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This page details tropes for Alice in Sword Art Online.

Note: Unmarked spoilers ahead.note  If you're starting the anime, do not read this page!

Alice Zuberg / Alice Synthesis Thirty (UW, ALO, UR)

Voiced by: Ai Kayano (Japanese), Kayli Mills (English), Alicia Barragán, Lucía Suárez (child) (Latin American Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alice_22.png
Click here to see Alice Zuberg
Click here to see Alice's ALO Avatar (SPOILER)

"...However, I do not wish for this pain... this emotion I am feeling for the first time to be erased. After all, this pain is what truly taught me that I am not a knight doll, but a single human. — Esteemed Highest Minister, I do not wish for your love. I have no need for your ministrations."

One of the deuteragonists of the first half of Alicization alongside Eugeo, and later The Protagonist of the second half. A girl from Rulid Village who was friends with Kirito and Eugeo until she was taken away by an Integrity Knight for touching the gravel from the Land of Darkness. As Kirito and Eugeo later find out, she was synthesized into an Integrity Knight herself.


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    A to E 
  • Action Girl: She’s a powerful swordswoman and is one of the strongest Integrity Knights.
  • Actor Allusion: A subtle one in Hollow Realization. While doing a co-op quest with Alice, Kirito finds a baby dragon that he must care for. He wants to name the dragon Shiro which means white, however Alice angrily rejects it due to the name not being special enough. Alice's voice actress played two characters with the word "Shiro" in their name, Mashiro Shiina from The Pet Girl of Sakurasou and Shiro from No Game No Life, with both girls being closely affiliated with a character voiced by Kirito's voice actor.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance:
    • In the video game continuity she's had DLC appearances in every game starting from Hollow Realization, which is long before Alicization got adapted. The explanation is always that she gets pulled into whatever game Kirito is in from the Underworld. She and Eugeo return in Fatal Bullet and it appears they never managed to get back to the Underworld and were drawn into Gun Gale Online instead.
    • In Memory Defrag there is an ongoing story line of Alice and Eugeo being pulled into ALO and partaking in the quest for the Divine Objects, with Alicization yet to have occur.
    • Integral Factor takes it furtherest of all, with her and Eugeo being introduced in SAO which is adapted from the Aincrad arc, which should be years before they even existed. This one is also a case of Real Life Writes the Plot as this special was done to commemorate the airing of the Alicization anime. To complicate matters more, this Alice is already an Integrity Knight as opposed to a child. And then, after Alice departs the world it turns out she's returned to her own world, where it was like her memories of her time in another world had faded and she lived out the same life as she did in canon until she gets returned back to Aincrad again when War of Underworld began airing.
  • Alice Allusion: She's a literal Alice archetype, especially as a child.
  • All-Loving Heroine: Young Alice Zuberg was said to love everyone and everything and her feelings of love was so strong that the memory crystal removed from her was unable to be used for the Sword Golem.
  • Always Someone Better: As the Third Ranked Integrity Knight (and later possibly first), she is on the giving end to Kirito. When the two of them duel, Kirito finds himself completely overpowered. In fact Kirito, not being vanquished in one hit by her is already considered impressive by her standards.
  • Arc Hero: She's a tritagonist in the first half of Alicization and later serves as the sole protagonist of the War of Underworld for quite some time due to Kirito being in a coma. She goes back to being the deuteragonist once Asuna enters the Underworld and Kirito awakens.
  • Arch-Enemy:
    • To Quinella, though not as strongly as the boys. Given the Pontifex had a hand in ruining everything about her peaceful life, including a painful Forced Synthesis and then stripping her of all her memories (or rather Alice Synthesis Thirty taking over the body of Alice Zuberg who became separated from her body). As Alice gets her eyes opened up to the truth by Kirito, she eventually has a Heel Realization and makes it her new mission to joins Kirito and Eugeo in rebelling against the Church and bring Quinella down.
    • To Vector/Gabriel Miller. The man dedicates himself to capturing Alice's soul and having it for himself while being at the forefront of the Dark Territory's attack on the Human Empire, which Alice fought so hard to protect. Despite this, the two never have a proper confrontation.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: During her unveiling and subsequent interview, one reporter is hysterical over Rath's decision to not force Artificial Fluctlights into the work force by placing them in machines for them to operate, baffled at the notion that they should be expected to live alongside them in spite of their differences and stating that, as humans created them, then humans have the right to use them as servants. In response, Alice questions the reporter if, should it turn out that humans have their own creators and they came down demanding that humans act as their slaves, would humanity comply with the demand. This leaves the reporter speechless.
  • Audience Surrogate: When Alice takes over as The Protagonist in War of Underworld, she starts playing this role from time to time due to being Locked Out of the Loop and asks questions in place of the audience.
  • Awful Truth: In the Lycoris epilogue, she and Eugeo found out from Kirito that the people from the real world are the true cause of the upcoming war of underworld as part of Rath plan to test them, which genuinely horrified both of them by the fact that the real world simply saw them as a test subject for their plan.
  • Badass Boast: Alice is quite fond of giving these when introducing herself.
    Alice: My name is Alice! Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty! Proxy of the three gods who protect the Human Empire, the Priestess of Light! All those who stand before me, brace for my holy authority to vanquish every last one of you!
  • Badass Bookworm: The character bio of [While Listening to the Sounds of Water] Alice in Rising Steel hints that Alice spends her off-time from missions reading books while sitting near the Rose Garden's water fountain.
  • Badass Cape: Dons a bright blue one as part of her Integrity Knight outfit.
  • Bag of Spilling: The sudden merging of the Seed-built VRMMOs in Unital Ring resulted with Alice's stats being reset.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: In Accel World vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight, Alice accidentally gets transported to ALO and believes all the players to be enemies from the Dark Territory and attacks on sight, including Kirito. With no choice Kirito is forced to fight her and narrowly wins. However Alice is shocked that Kirito doesn't kill her when she's down and realizes she had wrongly identified them as enemies. After hearing out her story, Kirito offers to let Alice hang out with them until she finds a way home, to which she accepts.
  • BFS: Downplayed. Her Osmanthus Blades's not as big as other examples in the series, but it has a noticeably longer blade than say, Kirito and Eugeo's swords. She also specializes in Bastard Swords in Unital Ring.
    • And there's her new Bluecrest Sword from Lycoris DLC which beat her Osmanthus Blades's in term of size and power due to being created from a Divine Beast, which is considered as the holder of the most resources in Underworld beating every Divine Object inside that world in term of power.
  • Big Eater: Some narration in the Light Novel has her remember Bercouli mentioning that her cheeks looked a bit fuller after she arrived to the Human Army Camp, to which she sheepishly admits to herself that she was a big fan of Selka's cooking.
    • Hollow Realization shows Alice ordering over eight scoops of ice cream, with each having a different flavor, in a single cone.
  • The Big Gal: Once she joins Kirito's party, there is no one who can top Alice in terms of raw power, with her being hands down the strongest.
  • Big Sister Worship: Downplayed toward Eydis. While Alice is shown to have moments of exasperation in Eydis' antics and attempts at being a Cool Big Sister towards her, mostly due to her sometimes having "impure thoughts" as she puts it, it's clear that she does care and look up to the other girl, being extremely flustered when Eydis claims she'll surpass her one day and admitting that she doesn't mind being seen as her little sister.
  • Bling of War: Her golden armour certainly stands out. Lampshaded when she's given an android body and asked for her choice of outfit; she ends up in a School Uniform from the SAO survivor's school because her armour would be WAY too costly IRL.
  • Casting Gag:
  • Cat Girl: After making an account in ALO, Alice took the form of a Cait Sith as her avatar in Material Edition 22.
  • Celibate Hero: Shows shades of this at first during her days serving as an Integrity Knight, feeling her duties in protecting her people mean she does not have the time to engage in the pleasantries of falling in love. Though she does eventually grow out of it and gets in a potential Love Triangle with Kirito, Asuna, and herself.
  • Character Exaggeration: While this could arguably apply to a lot of the girls in side materials, Alice unfortunately gets this the worst in regards to her feelings for Kirito and subsequent Clingy Jealous Girl tendencies, namely in mobile games such as Memory Defrag.
    • The Prologue of "Bride of Your Dreams" has an especially bad example, where she goes as far as to get hung up on Asuna's past tense when she says that she and Kirito were married, referring to their marriage back in SAO which technically ended when the game was cleared, to claim they got divorced at some point and that Asuna's just Kirito's clingy ex. Even she's surprised at how far she went.
    • In "Holding Hands With You", a Rising Steel crossover event, she and Eydisnote  attempt to sabotage Kirito and Asuna's marriage in the June Bride Event, all under the claim that Kirito is not fit to be married and definitely not because she can't stand seeing him with another woman. Granted though, this is revealed to be a dream version of her.
  • Childhood Friends: To Eugeo and Kirito.
  • Child Prodigy: Revealed to have mastered many spells of the Sacred Arts at the age of ten.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl:
    • She and Asuna get into a fight when Asuna logs into Underworld to meet Kirito.
    • At the end of Alicization, she and Asuna are exchanging Death Glares at each other after the latter saw her seating behind Kirito's motorcycle and tightly hugging him.
    • In Unital Ring, she's a bit annoyed when she logs into ALO and Kirito initially greets her as if he was expecting Asuna before nervously correcting himself, which she claims makes him sound disappointed.
  • Clone Angst: When first told of the Synthesis Ritual, she derides herself as a thief who stole the original Alice's body.
  • Color Motif: Gold. She's blonde and wears gold-plated armor. Blue also tends to be her secondary color, as she possesses piercing blue eyes, along with both her childhood and Integrity Knight outfits heavily featuring blue.
  • The Comically Serious: Even more so than Sinon. She's almost never casual when she speaks and when she sets her mind on a task nothing can sway her.
  • Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: After they're knocked out of the Cathedral during their duel and Kirito grabs her to prevent her from falling, she angrily demands that she let's go since she'd rather die than live with the dishonour of being saved by a "sinner".
  • Cool Big Sis:
    • To Selka. Despite Alice having no memory of her sister, she still showers her with sisterly affection with the latter always overjoyed by her presence.
    • To Silica, whom she helped in fending off some Player Killers during their recent adventures in ALO.
  • Corrupted Character Copy:
    • Alice Synthesis Thirty is one to Saber, although not exactly villainous. Both are stoic knights who were introduced as being completely cold and aloof to the main character before defrosting thanks to them, were honor-driven to the extent that it served as their detriment, and have artificial originsnote . In contrast to Saber's strong loyalty (following the Grail War rules) towards her master, were duty-bound, does not defy her true nature as a Servant, and has the final goal of returning to her era so she can rest in peace, Alice has moments of defiance, possessiveness (especially towards Kirito), openly defy her nature as an artificial intelligence, though with support from her makers, and has the final goal of coexisting with humankind in the present day.
  • The Cutie: Young Alice Zuberg was a sweet innocent child who lived life to the fullest with her two best friends, before one day it was all snatched away from her.
  • Crutch Character: In the early days of Unleash Bladingnote , [Osmanthus Knight] Alice was one of the three starting four stars you could get, and was arguably the best among them. [All-Enveloping Darkness] Kirito was purely a single-target damage dealer Break Unit with the ability to grant a physical defence buff, while [Blooming Rose] Eugeo was a Magic Knight Charge-Unit with a single-target heal, whose only physical attacks are his Incarnate Skill and Charge Skill. In contrast, Alice was a Break Unit who possessed an Assault and Incarnate Skill that hit all enemies, was capable of dealing enough damage to one shot most enemies with it, and it also granted 10% incarnate instead of the usual 5%, making her also helpful for Charging. However, as the game went on and new Units with new gimmicks began getting introduced, along with how most events encourage teams where all Units are the same element, this version of her has suffered a Power Creep and, while still viable due to buffs made to her and other older characters, such as EX slots that give her team skills and the ability to perform Incarnate Combos, is hardly as powerful as she once was.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: She was originally just an ordinary girl with a skill for Sacred Arts who lived a fairly normal life, with her two her Best Friends and a family consisting of her father, mother and younger sister. That all changed when she accidentally placed her hand in the Dark Territory where every Underworld citizen is forbidden from going, getting arrested with the threatened fate of execution looming over as she's flown to the church hanging off a dragon. While she’s spared from being executed and is told that she can go home if she studies hard enough, it turns out this was a lie to motivate her to polish her skills so she can be turned into an Integrity Knight. When she refuses to become one out of fear of forgetting those she loves, she’s forced through the more painful Forced Synthesis Ritual and forgets everything anyway, with this new personality being forced to become a Child Soldier for the Axiom Church.
  • Date Rape Averted: As part of the Rulid Trio plan to infiltrate a Noble Manor, chapter 4 of Myosotis DLC had them went to a party where they decided to investigate a seedy noble, who is very clear planning to rape the oblivious Alice under the notion that they are gonna have a simple conversation on his bed. Both Kirito and Eugeo ending up knocking him out cold to prevent the conversation from happening, with Eugeo going as far to implies that he gonna cut the guy arm off if he go through with that.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Volume 27 sees us follow Alice after Rinko lets her remain in the Underworld after Kirito and Asuna log off to spend time with Selka. This leads to her learning of the Integrity Knighthood undergoing Deep Freeze and bear witness to Admina's attempted invasion and the emergence of the Emperor's successor.
  • Death of Personality: Alice Zuberg and Alice Synthesis Thirty are considered two different people, and Kirito realizes that restoring the former's memories will 'kill' the latter. Eugeo even makes note of this as he's dying, deciding to pass on with Alice than fight his best friend to return Alice back to her body.
    • This was actually happened in the beginning of Myosotis DLC, with chapter 4 fully confirms that Alice Zuberg's personality is gone for good with her memories and personality ending up absorbed by the Integrity Knight Alice personality after she got a permission from both Kirito and Eugeo to undergo the Fluctlight transfering ritual (the same one Medina gone through from the true ending of Lycoris), which leads Eugeo to grieve for his Alice death through the entire DLC until the end of chapter 4, where he finally able to move on for good.
  • Defrosting the Ice Queen: She came the furtherest out of all the female leads, going from trying to kill Kirito, to reluctantly allying with him, and finally opening up and accepting him as a friend. The Alice after her Character Development is an almost completely different person, being kind and polite as well as constantly smiling.
  • Déjà Vu: In "Homefront Waterside", when Eydis mentions how the Integrity Knight wiped out the Divine Beasts, Alice can't help but feel she remembers something about a story about a Divine Beast in a cave, likely referring to the legend in Rulid where Bercouli encountered a dragon.
  • Deuteragonist: While she went Out of Focus at first, she later works her way into being the third main character after Kirito and Eugeo, and later takes over as the main lead during the second half of Alicization. She could also be considered the overall lead character of Alicization given her importance to the story and Kirito going Out of Focus.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: Upon coming to ALO, Alice has something of a hard time adjusting to the terms and mindsets of other gamers and the fact that it lacks any serious real world consequences like death.
    • One example is players’ use of the term “hunt”. Where she's from, hunting is a task exclusive to people given the calling of "Hunter", and it was treated as a spiritual task of obtaining food with reverence to Terraria, the Goddess of the Earth. In contrast, the term "hunt" is used in ALO to refer to killing monsters, often in large quantities, to level up or gather materials. The contrast makes her reluctant to use the word.
    • In her first PvP battle, which was against a group of Salamanders, she responded in disproportionate outrage when one of them got Silica with a sneak attack and yelled at them profusely, which apparently made the Salamanders beg for mercy and apologize.
    • When the group meet Bolan's party, the latter agree only to share their map data if given food and shelter. While Kirito, Asuna, and Leafa understand the need for compensation, being veteran MMO players, Alice is angered by their unwillingness to help their fellow players and was moving to scold them before being stopped by Leafa.
    • She's also expresses distate for people abbreviating things like when Kirito refers Vorpal Strike "Vorstrike". Him saying "My b" elicts a Death Glare from her.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Her attacks are usually associated with the Earth element. Namely, her Osmanthus Blade in the Underworld was forged from the world’s first Osmanthus tree, allowing it to take the form of one to regain durability and turn it’s blade into a storm of flower petals to slash enemies.
  • Don't Call Me "Sir": Despite being an Integrity Knight, she insists that Ronye and Teise don't have to be formal with her when she meets them again in Volume 15.
  • Dragon Rider: Her personal dragon is a large, silver female one named Amayori, who she's rather affectionate towards. Amayori's brother, Takiguri, starts following Alice after the death of his master Eldrie. This is mainly her reason of becoming a Cait Sith.
  • Dude, She's Like in a Coma: At one point in the anime, it looks like she was about to kiss Kirito while he was in the middle of his Angst Coma, if not for Ronye and Tiese interrupting.
  • Due to the Dead:
    • It's revealed that after the mother of Amayori and Takiguri, her and Eldrie's respective dragons, passed away, she made her a grave and openly wept over her death.
    • In "Hometown Waterfront", she and Eydis discover a dying elder dragon and her unhatched eggs. After receiving her permission to take the eggs back to the Central Cathedral, Eydis leaves Alice alone to go make dinner while Alice stays behind to offer the departed dragon a prayer.
    • After killing Furgr, the Ogre chief when he attempted to capture her, and his body starts to Disappears into Light, she uses a Wind Sacred Art to spread them to the Human Empire's fields, which he hoped to give to his people by gaining Vecta's favour.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Alice makes her first voiced appearance in Hollow Realization, Accel World VS Sword Art Online, and Fatal Bullet as part of DLC, long before she appeared in the anime.
    • She also appears as a playable character in Memory Defrag before her anime debut.
  • Expy:
    • One to Alice in Wonderland, given she's an Alice Allusion, with the theme of a person from the real world falling into a fantasy one. Her outfit as a child has the exact color scheme as Disney's Alice with the blue and white dress. There have also been quite a few references to the story when discussing Alice, with Asuna namedropping Alice in Wonderland a few times when talking about Rath and the Underworld. In Fatal Bullet, Subtilizer directly references this by mentioning a "rabbit" heading to Wonderland before adding he'll see Alice again soon.
  • Everyone Has Standards: While she was once a loyal servant of Quinella and the Axiom Church, having little issue with enforcing the Taboo Index and displaying a willingness to kill those who defy it, she’s Implied to have great disdain for most of the Underworld’s nobility and has clear reservations about the privileges they have and their general arrogance due to the laws, being insulted when Kirito compares her to one by stating she likely never attended the town festival out of arrogance and citing Dual Wielding as something an arrogant Noble would do upon seeing Kirito carrying both his and Eugeo's swords.
  • Eye Scream: Her right eye literally bursts when thinks of she defying the Axion Church, due to the Seal of the Right Eye taking effect.
  • Eyepatch of Power: After the above incident, Alice is forced to wear an eyepatch like this, since it isn't possible to heal her eye right away. She ditches it after her regaining her resolves amidst the Goblin Attack on Rulid.

    F to L 
  • Famed In-Story: The prologue of Unital Ring had an incident involving Alice angrily calling out a group of Salamander Player Killers, forcing them to whine like Dirty Cowards and apologize to Silica for hurting her before running away. The aforementioned incident is later called “The Legend of Lady Alice scolding PKers until they cried”.
  • Fire-Forged Friendship:
    • With Kirito, more so than any other character. Their first reunion has them as enemies, in which she is tasked with capturing them and executing them. When he and Eugeo meet Alice again in the tower, she fights them with killing intent. It takes them both being thrown out the tower and forming a truce to survive the climb (during which Kirito saves Alice's life multiple times) where Alice is gradually swayed over to Kirito's side and places her trust in him.
    • Also with Asuna. Their first meeting was... less than ideal, with Alice attacking Asuna in response to her entering the carriage Kirito's in, assuming she's some kind of spy trying to harm him, and acting incredibly rude to her even after the misunderstanding is cleared up, with Asuna responding in kind. After a night with Ronye and Sortiliena discussing their respective experiences with Kirito however, the two act a lot more friendly with each other, with Alice even telling Asuna not strain herself when she tries using the Stacia abilities again. Their rivalry does flare up a bit after the three of them meet up at the Rath building in the real world, but they're at least not at each other's throats and the two seem to get along a lot better by Unital Ring.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: In Hollow Realization she accidentally ends up in Sword Art: Origins. She has immense difficulty adapting, as she lacks even the most fundamental knowledge about VR games and even the modern real world. In fact she doesn't even understand what "Virtual Reality" is or the fact she's in a game, believing she's in some sort of foreign land. Kirito has to explain everything to her and even then she still has trouble, thinking that Kirito's fancy modern words are riddles.
  • Florence Nightingale Effect: Implied. Having started off trying to kill him, reluctantly working with him when both their lives are at risk and only recently becoming allies after she sides with his and Eugeo's rebellion, there are very little hints that she regards Kirito in a romantic light in the first half of the Alicization Arc, likely viewing him as a Fire-Forged Friend at best. After the battle with Quinella however, where he loses an arm and enters an Angst Coma, she becomes his caretaker and nurses him to the best of her ability, even fleeing the Human Capital in fear of him being executed or murdered. Six months after taking up the task, she finds herself acting more affectionate and is heavily implied to have fallen in love with him.
  • For Want Of A Nail: Alice decision to intervene with Kirito fight with Eugeo in Lycoris cause a major swerve in the story, due to Alice recommending Kirito to have both of them fight Eugeo at full power in order to stimulate his memories of both of them and snap Eugeo back to his usual self. Unknowingly, her idea also cause Kirito buried memories of his first dive in to Underworld to got stimulated as well, with him remembering about his past with both of them far more earlier than the original canon, which lead to a chain of events that happened differently from the canon but most importantly, this lead to Kirito decision to directly intervene with Cardinal plan to forsaken herself to spare the three of them. Since Kirito regaining his memories far more earlier than the original canon, this cause him to realize had he been fast enough to stop Alice from touching the Dark Territory land, the entire thing wouldn't happened because of this mistake. Thus his decision to intervene so he won't make the same mistake as he did in the past.
  • Go Out with a Smile: When the spirit of young Alice Zuberg properly dies, she gives a smile as she departs with Eugeo to the afterlife.
  • Heel Realization: She's the first SAO Protagonist to start off as a full-on antagonist, being partially Brainwashed and Crazy like the other Integrity Knights and fully believing in the Axiom Church, it's extreme practices, and is ignorant to how poorly it's ruling the Human Empire. After being knocked out of the Cathedral and forced to work with Kirito to get to safety, he's able to convince her that the Church isn't the wholly good entity she believed it was by revealing the truth of the Integrity Knights, starting with telling her about Selka, and convincing her how Quinella's refusal to allow a formal military will lead to the Human Empire being destroyed by the Dark Territory. After she's convinced, she agrees to defy the Church, and even powers through the Seal of the Right Eye.
  • Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Despite being an Integrity Knight, she is never shown wearing a helmet while on duty, unlike Deusolbert and Fanatio.
  • Heroic BSoD: She had a minor breakdown after Kirito told her about the Integrity Knights and mentioned her sister's name.
  • Heroic Willpower: Like Eugeo, Alice is one of the only residents of the Underworld who had a strong enough willpower that allowed her to defy the Taboo Index of her own volition. After being shown the truth by Kirito, Alice decided to turn on her old allegiance, which results in the "Seal of the Right Eye" bursting her eyeball.
  • Honor Before Reason:
    • She initially wanted to choose death than the dishonor of being saved by a criminal. However Kirito's argument over what an Integrity Knight stood for and what was really important does sway her from this.
    • When informed that she'll need to be extracted from the Underworld, Alice is immediately opposed to the idea since she's sworn to defend it, only for Asuna to point out that it's all the more reason to log her out since Glowgen won't have any reason to continue their mission or try to prolong the war if she ends up in Rath's hands.
    • When Agumer fires a three Anti-Incarnate Missiles at her and she uses her Osmanthus Blade's Enhance Armament to block the barrage, she barely manages and the Osmanthus Blade ends up severely damaged, and would likely get destroyed blocking subsequent barrages. Despite Airy's suggestion that they retreat, Alice insist on facing him head on on her pride as a knight. Fortunately, that's when Kirito makes his Big Damn Heroes and brings The Cavalary in the form of the recently awakened Fanatio.
  • Hope Bringer: Kirito sees her as "the hope that connects everyone's will to the future".
  • Hot-Blooded: While she's often presented as very calm, Alice is a very passionate individual, especially in regards to her duties as a Knight, and has a tendency to default to harsh words or violence in response to most things.
    • Her first instinct upon seeing Asuna is to assume she's an enemy spy attacking Kirito, which is Implied to actually be her envy in regards to Kirito flaring up. Bercouli lightly chides her for this, stating that if Asuna really was the Goddess Stacia, she'd have most likely have buried Alice in the earth for attacking her so suddenly, something Alice has no counter to.
    • After Kirito gets afflicted by the Noose of the Accursed, he hides it from because he's afraid that she'll likely charge back to confront Mutasina despite the fact that she now has an army that's a hundred or so strong and that she could potentially afflict her with the spell too.
  • Humble Hero: When she was starting out as a Knight, she was very respectful of her seniors and became quickly flustered by the other Knights, namely Bercouli and Eydis, praising her for her fast-learning or with claims that she'll surpass them one day.
    • When Kirito and Asuna asked her and Eugeo to stay at their place in Memory Defrag, she said that "hospitality isn't necessary" and she can "handle herself", only for Kirito to point out that she's not familiar with ALO culture.
  • I Am What I Am: Give one to Quinella in Alicization Lycoris, after she disregard Alice as nothing but a doll that she created, she even thank Quinella for it since it allowed her to experience what it means to be a human. Also double as Hoist by Their Own Petard.
  • Icy Blue Eyes: Zig-Zagged. Alice Synthesis 30 has blue eyes, and is the The Stoic and one of the most powerful Integrity Knights, meaning these can emphasize the danger someone's in if they're on her bad side. However, she also has moments of warmth towards some of her comrades and after some Character Development, meaning these aren't completely intimidating. In contrast, Alice Zuberg has straight Innocent Blue Eyes.
  • Identity Amnesia: Through her synthesis. Her original self as Alice Zuberg dies with Eugeo.
  • I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: A rather tragic and Justified example. In the Rising Steel event series "Hometown Waterfront" during her and Eydis' visit to the dragons' homeland, they discover a dying elder dragon and discover her eggs a distance away, which Alice deduces is so she wouldn't accidentally crush them when she passes. In response, Alice, with encouragement from Eydis and with the mother's permission, takes them to be raised back at the Central Cathedral to become the mounts for future Integrity Knights.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: The young Alice Zuberg resisted her Synthesis to the very end and refused to allow her memories to be taken away. This led Chudelkin to resort to Forced Synthesis which ended up separating the young Alice Zuberg with the Integrity Knight who would come to be known as Alice Synthesis Thirty.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Zig-Zagged. While she acts exactly as one would expect a girl would in the Underworld, being appropriately embarrassed and going Pervert Revenge Mode when she thinks she's exposed something, there are instances where she appears without shame. One example is, some time after showing up in the real world, she mails herself naked to Kirito's house and doesn't react to him seeing her in a complete state of undress. Could also be a case of Our Nudity Is Different given in the real world she's a Robot Girl. Generally, it seems to be case of not minding showing off skin, but having limits to how much she can put up with or not wanting it pointed out.
    • When encountering Bikini Armor in Memory Defrag and later being forced to wear it, she contrasts Asuna and Leafa's embarrassment and Yuuki's excitement with calmness and confusion about what the big deal is. In this case, it seems that she's less bothered if something's revealing so long as it provides adequate protection, which Bikini Armor is cleary capable of due to Rule of Sexy.
    • In "Homefront Waterside" and as the homescreen character as [Floating in the Lake] Alice, she's rather bashful over how revealing her swimsuit is, though her words imply that the same logic as above applies here.
  • Innocently Insensitive: When expressing her outrage that Gabriel isn't dead despite Bercouli's Heroic Sacrifice, she calls him a Dirty Coward for not taking the same risks that she and all the Underworld-ers he's killing are. In response, Sinon softly calls her out on the fact that she herself, Kirito, and all their other friends from the real world who came to help also won't die if they're killed in the Underworld, but that doesn't lessen the stakes for them since they're fighting to protect the Underworld, and that she doesn't want her to think of them the same way.
  • In the Hood: After leaving the Central Cathedral with a crippled Kirito, she took to wearing a cloak to keep her identity obscured.
  • I Owe You My Life: One of the reasons she gains Undying Loyalty to Kirito and develops feelings for him. Kirito freed her from the lies that bound her and saved her from being killed by Quinella when she tried to perform a Taking the Bullet moment.
  • I Regret Nothing: She never had any regrets in the path she took. Her father understood why.
  • Irrational Hatred: Played With. Alice herself doesn't completely understand where her initial dislike of Asuna comes from. When her original reason, believing she was a spy trying to hurt the defenseless Kirito after she entered his carriage unannounced, quickly subsides thanks to Bercouli's intervention and explaining that they’re on the same side, she still finds herself acting hostile towards her. She chalks it up to some form of envy, but doesn’t know whether it’s due to how close she seems to be to Kirito, her skill and power with a sword creating a sense of rivalry, or the fact that she finds Asuna to be so beautiful that she would have easily believed her to be the Goddess Stacia like everyone initially assumed if Asuna bothered acting the part.
  • It's All My Fault:
    • In "Homefront Waterside - Part 1", she blames herself for Amayori's unhealable injury, feeling she wasn't careful enough and that she wasn't considerate of her grief over her mother's death. Eydis is quick to tell her that she's not entirely
  • It's Personal: Towards Gabriel for killing Bercouli.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: The "shining armor" part is that Alice's standard attire has golden armor on it.
  • Lady of War: She openly admits to Kirito that as an Integrity Knight, she lives to fight and doesn't want to Stay in the Kitchen (although Kirito has legitimate reasons for not wanting to let her fight, since Gabriel is after her at that time).
  • Leitmotif: "She Was Sitting Under The Osmanthus Tree" serves as her personal action music.
  • Lethal Chef: A Running Gag is Alice does not have good cooking skills. When she became Kirito's caretaker after Quinella's defeat, Selka had to make and send them food and enjoyed poking fun at her sister's inability to cook, namely the fact that she tried using Sacred Arts to do it.
  • Light Is Good: She is given the moniker of the "Priestess of Light" by Gabriel and her Sacred Arts are often associated with Light 'em Up attacks.
  • Literal Split Personality: Due to the unorthodox "Forced Synthesis" used to convert her into an Integrity Knight, the original Alice Zuberg became a separate individual with her own FluctLight and ended up being trapped in the memory crystal. As this Alice was taken when she was just a child, she forever retains this appearance. This original Alice Zuberg ends up dying with Eugeo as they head off to the afterlife together.
  • Living MacGuffin: Becomes this during War of Underworld, being the "Priestess of Light" that Vecta is trying to capture. In reality, it's because she's considered to be the most advanced Artificial Intelligence in the world at the time, which the U.S. hope to capture or destroy through Glowgen Defense Systems to ensure they have the edge in AI technology and their implementation into warfare.

    M to Y 
  • Magic Knight: A contender for greatest swordswoman in the Underworld (possibly surpassing even her mentor Bercouli) as well as being a natural prodigy for the Sacred Arts and one the most powerful users to date.
  • Mama Bear: Alice cares a great deal about Amayori, her riding dragon.
    • The "Hometown Water" series of events starts because Amayori gets injured in a fight against a Dark Knight, enraging and prompting her to cut him down, and her attempts to heal her being ineffective, leading to her and Eydis going to dragons' homeland.
  • Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She's the fierce Lady of War to Eugeo's gentle and caring boy.
  • Master Swordsman: She's been trained in swordsmanship ever since she became an Integrity Knight and is suggested to have been fighting in Dark Territory alongside her fellow knights since she was Synthesised, meaning she has about 6 years worth of experience with a sword by the time she's sent to arrest Kirito and Eugeo and it certainly shows from their first fight onwards, with her being able to keep even Kirito on his toes.
  • Meaningful Name: A coincidental example. She ends up being considered by Kikuoka as the true Top-Down AI that Project Alicization was started to create, and she just so happens to share her name with it’s namesake, Alice in Wonderland.
  • More Dakka: Her primary weapon in Fatal Bullet is a fully-automatic Daewoo USAS-12 shotgun.
  • Named Weapon: Fragrant Olive Sword.
  • No Social Skills:
    • In regards to outside UW culture, Alice is very blunt. She even reveals Kirito's heroism in the UW and boldly addresses his uncle/adoptive father as "father" prior. Suguha is shocked at the latter part.
    • In various game adaptations, Alice has problems whenever she gets dragged outside of the UW and had a habit of attacking players on sight.
  • Not So Above It All:
    • When Ronye notes that Kirito, during his Angst Coma, seems to be feeling a bit better, Alice jokes that it might be because he spent the night surrounded by four beautiful women, as she, Asuna, Ronye and Sortiliena spent the previous night in his room.
    • In Unital Ring, as she and Kirito are departing to meet with Argo, Alice lets slip during a discussion of she grinded on some monsters found in a body of water that she actually swam in the great baths, much to Kirito's bafflement and her embarrassment.
  • Not So Stoic: Although she remained serious for the a very long period of time, conversing with Kirito about her values and her old life that she had forgotten stirred up emotions that had been buried deep within her. Eventually Alice goes through some Defrosting the Ice Queen and displays emotion in tense situations, such as the fight against Quinella or caring for the paralyzed Kirito where she is shown crying.
    • Eldrie's Undying Loyalty to her stems from this. During the time when he was still new and resented her, he happened to stumble upon her weeping over the death of Amayori and Takiguri's mother, which gave his perspective of her a complete 180.
  • Odd Friendship:
    • With Suguha, who is also an expert swordswoman like her.
    • Integral Factor has her becoming close friends with Yuuki, despite the two girls being almost polar opposite in personality, with Yuuki being carefree, energetic, and casual, while Alice is stoic, serious, and professional.
  • One-Woman Army: She boasts the highest kill count out of all of the main cast of permanent human casualties. Other characters only rank higher in terms of NPC mobs or temporary in-game Death Is Cheap Player Killings.
  • Out of Focus:
    • She disappears for a significant portion of the first half of Alicization (Volume 9 and 10, as well as the first half of 11), with the main story arc being Eugeo and Kirito trying to find her and get her back. It isn't until Kirito and Eugeo break the Taboo Index that she makes a return, as the Integrity Knight sent to apprehend them.
    • This happens again in the latter half of War of Underworld after she's captured by and saved from Gabriel, with her making her way to the World End Alter while we follow the rest of the cast dealing with PoH and Sinon fighting Subtilizer. She doesn't even get to fight Subtilizer herself due to Kirito's Big Damn Heroes moment.
  • Perpetual Frowner: She smiles even less than Sinon does.
  • Pervert Revenge Mode:
    • This one verging on Ungrateful Bitch considering the circumstances but nonetheless still Played for Laughs. After Alice breaks the Seal of the Right Eye, causing her eye to explode and passing out from the shock, she awakens to discover Kirito has carried her on his back to the top of the tower. However, she notices that her clothes are drenched in sweat, to which she becomes flustered and shoves the exhausted Kirito's head on the ground to prevent him from looking at her.
    • In the Cake Timeline, Kirito and Eugeo first encounter Alice when they're wandering the Cathedral and happen upon the Great Baths, where she just so happens to be bathing and assumes they're Fanatio and Scheta, going to greet them. Upon discovering them, with only a wet and basically transparent towel held over her front as cover, she's quick to summon her Osmanthus Blade and point it at them, albeit with the sheath still on. Thankfully however, Kirito is able to talk her out of attacking them.
    • Similarly to the previous example, her Incarnate Move as [Charming Heat] Alice in Rising Steel has her noticing someone(the enemy unit) while she's bathing and attacking them with a powerful heated Aqueous Element Sacred Art.
  • Petal Power: The Fragrant Olive Sword creates a cloud of golden, razor sharp petals that Alice can direct at will.
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse: She's noticeably shorter than a great deal of her opponents, including Kirito and Eugeo, yet she's the third ranked Integrity Knight and possibly the World's Best Warrior of the Underworld excluding Physical Gods.
  • Pretty Freeloaders: She sneaks into Kirito's place by simply packing herself in a box to get out from Rath. It's only for a single night though, and Rinko seems cool with it after a talk with her on the phone.
  • Primary-Color Champion: In contrast to Kirito's black getup, Alice has blonde hair and blue eyes, and wears primarily gold and blue with white.
  • The Protagonist: She takes over from Kirito in the early parts of the War of Underworld half of Alicization, as Kirito is out of commission. She later shares the status of Deuteragonist with Asuna once the latter enters the Underworld, especially after Kirito wakes up and reclaims the lead role.
  • Red Baron:
    • Her Integrity Knight title is "The Osmanthus Knight".
    • Vecta dubs her the "Priestess of Light" to more simplify the explanation to the Dark Territory, however once this title reaches Alice's ears she brandishes this title with pride.
  • Rei Ayanami Expy: Even more so than Shino Asada/Sinon. While she lacks the outlandish hair coloring (at least in-game) and pale skin, she's also much more stoic than her (even after defrosting), is incredibly socially-inept outside of UW, and was an AI that got a robot body. She even gets an Asuka-esque counterpart with Asuna (who's not only spelled but look similary to her). Being also an expy of Saber (who herself is one) probably helped.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: In "Memories of Bygone Days: Alice", Alice goes to Quinella when a combined volcanic eruption and storm threatens the crops of a village in Southacroith and while Quinella initially refuses, she later completely dispels the storm and the resulting ash from the eruption. Alice, not realizing her true nature as of yet, immediately concludes that Quinella was employing Exact Words, stating that the Integrity Knights can't step in to help the populace, and that she wasn't fulfilling her request but doing it of her own whim, concluding that she was delivering an Aesop that no one, whether it be the Knights or civilians, should become over-reliant on more powerful figures. In reality, Quinella simply did it because she realized Rath caused the eruption and storm to force the Fluctlights to fight and kill for food, similarly to the plague they once induced, and she put a stop to it simply to spite them and show off her power.
  • The Rival: Downplayed. Alice Sees Asuna and Sinon as these in regards to Kirito, especially with the former. Asuna and Alice can get along with each other and have little issue fighting together, but when Kirito enters the equation they can start to show signs of animosity towards the other, such as when Kazuto and Alice met Asuna at RATH and the two ended up glaring at each other over how the former was hugging Kazuto from behind since they were both riding his bike.
    • Though their rivalry can potentailly get ugly in the near future, as directly taking Asuna's place in Kirito's heart is next to impossible, Alice has taken the underhanded, backdoor-option of becoming Yui's teacher in swordsmanship, with the goal of having the little girl eventually recognizing her as the true mother in her life instead of Asuna.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Eldrie performs a Heroic Sacrifce to disable the deathworms, Alice launches an assault on the Dark Mage Guild who were responsible for his death, blasting the mages with Amayori and Eldrie's dragon.
  • Robot Girl: After being sent to the real world by Asuna, she adopts a robot body that looks identical to her UW avatar.
  • Same Character, But Different: The original Alice Zuberg who grew up in Rulid Village ends up becoming an entirely different individual to the Integrity Knight Alice Synthesis Thirty. Unlike most examples of this trope, this is due to a case of Literal Split Personality where the original Alice Zuberg was forcefully extracted from her body which led to the creation of Alice Synthesis Thirty. While Eugeo wanted to bring back his Alice Zuberg, Kirito became attached to Alice Synthesis Thirty. This ends up being played very literally as once Eugeo dies, he is shown departing with the spirit of the young Alice Zuberg, while leaving Kirito with Alice Synthesis Thirty.
  • "Second Law" My Ass!: She outright declared that she didn't possess "bended knee and prostrated legs" because she is a "human". To a degree, yes, Artificial Fluctlights like her are basically digitized clone of a human soul breed in a special virtual reality environment called the Underworld and only can interact in real world with a robotic body.
  • Ship Tease: Despite having feelings for Kirito in canon, non-canon and promotional materials tends to give her this with Eugeo.
    • The both of them are often shown together in official art, either alone or with Kirito and Asuna in what looks like a Double Date.
    • In the "If You Were Here" series, an AU where Kirito and Eugeo are able to graduate and become Integrity Knight apprentices, she gets along with Eugeo a lot better than she does with Kirito, who instead acts as something of a Shipper on Deck for them.
    • In Integral Factor, there is a subplot between them where Eugeo proves to be just as dedicated to protecting as he was to saving the original Alice, while Alice is shown to care greatly for Eugeo, begging him to save himself when he's protecting her from Vecta.
  • Skewed Priorities: As Kirito calls her out on when they're flung out of the Cathedral, she's effectively prioritizing her honor over her duties as an Integrity Knight by demanding that Kirito drop her to her death. As Kirito states, her refusal to let herself live with the shame of being saved by a "sinner" has her ignore the fact that Eugeo is still inside the Cathedral and making his way to Administrator.
  • Skyward Scream: After she finds Bercouli dead after his fight with Vecta.
  • Spell My Name With An S: Official translations give her surname as "Zuberg" but sometimes "Schuberg" will pop up due to the German origin of the name.
  • Strong and Skilled: She has trained her entire life to be an Integrity Knight and becomes a Master Swordsman. She's also an impossibly strong One-Woman Army who is a candidate for World's Best Warrior.
  • Sweet Tooth:
    • If ordering over eight scoops of ice cream in Hollow Realization is anything to go by.
    • In Volume 27, she recounts how back when she was in service to Quinella, she was often invited to have tea with her at the Morning Star Lookout. These were essentially here just Alice giving mission reports, but she looked forward to them due to the sweets provided by Hana.
  • Sympathy for the Devil:
    • Despite her utter contempt for him even before her Heel–Face Turn and having tried to skewer just moments before, she is disgusted with Quinella’s complete disregard over Chudelkin’s death and casual flinging of his corpse in spite of his utter, albeit obsessive, loyalty to her.
    • During the War of the Underworld while charging up a Sacred Art using the life energy of those who died, she finds herself surprised that she cannot sense a difference between the souls of the humans and those of the Dark Territory's non-humans, giving her a new perspective on the former. This change shows when, after the Ogre leader Furgr dies by her hand in a fruitless attempt to capture her, she scatters his remains into the wind with an Aerial Sacred Art as a sort of memorial.
  • Taking the Bullet:
    • Does this when Quinella attempts to finish off Kirito while he goes through a Heroic BSoD after Eugeo is cut in half. He subverts this however after getting a sudden flashback to the time Asuna did the same thing to save him from Heathcliff, with the guilt of him letting it happen again motivating him to intercept the blow and save both of them.
    • She attempts this again and succeeds in Unital Ring, jumping in front of Kirito to defend him from the Thornspike Cave Bear's Flechette Storm. While Kirito still takes a quill to the shoulder and leg and Alice takes the brunt of the damage, they're both able to survive thanks to her still-equipped armor.
  • Talking through Technique: Like many other characters in the series, Alice believes that some messages can only be conveyed through the sword. She uses fighting Kirito to assess how he attained such power and his true intentions.
  • That Man Is Dead: Alice Synthesis Thirty considers the original Alice Zuberg to be a separate individual and always refers to her in third person or to both collectively as "we" or "us", considering herself to be an impostor inhabiting her body and living the life that she once had.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: With Asuna, being the tomboy to her girly girl. Alice Synthesis Thirty was created to be a soldier and has fully dedicated her life as a Lady of War. She remains The Stoic for the majority of the time and does not allow herself to partake in trivial activities as most girls her age do.
  • Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Blood Knight Lady of War she may be, but even Alice have some instances of femininity.
    • In Rising Steel as the homescreen character, she states that she's been told that long hair is disadvantageous in combat, but is reluctant to cut hers.
    • For one thing, a lot of the outfits Alice is shown wearing are traditionally on the feminine side, often involving skirts of varying lengths.
    • There's her suspicion that one of her possible reasons for her initial Irrational Hatred of Asuna is being jealous of Asuna's beauty. Then again, this could tie right back to the whole Kirito thing.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • Started off as a young girl in village who should talent for the Sacred Arts, but went on to become one of the strongest Integrity Knights in the Underworld who is more than a match for Kirito. She only grows stronger yet over time, where eventually Bercouli is confident she has surpassed even him.
    • Appears to have done this in the "If You Wish It" timeline, with her being able to Summon to Hand her Osmanthus Blade in response to Kirito and Eugeo walking in on her in the Great Bath. In canon, she notes that this is a very difficult technique to master when she and Kirito witness a Synthesized Eugeo do this to get his Blue Rose Sword back from Kirito, stating that she herself is incapable of.
  • Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Young Alice Zuberg is one of the most purehearted characters in the series, being an All-Loving Heroine with Incorruptible Pure Pureness. She ends up dying with Eugeo while Alice Synthesis Thirty remains in her former body.
  • Tragic Keepsake: After his Heroic Sacrifice, Alice takes possession of Eldrie's Frostscale Whip, but is never seen using it.
  • Tranquil Fury: After a Jerkass reporter asks her and Rinko to prove she's an AI by opening her head and showing everyone her brain, she responds by asking if he's a human and if he can prove it. After he gives a bewildered acknowledgment and questions how he can prove it, she asks him to do so by opening up his head and showing her his brain. Suguha recognizes that Alice was pissed by that comment.
  • Trauma Button: Downplayed. Kirito noticed when she first started ALO that she appeared to dislike fighting in caves, which he suspects is because of how she broke the Taboo Index in the End Mountain Caves, leading to her getting arrested the next day. However, since her exact memories of the event were taken from her, it appears to cause her nothing more than mild discomfort as opposed to a Heroic BSoD.
  • Tsundere: The most "Tsuntsun" out of all the girls, being very cold and rarely showing any open displays of kindness. Even after her Defrosting the Ice Queen phase, she still prefers to stick to her lonesome and is prone to bouts of anger. She finally mellows out after Quinella's defeat and spending time looking after Kirito, where she begins to smile and is actively polite and kind to others.
  • Two Guys and a Girl: Forms a team of three with Eugeo and Kirito in Alicization. Asuna would later take over Eugeo's role in the trio as of Unital Ring.
  • Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Before she became a battle-hardened Lady of War she was quite a sweet little girl.
  • Ungrateful Bitch:
    • As outlined in Pervert Revenge Mode above, her first response to waking up after Kirito carries her to the Morning Star Observatory after she passed from breaking the Seal of the Right Eye is to force his head to the floor, since his sweat made her skirt wet, much to her embarrassment.
    • Zig-Zagged with Asuna. After Asuna logs in as Stacia and saves the Human Army, the first thing Alice does is attack Asuna for entering Kirito's carriage, claiming she's some manner of temptress making an attempt on his life. While she doesn't realize that Asuna saved them and understands once Bercouli spells it out to her, she still acts incredibly rude to Asuna for reasons outlined in Irrational Hatred above. And while she and Asuna do progressively build a better friendship during the remainder of the War, she remains unrelenting in her feelings for Kirito despite likely knowing of their Happily Married status at this point.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Turns out that Quinella manipulated Alice into doing her dirty work. The same goes for the other Integrity Knights too.
  • Weak, but Skilled: Her ALO account is out of Kirito's league, but like Sinon, she makes it up with her fighting skills. In Material Edition 22, she single-handedly fends off some Player Killers with Silica.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: As an Artificial Intelligence herself, Alice is unable to see the much less advanced NPCs in ALO and New Aincrad as simple ones and zeros, and is concerned about their safety after the fall of New Aincrad in Unital Ring.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Alice is not pleased at Kirito's decision to stay behind in UW for 200 years. Kirito feels guilty about it.
  • Why Won't You Die?: She's outraged when she learns that Vecta, actually Gabriel, isn't really dead and is likely going to come back with a different Avatar, deriding him as a Dirty Coward for fighting without the same stakes she and the other Underworld-ers have to go through.
  • World's Best Warrior: Among the Integrity Knights of the Human Empire, she was ranked third strongest. However as of the second half of Alicization she has become even stronger since and mastered the Sacred Arts full potential, so that Fanatio puts her at the strongest Integrity Knight of all.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: After the battle in Centoria Cathedral ends, she returns to her home village, only to find that she's still being treated as a criminal, despite being unable to remember her crime of stepping into the Dark Territory, and her own father prohibits her from returning.

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