Sword Art Online: Season 2/ Episode 11 "The Meaning of Strength" – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

Overview

In a semi-filler episode, Sinon and Kirito figure out how Death Gun is able to kill his victims.

Review (with Spoilers)

With Sinon and Kirito temporarily escaping Death Gun, they take their time in a desert cave for granted and mostly have foregone the possibility of an ambush for they need to mentally strengthen up before their grand fight. This means Kirito consoling and helping Sinon recover from her trauma, Kirito rebuilding his resolve, and them both reflecting on all that has happened and what needs to happen to end Death Gun’s abilities to terrorize VRMMO players.

Topic 1: Meanwhile in Alfheim Online… – Asuna

As BoB continues, Asuna waits for Kikuoku to appear, under the alias Chrysheight, in order to confront him. Though, sadly, not much is revealed with this part of the story that isn’t already known. If anything, the sole takeaway is that we can place time and dates around the story now. It is sometime in November, it has been a week since Kirito joined GGO, and pretty much that is all this small feature of Asuna gives us that is worth mentioning.

Topic 2: The Inner Workings Behind the Death Gun – Kirito and Sinon

As has been established, the new Asuphere technology is supposed to be more secure than what was used for SAO. Making it where players shouldn’t be able to get trapped, much less have heart attacks happen, due to them playing a game. That is unless they play too long and neglect the needs of their body. So, while in a desert cave, Kirito and Sinon revisit the question: How is Death Gun killing people?

Well, the answer is, as I mentioned in episode 9, there is more than one Death Gun. One is the avatar we have long been used to seeing, and then there is someone who finds the victim’s addresses and waits for the signal and, after coordinating with the VR Death Gun, they execute the player and character. Now, as for why they are doing this? Well, the hypothesis is that like how being a swordsman has become part of Kirito, and how being a sniper has become part of Shinon, being a PK/ murderer has become part of the human players who were part of Laughing Coffin.

But what makes this reveal extremely interesting is that with there being at least one Death Gun in reality, and another in virtual reality, it reveals that with Death Gun targeting Sinon, someone is standing over Shinon waiting for her to be shot. Something which terrifies Shinon since it is like the grim reaper is standing over her watching the clock. Yet Kirito fathoms that with how methodical the Death Guns hopefully are, if they defeat the VR Death Gun she may be safe. Though to me, this is highly hopeful thinking. Especially since he warns her not to log out now for she would be in serious trouble if she met the eyes of her premeditated murderer.

Topic 3: All Alone in a Cave, Plotting, and Planning – Kirito and Sinon

Leading to us talking about, once more, the oddness of Kirito and Sinon’s closeness. Of which we watch Sinon being consoled closely, like a baby, to Kirito’s chest; Sinon laying on Kirito’s lap, in a sort of intimate way, and Kirito getting embarrassed when he sees Sinon’s butt crack; and then with them recognizing a camera was on them during the whole conversation, we see Kirito slightly worried about who may have saw what happened. Though with no one probably knowing what Kirito looks like in GGO, even if Asuna saw him being intimately close with Sinon, she wouldn’t necessarily know it was him maybe.

If anything, the camera capturing video footage of Sinon and Kirito [1] may more so be a problem for Shinkawa (Spiegel) since with him liking Shinon, her being so chummy with Kirito may lead to jealousy. Though with me assuming he isn’t a Death Gun member, Kirito should be safe. That is unless nurse Aki maybe a member of Death Gun, or can be taken down by one of their members.

Things To Note

1. We are told it can’t capture audio, unless you are yelling, so Shinon’s body is still assumingly safe.