Despite detractors' claims to the contrary, Kirito is far from someone who has never suffered. When he was a baby, his parents died in a traffic accident and he was taken in by his aunt and uncle and raised as their son. Growing up, he was forced by his grandfather to take up Kendo but ended up quitting after he lost interest, prompting his grandfather to beat the crap out of him until Suguha stepped up to his defense. Later on, he hacked into the Public Registry and learned of his adoption. Feeling himself becoming a stranger to the family that raised him, likely due to Japan's general feelings towards orphans, this led to him disassociating himself from them and turning to VR gaming. Years later, he's trapped in Sword Art Online and is forced to fight for his life against both monsters and other players, losing dear friends such as Sachi and the Black Cats along the way and being forced to kill up to three people, which has caused him to suffer from both a crippling Guilt Complex and severe PTSD. Shortly after SAO ended, Kirito discovered that Asuna, his in-game wife and partner since Floor 1, is still trapped in SAO and learns that the one responsible is a Corrupt Corporate Executive who she's engaged to, and he's Forced to Watch as she's sexually assaulted when he tries to rescue her. Soon after, he's forced into investigating a mysterious Serial Killer that forces his killing-induced PTSD to resurface when they reveal themselves as a member of Laughing Coffin. Then comes Alicization, where he's poisoned by one of the co-conspirators of said Serial Killer, forced away from most of his friends and loved ones, gets ruthlessly bullied by two Upper Class Twits who try to rape his and Eugeo's pages, has to watch Charlotte, Cardinal and Eugeo die, briefly becomes a Wheel Chair Woobie as seen below, and ends up stuck in the Underworld for the equivalent 200 years, with Asuna as his only IRL companion there, and even then he has to outlive most of the friends he made in the Underworld before he's finally able to leave, and then he mourns for Eugeo.
Asuna Yuuki. While her childhood was hinted to have been fairly happy, she started to have to put up with more and more stressful expectations in regards to her education as she grew older, something that while on the surface she handled with grace, was actually consuming her life. Then SAO starts and these issues rise to the surface, with her being more concerned about missing her Mock Exam and even becoming a Death Seeker over the prospect of falling behind academically. While she does get over these thanks to Kirito, SAO still puts her through the ringer by having her going through the Laughing Coffin raid, where she's Implied to have been forced to kill like Kirito was, and having to deal with getting stalked by her bodyguard, who later tries to kill Kirito. Even after SAO ended, she's kidnapped by her Stalker with a Crush and sexually assaulted by him, something Implied in Mother's Rosario to have done a major blow to her self-esteem and causes her to see herself as weaker than she was in SAO. Later on, as if her boyfriend getting involved in a Serial Killer investigation wasn't enough, she befriends and becomes a surrogate Cool Big Sis to Yuuki, who tragically succumbs to her AIDS and and died in her arms in ALO. Then later on, she's forced to watch as her boyfriend is assaulted, nearly killed, ends up in a coma with the possibility of never waking up, and mysteriously disappears from the hospital. Even when she's finally reunited with him, he's become a shell of his former self who can only cry and try in agony to say something when he sees her. And after that she's forced to fight a war, suffering numerous injuries and lost limbs in battle and being Forced to Watch as numerous Artificial Fluctlights are murdered by invading Foreign Players led by PoH.
Sinon has PTSD from killing an armed robber in self-defense at the age of 11 in a post office to protect her mother and the other people there. As a result of this otherwise heroic act, she was bullied and ostracized by nearly all her classmates, her own mother became extremely frightened of her, and her therapists reinforced her PTSD instead of treating it, all due to Japanese society's disgust for guns, all of which culminating in them having to move in with her grandparents in the country to escape it all. When she returns to the city to attend High School, her desire for companionship prompts her to befriend Endou, who was only really interested due to Shinohaving her own apartment that she could to do illicit activities in without notice, and when a reasonably pissed Shino cuts ties with her as a result, Endou leaks her "crime" to the whole school to isolate her again and starts using her PTSD to extort money from her. In the present, she's isolated and lonely and in GGO she's constantly being sexually harassed, though she treats the latter as an annoyance at best. Then, the Only Friend she's had for years tries to rape and murder her, and she partially blames herself since she felt she could have prevented it if she picked up on his issues sooner. Someone give that poor girl a hug!
Alicization adds more to this, giving her an even more unhinged Stalker with a Crush in the form of Gabriel Miller, AKA Subtilizer, who brutally kills her in the 4th BoB, something shown to have traumatized her, and she later comes face-to-face with him in the Underworld, where he Psychic Strangles her and tries to forcibly kiss her to "steal her soul".
Yuuki probably has one of the saddest stories. Due to a medical malpractice, she was born with a drug-resistant strand of HIV that spread to the rest of her family and had to endure it and all the social stigma that came with it, with a lot of her friends and classmates being quick to isolate her after her status as a carrier was somehow leaked, forcing her to move schools where her condition began to worsen. When her family was approached let Yuuki or her sister Aiko become Medicuboid test subjects, Aiko willingly gave up her chance to be in a sterilized room so Yuuki could live longer. After meeting another girl in a game called Asuka Empire, Yuuki formed a guild with her sister called the Sleeping Knights that consisted of other terminally ill patient like them, hoping to leave a mark on the world. By the time of Mother's Rosario however, three members, including her sister, have passed away, she's the only one in her family still alive, she has to remain logged into the Medicuboid 24/7 (to the point where her time in virtual reality exceeds SAO players), and she doesn't have much time left herself. In fact, she dies at the end of the volume, after becoming great friends with Asuna.
Eugeo's life has been far from easy. Born into a loveless family who treated him with indifference, with the exception of his older sister, Eugeo was mistreated in a number of ways that didn't defy the Taboo Index, such as his parents showing very blatant Parental Favouritism towards his older siblings and his father taking all the money he earned from cutting the Gigas Cedar as recompense for not getting a Calling that allowed him to help on his family's farm, which served to make him a bullying target from other boys such as Jink. He only had two friends growing up, Kirito and Alice, but that changes when the three of them go to a cave near the End Mountains to get some ice, only to stumble upon an exit leading to the Dark Territory, where they witness a Dark Knight get killed by an Integrity Knight and Alice accidentally places a few fingers in the Dark Territory. The very next day, he's Forced to Watch as Alice is arrested and taken away due to the Seal of the Right Eye preventing him from doing anything. Shortly after that incident, Kirito is logged out of the Underworld and Eugeo's memories of him are blocked, making him believe that not being able to prevent Alice's arrest is entirely his fault, and he also gets shunned by almost the whole village due to his friendship with Alice. His life doesn't get any easier upon Kirito's return, as he witnesses both his and Kirito's pages almost get raped by two corrupt Nobles because he scored a tie against one of them, and ends up breaking the Taboo Index to stop it, branding him a criminal and leading to his arrest, and he then learns that the Childhood Friend he left his village to save was brainwashed into becoming an Integrity Knight, and he later gets brainwashed into one himself after Quinella throws his loveless past in his face and forces him to fight Kirito, the guilt of which prompts him to make a suicidal charge at Quienlla that leads to his death.
When Lipia was a child, she lost her parents to the Age of Blood and Iron and as a result was close to being sold into slavery, with her only avoiding this fate because the tribes signed a peace agreement to prevent further bloodshed. Her newfound freedom allowed her to enter a military training academy, but her decision to pursue a role as a Dark Knight earned her the ridicule and bullying of both women, who often chose to become Dark Mages and in turn viewed her as mannish, and the men, who believed her high grades was less due to her own skill and more because she was seducing the instructors, and the bullying got to the point that she was poisoned and attacked by minions as a "prank". It's only when she met Vixur, who treated her with kindness and respect, that things start looking up, with her entering a relationship with him and having plans to marry him. But that gets painfully undermined when Gabriel logs into the Underworld as Vecta and threatens their plans to make peace with the Human Empire, and when she attempts to kill him to put a stop to the war, she gets painfully choked to death, decapitatedpost-mortem, and has her head frozen in a block of ice and presented to the armies to bait out Shasta.
Renly, before being turned into an Integrity Knight, had a Best Friend like how Eugeo did with Kirito, the both of them vowing to become Integrity Knights together. However, during the Four Empires Unity Tournament, Renly ended up breaking his friend's sword with an attack, killing him in the process. Severely traumatized, Renly gained a fear of killing and dying that carried over into his Synthesis, which caused him to under-perform and prevented him from mastering his Divine Object, prompting Quinella to call him a "defect" and put him into stasis, adding severe self-esteem issues onto his list of problems.
Whereas most known SAO Survivors, such as Kirito and Asuna, are shown to have not had a completely terrible experiences in Sword Art Online like the general public believe, Hiyori Kashiwazaki/Lux is a prime example of a SAO Survivor who had an absolutely horrible time in the infamous Death Game. While grinding in a dungeon one day, Lux ended up getting separated from her temporary party and finds herself getting overwhelmed by monsters. However, she is saved from the monsters... by LaughingCoffin, who heavily imply that they killed the party she was with. After contemplating whether to kill her or not, they give her a Sadistic Choice of being left to die in the dungeon or join them as a scout and spy for them using her Green Cursor. Out of fear of dying she accepts, a decision that wracks her with boundless guilt over the fact that's actively assisting a guild dedicated to killing people and halting the Clearing Force's progress. During her time in the Red Guild, she befriends Gwen, the leader of one of Laughing Coffin's subsidiary guilds, which seems to help keep her going despite her circumstances. However, while returning to the guild's hideout one day, the both of them find Laughing Coffin being raided by the Clearing Force and the both of them are caught. However, due to her Green Cursor, Lux is mistaken for Gwen's hostage and her hesitance to confirm she was with the guild causes Gwen to think she's betrayed her and abandoned her, calling off their friendship and leaving her all alone again. Later on she's befriended by a girl named Rossa who, as if to add insult to injury, sacrifices her life to save Lux, leaving the poor girl both alone again and severely traumatized. Her time in SAO still haunts her even after the Death Game ends, with her attempts at imitating Kirito leading her to have Heroic BSoD and become extremely isolated, Gwen coming back in order to drive a wedge in her new friendships out of spite, and her friend Rossa apparently coming back as a ghost and running the risk of being used by a Guild of Con Artists for personal profit.
Fanatio. Even if you ignore her insecurities in regards to her gender and the stress of being Vice-Commander of the Integrity Knights, over the course of the War with the Dark Territory she loses both Dakira, her apprentice and one of the only Knights she got along with before she Took a Level in Kindness, and Bercouli, the love of her life and father of her unborn child, who she now has to raise alone. Despite this, while she does shed tears over the two of them, she's remarkably well-adjusted by the time of Moon Cradle, and is handling raising Berche pretty well.
Scheta always had an obsession with cutting that affected how she interacted with others, with it being Implied that she killed a lot of her opponents in what were supposed to be clean, friendly duels, such as the Four Empires Unity tournament to the point it had to be mostly covered up, which she's not exactly hinted to be proud of. After becoming a Knight, she gets a Bully in the form of an older Knight who's annoyed at her supposed "disrespect", and so often spent her time alone on Floor 75, "The Night Corridor". One day, she's approached by Quinella, who manipulates her by offering asword that can cut through anything, then getting her aforementioned bully to attack her by offering him a Divine Object as well, which ends in her killing him and willingly going into Deep Freeze out of fear of harming any of the other Knights. Even after being unfrozen to help with the War of Underworld, she ends up The Dreaded to her own side. It's not until she meets Iskahn, and falls in love with him over the course of the war, that things really start looking up for her, and even then she has to deal with her only daughter getting kidnapped and getting her life threatened, with the only way out being killing Kirito, who like her husband she's come to regard as a friend.
Kyouji Shinkawa, one of the three who plays the role of Death Gun. He's an accomplice to several murders, but has a troubled real life- he's been bullied at school, his grades suffer to the point at which he can't possibly meet his parents' expectations for him to go to medical school and become a doctor, and he's implied to be not entirely mentally well. As such, he thinks of the game world as an escape far beyond what is healthy, and when AGI builds get nerfed, rendering him unable to be the strongest in the virtual world, that essentially breaks him.
Most of Eiji's screentime in Ordinal Scale depicts him being a Smug Snake Jerkass who who assaults his fellow SAO Survivors and gets them killed by the Boss Monsters who appears in Ordinal Scale to steal their SAO memories, deriving Sadistic glee from it all the way. However, once you learn his backstory, it can be hard not to see him as rather tragic; he was originally a hard-working player who dedicated himself to mastering the One-Handed Sword, which got him scouted by the Knights of the Blood. However, when he logged in he suffered from a Full-Dive Non-Conformity, which caused him to freeze up in times of danger and turning him into The Load and forcing him out of the Floor Boss fights, giving him an inferiority complex. Then when he spear-heads an operation to save some fellow players from a boss, his Childhood Friend and Love Interest, Yuna, makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save her fellow players, and he's unable to save her due to his Non-Conformity, leading to her death and him quitting the KoB from the trauma and self-loathing. And, as if to add insult to injury, a book is released after SAO ended only talked about the Frontline players while disregarding those who died, such as Yuna, enraging him.
His time outside SAO is also rather sad. His parents got divorced while he was still young, separating him from his older brother, and when he finally escaped SAO, he learned that his mother and step-father got divorced and marry other people while he was trapped, and didn't want to bring him into their new lives, all but forcing him to live alone.
When we first meet them, Linel and Fizel are a pair of Cute and Psycho Integrity Knights who, unlike their brethren, resort to several dirty means to achieving their ends, such as poison, and are nothing short of Sadistic and manipulative. Though after hearing the story about how children as young as them became Integrity Knights, you can hardly be surprised; the both of them were born in the Cathedral, along with many other children, to the priests and nuns residing there, and were immediately given up toQuinella so she could use them as part of an experiment in creating a Sacred Art to bring people Back from the Dead, during which she had all of them kill each other. Linel and Fizel are able to survive by honing their killing skills and murdering each other as cleanly as possible, usually via decapitation or stabbing each other in the heart, but are forced to force to watch as the other children either died anyway, become subject to gruesome Body Horror, or even came back as completely different people, until they were eventually the Sole Survivors. After Quinella calls the experiment quits and lets them go to choose their own Callings, they decide choose Integrity Knights, killing the two who originally had their numbers. However, their age and technical designation of "trainees" made them No Respect Guys among the other Knights, who didn't treat them seriously or even put much investment in their growth outside of telling them to study, creating a good deal of resentment in them.
Lilpilin is the Chief of the Orcs, and has such a seething hatred for humans that Vixur feels it necessary to assassinate him, along with Dee Eye Ell and the two Goblin Chiefs, if his plans to broker peace with the Human Empire are to succeed. However, he has very good reason for his hatred, as his people's praise of him being the most beautiful Orc in the tribe got undermined by the revelation that humans largely see his race as hideous, as well as expendable cannon fodder to be used in times of war. This gets worse during the war, where he's Forced to Watch as 3,000 of his people, including his Childhood Friend who he was hinted to have feelings for, are sacrificed to the Dark Mages to power a spell to kill the Integrity Knights, which ultimately fails.
Nezha from Progressive is a blacksmith who's party to a scheme to con players out of their weapons by making them think they had broken. He also suffers from a Full-Dive Nonconformity that essentially leaves him legally blind in the game, and is partly working so that his friends will be able to keep pace with the Assault Team, feeling guilty that his friends fell behind while trying to help him. When Kirito and Asuna find out about his scam, Nezha's nearly Driven to Suicide, and after becoming The Atoner and pulling a Big Damn Heroes entry to save the parties fighting the second floor's boss, he nearly gets killed in revenge as a result of a (possibly unsubstantiated) report that he'd indirectly caused another player's death, and until the very last second, everyone believes that his "friends" will abandon him and let the other players execute him.
SAO Survivors in general (except maybe all the PKer's like Laughing Coffin). As if getting trapped in video game that puts you at the very real risk of death and causes you to lose friends and loved ones for up to two years wasn't enough, their lives even after it ends aren't any easier. Known SAO Survivors are victims of heavy Fantastic Racism in both other VR games, where they're viewed by most other players as arrogant stuck-ups simply because their two year entrapment gives them more experience with VR and they seem more comfortable around each other, and by society at large, with them largely being viewed as potential criminals due to the unknown effect their entrapment may have had on them, even putting them all in a school to monitor them and even going as far as to force them into taking therapeutic drugs, apparently indifferent to whether or not they actually need them and that they could actually be affecting their minds or body's negatively.
Most of the Demi-Human Species in the Dark Territory can be seen this as well as Jerkass Woobies due to the heavy amount of Fantastic Racism they receive from the humans and that fact that, also unlike the humans, they live in horrendous conditions and they lack the fertility to properly grow food, whereas the humans live in more secure towns and castles and seem to have greater access to such supplies. Among them, the Orcs would have to be the most prominent example, being largely reviled as ugly for their pig-like appearance and losing 3,000 of their number, not in honorable combat like they hoped, but to being used as a Demi-Human Sacrifice to the Dark Mages.
Kirito in the second half of the Alicization arc. Due to the grief of losing Eugeo combined with the power surge damaging his brain, this leads Kirito to have an extreme Heroic BSoD that leaves him an Empty Shell for a large portion of the war. In this state he loses his ability to speak, most of his awareness of his surroundings, and most of his mobility. He requires intense care from either Alice or whoever is looking after him and necessitates being wheeled around in a wheelchair.
