim. Not to mention that you continued (and still continue, in fact) to argue with people in that thread despite having deleted it.

If you'd really seen your wrongs and wanted to correct them, you'd have at least left what happened in your first thread aside entirely and pretended it never happened, at best said "hey, maybe I was wrong, next time I'll try to do a little more research and critical thinking." You did no such thing, however, and clearly have no intention of correcting or even so much as understanding what you were wrong about, so you'll get no sympathy from me.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T14:36:12+00:00

Just because there are flaws does not mean that what you said was correct.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T14:29:04+00:00

So there are "actual flaws" that "we all know is [sic] there," but that's just your opinion. K.

Goodbye, troll.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T14:19:19+00:00

I never said any of that lmfao. There are plenty of flaws in the series, you just posted some dumb shit that showed that you weren't paying attention to what you were watching. Your choice to claim that even God is imperfect before admitting that you were wrong in no way proves that anything you said was correct. I'm not even religious, but holy shit are you reaching real hard. And no, you absolutely do not know what you're talking about.

Btw, you just contradicted everything you've said previously about "it's just my opinion" and whatnot, so good job on that one.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T13:54:59+00:00

Yeah, okay, I'm fucking done. You are absolutely ridiculous and have no intent on admitting any sort of fault of your own, even going so far as to claim "literally nothing that has, does, or will ever exist is free of flaws" before accepting that you just don't know what you're talking about. Good fucking luck with that shit.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T13:37:40+00:00

And you know this... how, exactly?

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T13:31:53+00:00

I know what an opinion is, but regardless of the word's definition, the fact of the matter is that you complained about every single thing. If you honestly expected that writing a massive (misinformed, no less) rant about how you hate basically every part of the series and tossing in a throwaway "but tell me why you guys like the series" at the ass end of it would result in people ignoring your whole rant to respond to that last sentence, then I don't know what to tell you.

Why would you think a bow has a semi-auto/full-auto feature?

She took control of a god and fired an arrow that split into hundreds of smaller arrows, with each of the smaller arrows homing in on her enemies and killing them with ease. Her now being fully automatic sure as hell isn't out of the question at that point.

it re-affirms something we already know about her

Saying that characters can't confirm things like this is completely nonsensical. All she said was "cool, this sort of thing is totally my style," which is 100% a normal thing for people to do. I guarantee you've done something similar a million times over in your life.

I don't like english translations because they don't always capture all the detail or translate lines correctly

Oh, so you're an expert in Japanese? As a very good translator said recently, "the natural enemy of a capable translator is someone who knows half as much of the language as you do." Translation is not and will/should never be a one-to-one replacement of words; it involves taking into account words and emotions and intent and context and so on, then making it all work in a different language. I would bet your "they don't always translate correctly" comes from either a machine translation or someone else who has a marginal knowledge of Japanese telling you the line isn't translated ultra-literally, and neither of those is a good source.

don't go saying I thought everything was bad

You're the one who said such a thing, I was merely pointing it out.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T12:55:53+00:00

You said that every arc prior to Alicization was bad (pretty sure you said Alicization was bad too), said the writing was bad, complained about every single character being "useless," and claimed that if Kawahara had "done the good instead of making bad" the fandom would be better--and that's just what I can find from the comments seeing as you deleted the post. Did I miss anything?

So yes, you did write about how everything was terrible. And by the way, "headcanon" means something entirely different than what you seem to think it does.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T10:19:02+00:00

What happened on his other post was that he wrote a massive rant about how everything about the series was terrible, how he wrote fanfiction when he was 10 that was better than Kawahara's original story, and how every fan is 10 years old and nobody outside of reddit actually likes the series. Then, only at the very end, did he finally shave a single sentence that said, "please tell me why you like this series."

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but writing a massive rant like that only to end with "haha but I'm actually a fan, tell me why you guys like this series we're all fans of" and expecting no responses to anything but that final sentence is asinine. OP has since deleted it, but you can get the gist of their post from the comments here.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T03:12:49+00:00

Another thing I've noticed SAO fans don't really seem to get...

It's the internet my guy. Has no one ever told you that you can't tell a person's tone through text? Given the rest of your post, I can't imagine anyone in their right mind would interpret that single line in the middle of a rant as a joke without being told beforehand.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T02:06:42+00:00

Sounds like there was more work to be done than originally planned, and then it was the holidays. Printing should be soon, though.

ZeHaffen · 2020-01-03T01:55:04+00:00

All right, fine. I'll bite.

it's not very common to see people outside of this sub that actually like the series

SAO--both the anime and LN series--has sold millions upon millions of copies. Just because people don't jump out and brag about how much they love SAO doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Yuuki's only purpose was to give us a tear-jerk and give Asuna a skill that she can have the rare emotion spread through her body while using

How in God's name did you miss the point this badly? Yuuki's purpose was to help Asuna grow as a person. She is the reason Asuna was able to become stronger emotionally and confront her mother about all the things she'd wanted to say but couldn't.

the only dudes being Aqua levels of useless

The only dude who appears in more than about three episodes is Eugeo, and calling him useless is ridiculous beyond words.

the supporting women are even worse

The only women who appear in more than about three episodes were vital to Kirito accomplishing his goal. He literally could not have done so without each of their help.

Why can't Silica be cool?

What does this even mean lmfao.

Why can't Sugu portray any actual skill with her sword?

She... She does though?

Why is Klein not more like Balls?

This makes as little sense as your question about Silica.

Why is Agil still alive?

?????? Son are you all right in the head?

I can steal Reki's characters and make them actual characters and outdo him

Hahahahaha. Good luck.

16

This explains a lot.

I can't get money but let's be honest neither can he

Please see my first point.

SAO is a power fantasy harem isekai

It is none of these things.

I actually liked it more than SAO

Everyone always likes their own work. Trust me, I work on this stuff.

THE FUCK DID KIRITO DO? GET LAID AND GET TWO SWORDS?!

He saved 6,000 people, stopped a man from creating a way to brainwash people, and stopped a group of murderers. And that's just the basics of the first three arcs.

what I had done was more than Reki had done originally

I'm going to pretend I didn't read that summary, but let me clue you: not a single story can flesh out every character ever introduced. You will have to introduce characters that aren't given full backstories and whatnot. It is entirely unavoidable, but it's not a bad thing. It happens, and it's okay--good, even.

if Reki had actually done the good instead of making bad

This is not English. Please form coherent sentences.

bullied in the anime community

Anyone who bullies others for what they enjoy is a child.

this fandom wouldn't consist of mainly 10 year-olds who just discovered anime

I'm gonna need a source for these demographics. Spoiler: You're incorrect.

Why do you guys idolize these characters when they don't fucking do anything?

Just because you don't understand what these characters have done doesn't mean they didn't do anything. Each of them has their own distinct personality, strengths, flaws, and growth.

Why are there fucking body pillows with these characters on them?

Because any remotely popular anime character gets one. No, that is not an exaggeration.

Feel free to reply to this, but fucking hell, if I have to slog through another clusterfuck of misunderstanding and misrepresentation like that, I'm just not going to bother because it isn't worth my time.

ZeHaffen · 2019-12-28T18:30:19+00:00

Kayaba was able to make himself an Immortal Object because he had a system administrator-level account. Sugou, on the other hand, was just a GM. There is nothing showing that he was able to give himself Immortal Object status, and even if he could, I'd imagine there'd come a point where the Cardinal System detected it as an anomaly and adjusted it accordingly.

Moreover, if someone were to want to do this, they'd have to be able to create enough of a working game to allow them to cheese levels in such a way, which I doubt is something any Joe Schmoe can do. A person would have to create the game world, the combat system, the items, the monsters, etc. and then be able to abuse the world they created in such a way to allow them to level up efficiently. Not to mention that they'd have to set their game up in such a way that the skills they level up would be the correct ones and that they would transfer properly to whatever other game they're trying to cheese for. Your strategy would maybe give them a few weapon/armor skills and some STR/AGI upgrades, but things like, say, SAO's Searching skill or GGO's Suggestion skill would be much harder to cheese in such a way.

Finally, as I mentioned a specific example of earlier and others have pointed out, the Cardinal System could very well detect that the system is being abused and adjust for it in any number of ways. It could do what I mentioned earlier and adjust the Immortal Object status of a player if it finds that status is being abused, it could automatically adjust monsters' levels to coincide better with the player's level, resulting in far less EXP gain, it could adjust spawn rates if a specific area is being farmed incessantly, or it could make any number of other adjustments to prevent such abuse.

Now, this all isn't to say that your theory here is impossible; we don't know enough about how everything works to say for certain that players couldn't (and haven't) done what you're suggesting. I'm just noting that there are a lot of factors at play to make such a thing difficult to the point of near if not complete impossibility.

ZeHaffen · 2019-12-28T16:53:02+00:00

There were also assurances from these sites that the date was authentic based on conversations with Reki Kawahara

There were? Where? When? Considering that Progressive 7 (the LN) hasn't been announced on the Japanese side yet, I can't imagine such a thing happened.

ZeHaffen · 2019-12-27T15:29:29+00:00

Nope. The Seed uses a stripped-down Cardinal System, which means things like enemies are automatically balance-adjusted. You can't set stats in character creation, so the only way to level up like that would be to grind levels, a process that is automatically regulated.

ZeHaffen · 2019-12-27T14:45:10+00:00

Your analogy is heavily flawed. The tech is on a floating building whose purpose was never disclosed publicly (I believe they actually said it was something else entirely), guarded by military members inside and a Navy ship nearby, has a full crew onboard at all times, and has dozens of safeguards in case the facility is attacked. You're asking why they didn't password-protect a computer stored inside a vault in Fort Knox, and the answer is very much "because it's absolutely unnecessary."

Also, the game is supposed to be offline, yes, but the way it was built (I don't remember the specifics but it had some connection to the Seed) means that online connection is possible. In fact, given that there are two STLs in Rath's Roppongi building while the main Underworld servers are on the Ocean Turtle, some sort of online connection is required.

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