⭐Sword Art Online Warmth of the Heart Chapters 2 (Part 2) & 3: Read Along & Analysis
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Sword Art Online Warmth of the Heart Chapter 2 (Part 2):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hGC9A7Hu5zjCz1nDvO-kwZk2ORCTDFIO/view?usp=sharing
Sword Art Online Warmth of the Heart Chapter 3:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dP8QOwvK4kVUSk7ETgKnKIrwwRrV4PCD/view?usp=sharing
Comments
You are finally seeing what I’ve been saying about the anime skipping things. Like Саша Одинец mentioned, the anime really missed a very integral part of the short story and because of that the episode made people feel like Liz fell in love just because. Although, it was still pretty obvious why she fell in love, but it didn’t get the full point across that it was supposed to. Be prepared to see a whole lot more of this in later volumes. Internal monologue is really important for SAO, but sadly the studio didn’t think that keeping it was worth it unless it was 100% needed (The flower scene from Alicization is a perfect example). Man, I can’t wait until you get to Kirito’s nightmare sequence in Alicization. Again, so many SAO LN fans gave up on the anime after what they did to that scene (And Alicization in general). The Warmth of The Heart short story is still one of my favorites. Liz’s character is one that I don’t think the anime adapted the best. There is so much missing that would make her much more interesting in the show and would’ve made her scene in Alicization that much more powerful. I mean, her whole speak happened basically because of this experience right here. This experience was what showed her that even thought it’s virtual the feelings and connections you make are just as real. The anime adapted the broad strokes, but I wish it had gone deeper. Again, I’m really excited for you to get to Alicization in like…half a year minimum. I really need to see how you feel about it. Anyway, believe me, controversial is the last thing Reki tries to be. On twitter he really does nothing but talk about food, him going on bike rides, or whatever he is working on at the moment. Overall, he’s pretty lowkey. Speaking of which, twitter and reddit really are some of the worst places for SAO. There is hate for it in every inch of the platforms, even in SAO’s own reddit (Not as much, but it’s still there). As much as I wish I could use your clips to debunk what they say, most of them don’t care enough to listen. I really don’t think people will feel different until those big anime youtubers say that SAO isn’t actually bad. That seems pretty difficult seeing as the only one who even gives SAO a sliver of a chance is Gigguk, but he still calls it trashy (But he enjoys it). Mother’s basement has talked about SAO much less lately, but they still come in here and there with something SAO related (Mostly hate). The Anime Man supposedly only watched the first season and dropped the second season really early, so yeah, they made up their mind (He was also one of the first people I saw that called SAO Alternative better than all of the main SAO series). So yeah, it seems that the hate for the series won’t be going anywhere any time soon. A-1 Pictures isn’t doing the series any favors with its adaptation either. Oh, and believe me I enjoy all your little rants here and there. Seeing someone being as passionate about SAO as I am is a nice change of pace. Right, you also mentioned that you like stories told in first person present tense. All I have to say about that is that it’s not for me. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t like writing in that style either. I find it really hard to work with. When it comes to first person I prefer the way that SAO is written, but I also enjoy third person. I can’t say I can pick which one I prefer over the other though. I’ve also always questioned how characters carry so much stuff in a small backpack. I just try not to think about it. Believe it or not, in SAO there is an actual lore reason as to why the player has a menu. If I remember correctly, the humans in that world used to have many different types of magic but after the great separation they lost most of them, except for the menu which was one of them. So when other NPC’s see them using it, at least the smart ones who can understand what that means, they recognize it as remnants of human magic. At least that’s what I remember, I haven’t read the novel where that was explained in a while, but I’m sure you’ll get to that novel eventually.
Gen
2021-10-31 11:25:58 +0000 UTCChapter 3: In the anime, they avoided the moment when Kirito shows his secret skill to Liz, to prolong the secret for viewer until the moment it was originally shown in Volume 1. Speaking of changes – I think, even though anime managed to retell the same story, in the process it lost the very core of it in this particular episode. It’s very strange, because they left out maybe only 10% of it, but it made whole the difference. It is true, that reading the novel expands the understanding of characters in many ways, but here it is more than just that. Here, Lizbeth’s inner world is the core conflict of entire story, and through her conflict, her identity crisis, her realizations, we see Kirito’s problems too, see a reflection of him in her. But anime left out her initial inner monologue about whom she sees herself to be, made the cut directly to Asuna and thus, before the intro, all we know about Liz is that she’s wondering about «someone special». Then it all goes mostly well, up until the point when she’s creating the sword. Because in that moment, she was supposed to go through the inner monologue that resembles the omitted one, but expands on it, she finds who she is. But because they left out the first one, they did the same thing here too. It’s very little amount of text, really, but somehow it all went different path. The rest of her thoughts were about Kirito and how real her feelings are to him. So, in the result, in the anime it was never about Liz, and secondary Kirito, but mostly about just Kirito. Personally, I never viewed Liz falling for Kirito as anything negative. For one – Reki describes, that people could love each other in many different ways, it doesn’t have to be a competition for partner, and it could be a friendship too. Feeling love can have its own problems without love triangles and etc. In a way, for Liz, her first love in Kirito is her own personal tragedy, because she can never be with him any closer than just friends. But she doesn’t make it into a problem of Asuna and Kirito. And one day she might find someone else. What’s wrong with her having a crush/love at this stage of her life? What’s wrong with telling such a story? It happens in real life too. On another hand – what is even this mindset, that one starts to judge the feelings characters have to each other? Why *can’t* they have them? Because one doesn’t like the genre? Because the love is lame, give me more action? I have no idea where this comes from. It feels like someone one day said that it is no good, and people started following the idea like a cult, and apply it to any given story they don’t like at the moment. In my opinion, this is something that we don’t even have to defend. Explain in more details – maybe, but defending it and justifying is a bit too much simply because of how ridiculous the way people describe it as a problem in the first place. Love could be different. It isn’t just drive for sex, or possession of someone. Family can have bonds made with love, and it is a different one than romantic. If anything, Liz behaved more mature and rational about the situation, than most of the characters of some random romantic story you might find on TV, outside of anime genre. She both had the feelings, and awareness of these feelings and situation. Awareness to act not only by following emotions as many would do (not only at her age), but also to address the overall situation in the process. Because that’s the complexity of her character. «That angry face suits you better, Liz. Keep it up» – this, and also «…our constant trading of insults was starting to excite me…» – Kirito managed to bring true Liz on the surface. And this also contributed to how she felt about Kirito. If someone can bring your true yourself – you want to stick to that person, it’s natural.
Саша Одинец
2021-10-29 17:20:16 +0000 UTCChapter 2: «It’s different when you see it, when it’s in front of you. » Speaking of dragons in VR. Just yesterday, I’ve played some more of Resident Evil 4 in VR, and I can tell you – seeing a giant boss walking towards you even in our modern VR on some older game, feels waaaay different than playing it on 2D screen xD I can’t say I was in horror – I’ve had my experience of playing 2d games after all – but the tension was way bigger than it would normally be for me. I literally shot the thing most of the time from behind the shoulder, running in circles through the location xD Given that in SAO not only your life is at stake, but there’s also bigger immersion due to technology, plus you have to be closer due to lack of long ranged options to kill the bosses – I view it as even more admirable for characters to participate in the boss fights. It’s one thing to imagine the process, but something else when you have at least some ways of giving yourself the estimations of how it could feel. It’s actually true for many things, even if you don’t work in some area, sometimes simply trying it out gives a better understanding, respect to that job. I’ve tried to write, translate, draw and record things in my free time, finding out what I like and how the process works, and now that I’ve played some VR, it feels different even rereading these books. And I think, that people oftentimes just start to judge without trying to understand someone else’s point of view in the situation, with zero understanding of how it all works. That’s what I often see in the comments about SAO. People might think that Kirito is selfish. Kirito might even think this of himself too, at times… he could even avoid people… but it doesn’t change the fact, that his inventory always has a spare set of sleeping bag in case someone would need it. An extra teacup for anyone who might share the tea with him. I find this very fact very touching. It shows, that deep inside he craves for same warmth of people that Liz does. He actively denies himself of such an option, because of the guilt over leaving Klein and loosing Sachi and others. He doesn’t know how to connect with people either, and yet he’s always ready, in the most innocent way, to share his own warmth if needed. And him not knowing how, isn’t exactly about the process alone, as I see it, but about how to move yourself to do it. Maybe extraverts wouldn’t precisely understand it, but for people like Kirito, it takes time to learn how to move yourself past your own barriers in interaction with others. You have to understand the problem and yourself in it too – why you do this, and why exactly you don’t want to do this. I experienced it very sharply when learning English. The process of studying and practicing might be difficult at times, but what turned out to be the most challenging – is to start talking, start the interaction with people who know the language. I had to learn how to push myself to do it, first in text, and then anew even more challenging when doing it out loud. Not in class, where you have the answer prepared in your mind, but in any random situation. Sometimes all you want is to spend the time silently, hoping nobody would touch you, at the same time wishing the same thing you’re avoiding, because you actually want to interact with people, and it’s your own insecurities and fears that are stopping you. And from my experience – it is an ongoing fight that could began each and every time you have to interact with someone again, or even to write these long comments in the foreign language, but it is the accumulation of the experience that helps to easier and faster move past the barrier and start. People don’t hate Reki’s writing. They hate the image they constructed of what SAO is, based on the number of scenes from the anime that piqued their attention. And then they say the *writing* is bad for creating them. That’s all. The audiobooks are so amazing, I wish you would experience them too one day. I’m sure you will love them. I think, more people should give them a try, especially since the support we give it will determine whether publisher will continue doing them all the way through the series or not. So far, only SAO 3 and 4 are officially announced, everything else could be stopped at any moment. Which would be a shame, since the quality of the project and attention to the fans is admirable. But I partially agree that it might be a better idea to react to them later, especially if it would mean that the read along would be paused for that process. Because going back would be a journey under a different light after you go all the way from start to finish, and we still have the Aincrad stories ahead of us :)
Саша Одинец
2021-10-29 17:05:44 +0000 UTC
