⭐Sword Art Online Morning Dew Girl Chapter 3 (Part 3) & 4: Read Along & Analysis

I mentioned it on Discord, but for anyone who only read the comments here – the audiobooks are in the process of making. By now, we have first 2 volumes done and released, the 3rd is open for pre-order and will be out in 3 weeks from now. Which is why I would strongly recommend looking into the audiobooks rather than the text to speech system for further dive into the atmosphere of the book. No automated system would ever be able to enhance it as much as professional actor, and we *have* that actor-work out for the next story to try. And by the end of it, if it takes 2 +/- a week, the next book will be out – we really are moving at the same pace as the audiobook release, so why not synchronize if switch from text at all. I always find the exploration of the concept of temporarily memory loss very interesting. At least, when it’s not an immediate switch to old personality without much consequences. Because what it essentially is (at least in stories, have no info on real life cases) – a creation of a new personality on the remnants of the old one, and then they merge into one. It is something capable of producing a great change in character, given enough time to do it. And same happened here – I don’t think I’ve seen it often applied to AIs, but it is beautifully done here. I wouldn’t be surprised, if that was Yui’s plan from the start – the loophole she found in the system that allowed her to fulfill the desire to meet Kirito and Asuna. By separating her memories, she would forget the orders not to interact with players – brilliant. And then, having no memories but keeping all the thought process and emotion simulations, she built her own personality and became alive. Yes, she is still limited to her technology on the basic level of understanding of some things, but now she gained the guidance of her actions separate from just algorithms, although still based on them – on bringing joy and helping others. I believe, she couldn’t have done it before, because while she monitored all the players that were downcast – helping them required her knowledge. But then an outlier appeared – Kirito and Asuna. They managed to bring each other to happiness, and no longer required her knowledge. She still could bring them joy though, which would work just as well without her retaining her memories. And thus, Yui the daughter is born. Yui’s original core is a product of the work of many talented scientists brought together. Yet the core of her personality truly was born from the love that Kirito and Asuna have for each other – that’s what guided her through the barrier of system’s limitations (reminds of Detroit: BH, doesn’t it? :D ), and that’s what formed her personality once they all met and spent the time together. Making her their daughter in more ways than just being adopted. There’s beauty to that. It is very similar to how in Harry Potter’s books Dumbledore always described love as an ancient magic. I can see similar nature in the core of SAO’s story, which is exactly what makes it so unbearable to haters, I guess, who just like Voldemort do not want to accept love’s strengths, do not understand it, view as desire and possession. Themes, that SAO brought up as well. What I noticed, is that a looot of people hate Yui alongside SAO. For them, she appeared out of nowhere, her existence doesn’t make sense to them, neither is the attachment Kirito and Asuna had gain «in such a short amount of time». Well, usually same people mock the guild that Kirito had lost as a bunch of nameless NPCs that viewers did not attach to one bit... so no surprise on that last one. But it always fascinates me how this hate could grow so much, while in different stories, people accept without a second thought things like the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda. It just shows me, how prejudice these haters are, aimed purely to hate and find things to hate, especially in stories that require some more thought process to understand it, or simply empathy. Another point haters usually use from this story – the fact that Kirito managed to save Yui… While many fans who’re familiar with using a computer came to conclusion, that what he did wasn’t all that difficult. At most: CTRL+F, *wrote Yui’s name*, Enter, CTRL+C the folder with her, guessed a command to create a new object (people that are familiar with programming would know, that modern systems are trying to guess what you’re typing based on first letters, so he only really needed to type a couple of first letters in English before system would recognize it and provide the right command) and then CTRL+V the folder into the memory attached to that new object. Then object materialized at the console, and they took it into the shared inventory space. Then Kirito’s NerveGear automatically saved it as part of its cash, like a picture you view on the internet is temporarily saved on your computer. Also, if we consider, that Silica’s story is in the very same volume as this one – we might assume, that created object could just be an empty placeholder for familiar’s «heart», or simply that the system is capable of storing AI’s memories inside the object. It might be something in-between, since there’s no expiration time on it. Which could’ve been an option among the parameters of created object. Like, Generate->Object(type= «heart», expTime = none). I don’t know about countries like America (where most of haters are from it feels like) – but here in my country, we are taught both English and basic coding at school. Children who are enthusiastic about it (and Kazuto is clearly the type) would explore even more at home, write stuff outside the school tasks. So, I really don’t see anything unnatural in what Kirito did, nothing that makes him a total genius «to hack the system». Plus, we saw he’s always working at the fullest once the lives are at stake, and can think at a very high speed at such moment and do it rationally. As for «why Kirito did not free everyone using the console, not ended the game there», which is another common complain about the moment… Here, anyone who asks not someone else, but yourself – «why?» he did it, could easily find an answer. Yui’s access level might not be enough to overrule Kayaba’s. Or maybe the trial and error here is not an option – like, Kirito would write the command to free all, and everyone’s brains would simultaneously be fried. It cannot be that easy. Not from the point of view from inside the world, nor from outside – hero has to finish the journey for it to end. There’s no logic in such an action at given situation either. Kirito followed his emotions, instincts, and I believe he did the right choice for the circumstances. People trying to use it as evidence of bad writing, but their very question brings the bad writing as preferable outcome, which is absurd, they just don’t know what they are talking about. Ahaha, congrats on the start of the decent to emotional darkness :D First we say goodbye to Yui, then *you know the next story*, and then it’s a Fairy Dance ahead! I can’t compare Asuna with other girls from anime – I simply haven’t watched that many of them. But the character I can compare her to – is Sarah Connor from the Terminator series (first 2 movies in particular). They started being innocent girls living their lives, then – met the peril situations. They survived, trained, became warriors. And both by the start of second story ended up being locked behind bars, assaulted by the members of the stuff that held them prisoners, being threatened to lose themselves, yet did all they could to escape while the help was coming at right about the same time as the said escape attempt. One is an iconic strong female character. Another people call «reduced from strong female character into the damsel in distress»…. How does that work?

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