The main character is a tool and a complete douche. What is his problem? Kirito is an asshat half the time normally, but this is on a whole nother level. The writing is piss poor. We miss all the good opportunities for story or combat, and what we do see is useless garbage. This is one craptacular episode.
I can really see why people dislike SAO with this episode. I enjoyed it, but Kirito's dark descent feels sudden and forced here. Anakin Skywalker's dark descent in the Star Wars prequels took three films, and fans even considered that sudden, so for SAO to try to do it in 20 minutes just doesn't work. The Klein scene felt wasted and perhaps misplaced, and the show missed opportunities to seed these characters into memorable roles in scenes from the previous two episodes.
Interestingly, this "quest to get the deus ex machina to save someone" comes up in a future episode, and it's even from the same arc, so I'm thinking the writers could have gotten Kirito to this dark place another way.
Shout by mg_greyBlockedParentSpoilers2017-01-01T07:18:26Z
I was expecting they'll die. Wasn't disappointed.