So I've been reading the light novels recently. There's a lot of hints and kinks in Kirito's monologues and interactions that he's been dealing with PTSD silently for a majority of the time after getting away from Aincrad. This explains a lot of why he's always fulldiving.
A lot of his cheesy and kind of stupid looking interactions like putting the kendo practice sword in the nonexistent sheath actually makes a lot of sense if you think about it since those are symptoms of combat induced PTSD that shows in a lot of war veterans.
Furthermore, his way of coping with it isn't healthy even if he's using his time to be productive as he's slowly but surely becoming more and more obsessed with VR.
Not a lot of people give Kawahara enough credit as he manages to nail many different mentalities affected by PTSD as Yuuki has a similar mindset to Kirito but it isn't combat-induced but rather emotional trauma from losing her family as well as literally having no choice but to truly live in VR.
Jonathan Cook
Lastly, Sinon is another character that suffer from this as shown in her backstory. However, her plight becomes well known to Kirito and his friends thereby is no longer dealing with it silently as well as having closure to the incident that brought her trauma. Arguably her way of trying to deal with it might be the healthier ways to cope with it despite her terrible decision of befriending Kyouji.
Ian Reyes
Nice blog you fucking nerd
Jose Powell
Op is a fag
Lincoln Ward
Makes sense.
Nicholas Watson
Good posts
Nathan Gutierrez
Terrible post
Daniel Peterson
I never really understood the who Kirito is a self insert criticism. His life has been shit for the most part, why would you wanna be that?
Elijah Morris
Because the Kirito gary stu, Kirito bad meme will never ever die
too bad anime in general is really bad at portraying PTSD without making it blatantly obvious
Josiah Hill
Another thing I wanna add is that Kirito and a lot of SAO survivors keep on diving in VR games and a lot of people shout at them and calling them dumb for doing it but I also see it as another symptom of PTSD as there have been a lot of stories of soldiers breaking out of hospitals just to return back to the action despite how horrifying the experience might be. As they long for a reason to be validated and a direct paralel to people going back to VRMMOS despite the danger.
Hudson Diaz
Although I don't know it if this was done intentionally but Kawahara has managed to write the symptoms of combat induced PTSD in a believable manner as it's clear that even the people in the world of SAO are also asking why would anyone go back to the action much like how many others in real life would question why anyone else would wanna go back to the military. What's more is that he nails the precise reason why most veterans would wanna go back as I have explained above. But also the fact that they cannot truly reintegrate when they have had an experience so vastly different from everyone else in the world.
Andrew Evans
You're giving Kawahara way too much credit.
Benjamin Bell
I don't think I am. A common underlying theme in all of his series is the exploration of the psychological issues and aspects of being in the situation they have found themselves in. This is particularly more important in his newer works like Accel World where your avatar is determined by your experiences, trauma, memory and personality as well as in Isolator which is the same thing as your experience when in contact with the direct source of the power you are given determines the type of power you get.
Michael Evans
He's been on VR since before SAO launched faggot.
Kayden Young
>He explores a character's psychology so this is all deliberate Stop wanking Kawahara so much, he's nothing special. Urobuchi can write SAO and all its main themes better than he ever can
Matthew Clark
Maybe. But I get the feeling if Urobuchi wrote SAO, it wouldn't encapsulate the jankiness and quirks of the late 90s MMOs and would've made SAO's systems look more like a WoWclone but in VR
Hudson Butler
Lmao just admit you have trash taste
Jeremiah Robinson
Cause he has a girlfriend and that somehow nullifies all the suffering he goes through.
Thats why Asuna is by far the superior self-insert. She's also way more of a mary sue.
Kevin Thomas
This to be honest
Lucas Butler
Yup. Kirito actually tries to commit suicide and ends the upcoming arc swimming in PTSD. Why would anyobe want to be this boy?
