History Characters / SwordArtOnlineAbridgedSeasonTwoCharacters

[[folder:Mr. and Mrs. Kirigaya]]
Kazuto and Suguha's unseen parents.

[[folder:Shinichi Nagata / Recon]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/abridgednagata.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350: ''"So, where are you guys off to? Going on a que... ''(ahem)''\\
You guys going on a mission?''"]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Spencer "[=BuddyVA=]" Downs\\\

A Sylph player who quests with Leafa in ''[=ALfheim=] Online'', and [[FriendsWithBenefits "quests"]] with Suguha in real life. He is usually the target of bullying by Leafa and Prince Cazmer, but tries to help out his princess nonetheless.

* AdaptationalAchillesHeel: His malfunctioning [=NerveGear=]. It occasionally pulses the fear center of his brain, triggering several hallucinations and occasionally ''paralyzing'' him. It becomes quite the hindrance during his covert mission in Episode 16.
* AdaptationalBadass: During his espionage mission, the original Recon blew his cover due to his own lack of stealth. Here, he kept himself hidden for far longer and only got discovered because his [=NerveGear=] misfired, something he had no control over.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: In the original series, Recon was extremely clingy with Leafa, but out of sincere, if immature love. Here, he's extremely nice, to the point where even [[{{Jerkass}} Kirito]] doesn't even try to mock or belittle him in any way. His more creepy tendencies are also completely phased out, while his naivety is increased.
* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: The [[LovesMyAlterEgo ship tease between Leafa and Kirito in the original series]] was moved to Recon and Leafa instead in the Abridged version.
* AffectionateNickname: "Nutter Butter". While [[DoubleEntendre it can be taken the wrong way]], it's the best you can get from [[{{Tsundere}} Suguha]].
* ApologizesALot: Mostly out of fear that someone will hit him if he doesn't retract.
* BadBadActing: When confronted with Kirito, his "threat" to the Spriggan is so wooden you could make household furniture out of it.
* BlatantLies: In Episode 16, if the shot of his corpse is any indication, he did ''not'', in fact, "fight bravely".
* BodyguardCrush: He's Leafa's guardian (or "fuck-boy"), and he has a crush on her that she secretly reciprocates.
* ButtMonkey: Poor guy gets treated like crap by Leafa, and also got the vice treatment by Cazmer once. His AdaptationalAchillesHeel doesn't help matters ''at all''.
* CalmingTea: He often deals with his panic attacks by pouring himself some tea.
* TheConfidant: The only person whom Suguha keeps in touch with both in real life and in ''[=ALfheim=]'', and as a result the only one who knows of her identity as Princess Leafa. However, he's not a shining example as he keeps accidentally addressing her by her screen name in real life when under pressure, much to her anger.
* CovertPervert: He agreed to a "sewer handy" from [[{{Tsundere}} Leafa]] once. [[BlatantLies "It was for a quest"]] not whistanding.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Averted. Despite his feelings for Suguha/Leafa, he has no issue with her hanging out with Kirito at all. Episode 15 shows he's more annoyed at being ditched by her causing her storyline fiance to torture him and he trusts Kirito to a degree that confuses him.
* TheCutie: A sweet and kind-hearted boy with an adorable crush on his princess.
* DoggedNiceGuy: He does whatever Suguha/Leafa tells him to because he's attracted to her. The attraction doesn't seem to be one-sided either; despite Suguha hitting him with the butt of her kendo stick when Shinichi asks her on an actual date in Episode 15, she also tells him to meet her in the janitor's closet for some implied sex. Suguha/Leafa also mentions that she "sucked him off one time", but insisted that it was for a quest. Finally, Yui notes that ''both'' of their heart rates [[MySensorsIndicateYouWanttoTapThat increased by 22% when near each other]]. Further complicating things is that Suguha is a MasterOfTheMixedMessage, abusing Shinichi/Recon one minute, then giving him sexual favors the next. As such, Shinichi/Recon is constantly nervous around Suguha, in part because he's attracted to her and in part because it's impossible to know where he stands with her.
* DumbIsGood: He's not ''dumb'', just very naive, but he truly is a pure and selfless boy.
* EmbarrassingNickname: His number is saved as "Nutter Butter" in Suguha's phone. [[AffectionateNickname Interpret it as]] [[DoubleEntendre you will]].
* ExtremeDoormat: As befitting for a princess' "fuckboy", he stands by Leafa/Suguha despite how horribly she treats him.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Leafa ''does'' like him, but doesn't want to show it. Kirito says that he is "too pure for this world," but that's the extent of it. Cazmer certainly doesn't have a problem torturing or even killing him in-game if he becomes too much of a nuisance.
* FriendsWithBenefits: Light on the "friends," and more emphasis on the "benefits."
-->'''Suguha:''' You and I are barely friends! ''Recon'' is Princess Leafa's ''fuckboy.'' Got it? Don't confuse the game with real life, you perv! [[HypocriticalHumor Now meet me in the supply closet after practice,]] I've got another ''quest'' for you.
* {{Foil}}: He's to Leafa what [[MoralityPet Sachi]] was to Kirito.
** They're both cute and ineffectual players with an AdaptationalAchillesHeel (bad internet and a faulty [=NerveGear=] respectively) who represent exactly what Kirito and Leafa respectively hate the most (Sachi is TheMillstone of her guild due to her lag, while Recon [[InTouchWithHisFeminineSide is an avid enjoyer of fairy games.]]) but who somehow managed to insert themselves in the SociopathicHero's lives and become their personal MoralityPet. The difference between them can be traced down to their personalities; Sachi was a pessimistic loner with self-esteem issues who hates being in SAO, while Recon is The TokenWholesome teammate who loves playing ALO, sometimes even mistaking it for real life.
** They were both [[ExtremeDoormat very submissive]] to their leaders, but Sachi was very perceptive and didn't hesitate [[PrecisionFStrike to call Kirito an asshole]] when he became too unbearable. Recon, on the other hand, is too scared of Suguha to call her out on her abuse and is a borderline SycophanticServant.
** When facing death, Sachi [[GoOutWithASmile simply smiled]], happy to be finally relieved of [[AndIMustScream her horrible life situation]]. Recon, on the other hand, [[FaceDeathWithDespair tried to run off screaming]] after being caught before getting shot in the ass by the salamanders, [[DeathIsCheap despite death not being permanent in ALO]].
* GagPenis: {{Implied}}. When Kirito and Yui are teasing Leafa about her apparent feelings for Recon and the latter points out their increase in heart rates when they interacted as evidence, she retorts that maybe she's scared of him because he has a "[[AccidentalInnuendo big knife]]", causing the two to crack up. It should be noted though that she doesn't deny their assumption upon realizing how ThatCameOutWrong, instead telling them to shut up before flying ahead with a LuminescentBlush.
* GoshDangItToHeck: He doesn't try to swear once (barring a small "frak" during his introduction), not even outside ALO. He also refers to Leafa's blowjob as a "sewer handy".
* GroinAttack: "He used the vice, Kirigaya. I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to Music/{{Cascada}} again."
* HeroWorshipper: Episode 15 shows that Shinichi would like to meet Kirito due to his fame as the Hero of Aincrad.
* HiddenDepths: Suguha is rather impressed with his stealthiness as a spy, managing to capture Cazmer's entire conversation without blowing his cover despite being a more cowardly player. He only gets caught after his broken [=NerveGear=] misfires and shocks him.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter:
** He's easily scammed by [[AbusiveParents the parents]] of a deceased SAO player who sold their damaged [=NerveGear=] for $100 more than the new ones were worth. When informed of this, he tries to justify their actions by saying that they were probably in mourning and didn't have time to process the price.
** {{Subverted}} in later episodes, where he's shown to be more perceptive than Leafa herself, as he quickly picks up on the fact that Leafa was trying to shoo him away by sending him to spy on Cazmer, and also rationalizes the latter's behavior as him being mad that Leafa wasn't playing along with the wedding storyline instead of him being up to any wrongdoing ([[AccidentalTruth even though it later turned out he actually was]]).
* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Or as Kirito puts it:
-->'''Kirito:''' You are too pure for [[CrapsackWorld this world]].
* {{Invisibility}}: Uses a cloak of invisibility to spy on Cazmer and the salamanders. Unfortunately, this doesn't help you much when your broken [=NerveGear=] triggers a loud shriek from you.
* MoralityPet: held in high regard by both [[{{Jerkass}} Kirito]] and [[AristocratsAreEvil Leafa]], while definitely being the type of person they would both relentlessly emotionally terrorize under normal circumstances.
* NervousWreck: After learning of Cazmer's "betrayal", he completely loses it and spends hours frantically trying to reach Suguha. He has to pour himself some tea to calm down.
* NiceGuy: The most wholesome [=ALfheim=] player ''by far'', and arguably the nicest character of ''the entire series'' as well, owing to being of the few to not receive the AdaptationalJerkass treatment, being ''even nicer'' than his original counterpart. Despite the fact that his [=NerveGear=] was bought second-hand for $100 more than a new one, and that he had to clean the previous user's brain out of it, he doesn't once criticize the sellers' heartlessness, but instead [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter chooses to assume it was due to grief.]] Additionally, upon [[AristocratsAreEvil Leafa]] describing a certain act she did with him, ostensibly in pursuit of a quest, Kirito goes so far as to call him "too precious for this world."
* OnlyFriend: With hints of ShipTease thrown in for good measure. He's the only person of [=ALfhem=] that Suguha actually gives a shit about, and he's also presumably the only person nice enough to stand her IRL as well.
* ThePollyanna: He takes his ButtMonkey status in stride, and seems to be the only ALO player whose enjoyment of the game hasn't been ruined by Sakuya and Eugene's race war.
* SatelliteLoveInterest: He doesn't have many interactions with anyone outside of his princess.
* TheScapegoat: Cazmer blames him for the wedding storytelling falling apart, [[GroinAttack and uses the vice on him]].
* ShipTease: It's suggested multiple times that he and Leafa are attracted to each other but Leafa refuses to act on her side of it because [[ClosetGeek she doesn't want to be outed for enjoying the fantasy genre]].
* ShotInTheAss: By the salamanders after blowing his cover. ''Three times''.
* ShrinkingViolet: In Episode 15, when asking Suguha out on a date, he acts shy and withdrawn.
* SpearCounterpart: To Silica. They're the smallest members of the main cast but have the biggest heart. They're also ThePollyanna to their companion's antics, whom they have crushes on (although Silica got over Kirito during Episode 4) and are some of the few characters to take their {{Jerkass}} demeanor in stride. While Kirito never hit Silica like Suguha did Nagata, they both had their traumatic experiences met with a similar LackOfEmpathy (Kirito shrugged off Silica's grievances with her deceased virtual pet, while Suguha couldn't care less about Recon's torture at the hands of Cazmer).
* SupernaturalFearInducer: On the receiving end of this due to a faulty [=NerveGear=], which occasionally "pulses the fear center of his brain" and sends him into shrieking fits where he hallucinates [[Manga/AssassinationClassroom tentacle monsters in classrooms]].
* SuperGullible: See HorribleJudgeOfCharacter above.
* ThrowTheDogABone: Leafa apparently baked him cupcakes once, not to mention her [[UnusualEuphemism "sewer handy"]].
* TinyGuyHugeGirl: Despite being around the same age, Leafa dwarves him.
* TokenGoodTeammate: He's the only Sylph player who isn't a complete {{Jerkass}}. Barring an awkward introduction, he also appears unaffected by his people's FantasticRacism for the Spriggans and warms up to Kirito rather quickly.
* UndignifiedDeath: After awkwardly blowing his cover, he gets shot in the ass by the salamanders, with mayo being thrown in for good measure. Luckily, DeathIsCheap.
-->'''Recon:''' I just need you to know... [[BlatantLies I fought bravely.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: He caters to Suguha/Leafa's every whim, and is extremely protective of her, to the point of calling her 96 times to warn her about Cazmer's assassination attempt.
* WrongNameOutburst: A variation. He accidentally calls Suguha by her ALO name while in real life, much to her embarrassment.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Brian / Queen Sakuya]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_29_210335.png]]
[[caption-width-right:1000:Oooh, look at me! I idolize a time period where I'd have absolutely no rights or indoor plumbing! I'd probably make more sensible decisions if my make-up weren't just chock full of lead!]]

->'''Voiced by:''' Chase "Coffinjokey" Corbin\\\

A lifeguard in real life, in ALO Brian is the queen of the Sylphs, one of the most powerful factions in ALO, and one of the greatest combatant in the Race War. It later turns out that the reason he is a "she" in-game is because he hacked the account of his ArchEnemy and bitter ex, (and she returned the favor) and had roped half of the entire server into his fight. Kirito comes to a peace talk Sakuya is holding in Episode 16 in an attempt to gain his help in rescuing Asuna, only to get roped into fighting Eugene.
----

!!Salamanders

[[folder:Becky / King Eugene]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_29_205936.png]]
[[caption-width-right:1000:I just love pick-up trucks and football and an ice cold Miller Lite with just a smidgen o' lime! Gosh, I'm such an Alpha!]]

->'''Voiced by:''' Cat "Lunafreya" Protano\\\

A valley girl who likes ''Series/TheCrown2016'' in real life, in ALO Becky is the king of the Salamanders, one of the most powerful factions in ALO, and one of the greatest combatants in the Race War. It later turns out that the reason she is a "he" in-game is because she hacked the account of her ArchEnemy and bitter ex (and he returned the favor) and had roped half of the server into her fight. In Episode 16, in an attempt to gain Eugene's help in rescuing Asuna, Kirito gets roped into fighting her.

!RECT Progress and Ubisoft

[[folder:General]]
The developer and publisher, respectively, of ''[=ALfheim Online=]'' and main enemy faction of Season 2. RECT, run by Asuna's father Shouzou, purchased the ''Sword Art Online'' servers to build their own title using the source code. They are partnered with Ubisoft, who is providing [=uPlay=] to run the game via RECT's Amusphere device, despite the VR industry as a whole being dead since the ''SAO'' disaster. Noboyuki Sugou hopes to use the game to experiment on the ''SAO'' survivors for his own purposes.

* ArtistDisillusionment: InUniverse example. If the back of the box of ALO is any indication, at least one of the game's developers disowns it completely.
-->Get ready for a world of Learn-venture™ as you make your way through nine amazing biomes like forest, desert, cave, another forest, and circus!\\
Alright, sir. That's about the most positive write-up I can think of for back-of-box stuff. Considering the game has been the biggest soul-sucking shitshow of my career, I think this sells it pretty well!\\
But at least it's all over now. I can finally get back home and sleep in my own bed again! A bed that is now empty because DEBRA LEFT ME! [[TakingTheKids SHE TOOK THE KIDS, MAN!]]\\
But what the fuck ever. Can you just look this over and get back to me with any changes/corrections ASAP? I just wanna wash my hands of this weeping anal fissure of a "game".
* AmbiguouslyEvil:
** Is Creator/{{Ubisoft}} involved with RECT's human experimentation? [=uPlay=] is stated to be the extent of their involvement with RECT but considering the state of VR after the [=SAO=] Disaster, RECT had to offer them ''something'' to get Ubisoft to enter a dying industry.
** It isn't clear if the rest of the company is in on Oberon's plan to uplift himself with the Charisma skill and rise to political power. While Oberon has some of RECT's employees helping him, there's no indication that either Asuna's total asshole of a father or even Ubisoft is aware of anything being amiss.
* AdaptedOut: In the actual ''Sword Art Online'' series, RECT Progress is just a subsidiary of the more diversified RECT Inc. RECT Progress seems to be their own company and only focuses on game development in the Abridged universe, to the point where they aren't even the game's publisher.
* AmoralAttorney: Averted. Shouzou's lawyers are so far the only employees we hear about who actually try to keep their boss from doing horrible things (namely, killing his daughter by taking her off life support simply because it costs money).
* BackFromTheBrink: After Kayaba "deep-sixed" the VR industry, there was no future with VR Gaming until ALO came into being. They even somehow roped a major AAA company like Ubisoft to contribute to its development, entering an industry that was all but dead like the dodo. It implies RECT (if not both companies) are trying to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] this in order to rebuild VR's reputation and dominate the industry after everyone else abandoned ship.
* BigBrotherIsWatching: A FreezeFrameBonus in Episode 15 shows Shoji and Kyle looking down on the players while the sky was glitching. Sugou also claims to have been tracking Kirito's account since he logged in.
* TheChewToy: Every employee assigned to guard Asuna has been cannibalized by her at least once, to the point of quitting their job over it.
* EvilInc: Whereas Bethesda and Argus caused thousands of deaths through incompetence and hubris, RECT Progress is engaging in actively malicious human experimentation with the comatose ''SAO'' survivors, trapping them in terminals to induce fear and other emotions, and helping a sexual predator in their ranks imprison a young woman and brainwash her into becoming his housewife.
* TheGhost:
** Ubisoft is only mentioned to be providing [=uPlay=] to run ALO.
** Save for Shoji and Kyle, none of Sugou's RECT Progress workers (like Trisha and Sean) are seen onscreen, although they're heard of from external sources.
* IncompetenceInc: While not to the degree of Bethesda and Argus, and their evil side is more focused on, they don't seem to be very competent at game design, and unlike Argus, they weren't Christmas rushed (and didn't even have to start from scratch due to buying SAO and its servers), and most of the issues come from bad design choices rather than bugs.
** They included advanced aerial combat and the ability to have sex in a game targetted at children so young that they may not know how to spell their own name and consider "What's 2+2?" to be a difficult math problem.
** The back of the box description was apparently just copy pasted from the email the writer sent without bothering to actually read it (meaning they left in the guy's rant about how the dev cycle has ruined his marriage).
** There is apparently no moderation outside of the profanity filter, resulting in a single group of friends dominating the game's politics, almost the entire playerbase being split in two because of a single messy break up between two members of said group, an entire faction getting griefed out of existence simply for trying to stop this, and a vicious racial conflict that seems to transcend roleplaying (the last of which seems to be something they encourage). Beyond that, you also have people hunting other players for sport and engaging in erotic roleplay ''in a game targeted at children''.
** Players from ''SAO'' keep their stats from that game, meaning Kirito is able to go toe-to-toe with one of the most experienced players in the game after only about a day or two of playing (most of which was spent travelling rather than fighting).
** Their attempts to teach history is full of insane conspiracy theories, and any child smart enough to point out those theories are nonsense get torn apart by psychic bears.
** Their attempt at an anti-drug message ended up encouraging people to do drugs (which got so bad that, in a rare show of competance, they had to patch it out). Said attempt also allowed players to do drugs in ''a game targeted at children'', with the drugs having no negative effects, resulting in a massive ingame riot when they announced they were patching it out.
* PunchClockVillain: At least several RECT Progress employees are aware of Sugou's brainwashing plot, with many being used to perfect the brainwashing process and others serving as guards for Asuna's cage, but most of them treat the situation as if it were a normal job at ALO, with at least one being subjected to a SoulCrushingDeskJob.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After [[DefiantCaptive Asuna]]'s many break-outs lead to them getting tortured and [[IAmAHumanitarian cannibalized]] by her, most of Sugou's employees who worked inside ALO (save for Shoji and Kyle) ended up quitting their jobs inside VR out of fear and paranoia. This allowed her to reach Sugou's administrator console in Episode 16 and steal a system admin access code for Kirito.
* SoleSurvivor: RECT was the last company to still be involved with VR gaming after the SAO Disaster dug the industry's grave. Sometime before Season Two, they somehow scored a partnership with Ubisoft.
* UncertainAudience: InUniverse example. Apparently, RECT Progress can't advertise or focus on just one demographic to save their lives. The Abridged version of ALO is supposedly marketed towards children, but the blurbs on the back of the box flip flops between kid-friendly activities advertising community and friendship and encouragement of inciting conflict and aerial combat. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Also colouring]]. [[spoiler: And later on, the game is revealed to allow blowjobs and full-on racial conflict.]]
-->'''Kazuto:'''...''Who is this for?!''\\
'''Tiffany:''' [[TakeAThirdOption My guess would be the cast of]] ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'', [[TakeThat but I doubt that's a big enough market]].
* UnfortunateImplications: InUniverse; ALO has a huge case of ArtisticLicenceHistory in the history hall, punishes its players with public nudity when they fail The Math Tree, and has an NPC that used to hand out drugs [[DrugsAreBad to serve as abilities for the players]]. It got so bad that the last one had to be patched in Episode 17 due to backlash. And let's not mention the locations of "Kandy Kane Kavern" and "Kandy Kane Kapital", which have [[UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan an unfortunate abbreviation]].
-->'''Kirito:''' (while fighting his way through the TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon) Golly gee! If only I had an army of offensive racial stereotypes with which to combat you, but I think that'd be just a little too appropriate for this game!
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: RECT Progress scored themselves a lot of goodwill by buying the SAO servers to keep the players alive during the SAO Disaster. Considering Argus was going under at the time, [[PragmaticVillainy they likely didn't have to pay too much for the servers in the first place]].

[[folder:Shouzou Yuuki]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yuuki_shouzou.png]][[caption-width-right:350:''"It's good of you to keep visiting her like this. Like a watchful guardian looking after a slumbering princess. Lying there like a perfect, beautiful little parasite, SUCKING THE MARROW FROM MY VERY BONES!"'']]
->'''Voiced by:''' Logan "[=BlazingAzureCrow=]" Laidlaw\\\

Asuna's father and the CEO of RECT Progress. He is a greedy, corrupt, and selfish man who marries the comatose Asuna off to one of his employees, Noboyuki Sugou, to avoid paying any more medical bills without having to kill her outright. He also loves Ferraris.

* AbusiveParents: Much like how Suguha gives us an idea of where Kazuto's issues came from, Shouzou shows us where Asuna's came from. He's actively contemptuous of Asuna (going so far as to call her a parasite and expressing a desire to cut off her life support so he wouldn't have to keep paying medical bills, while shortly later casually talking about buying a new Ferrari), and seemingly has zero issues marrying her off (while she's in a COMA, no less) to a man whose name ''he doesn't even know.''
-->'''Shouzou:''' It's good of you to keep visiting her like this. Like a watchful guardian looking after a slumbering princess. Lying there like a perfect, beautiful little ''[[MoodWhiplash parasite]]'', [[SuddenlyShouting SUCKING THE MARROW FROM MY VERY BONES!]]\\
'''Kazuto:''' I'm not letting you pull the plug, sir!\\
'''Shouzou:''' Ah, sorry. Force of habit. You can relax. My lawyers have advised me that killing my daughter to get out of medical bills would cause more problems than it would probably solve.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Does not even appear to love Asuna, given that he's willing to [[AbusiveParents let his daughter die to avoid paying for medical bills and then marry her off so someone else who can pay for them]].
* AwfulWeddedLife: It's implied in Episode 10 that his wife used to be very stubborn and always refused to compromise, resulting in their divorce. Then again, [[AbusiveParents it's not like Shouzou was much better.]]
* BriefAccentImitation: Like father, like daughter apparently. Shouzou puts on a hilariously bad Italian accent when talking to his Italian contact, Enzo, probably explaining where Asuna's weird insistence on talking to Tiffany in rather broken JiveTurkey came from.
* ConspicuousConsumption: He off-handedly implies that he's bought several Ferraris.
* ContemptCrossfire: Neglectful parenting and self-centered personality aside, he doesn't care enough about his prospective son-in-law to learn his name, instead calling him by the name of the briefcase he brought the money in.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Apparently, he wanted to cut off life support from his own comatose daughter, solely because he found the medical bills too expensive to support his Ferrari-buying habits. His lawyers had to talk him out of that idea. Instead, he is happy to marry her off to an obvious lecherous creep twice her age and provides that same creep resources for horrific mind control experimentation.
* HateSink: While not to the extent of Sugou, the single scene he is in establishes him as a [[AbusiveParents cruel, uncaring father]] to Asuna who greedily marries her off to an obvious creep so he can stop paying her medical bills without [[OffingTheOffspring killing her]], and seems to have no problem letting Sugou use his company for inhumane medical experiments. He is also an UpperClassTwit who [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain speaks in an exaggerated Italian accent to his Ferrari guy]]. Basically, all of Asuna's psychological issues are a result of his poor parenting, and unlike Suguha, who is responsible for Kazuto's issues but is a complex character, Shouzou has no FreudianExcuse to speak of.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: He calls [[CardCarryingVillain Sugou]] - a man who wants to own Asuna like a sex slave and is exploiting his corporate privileges to that end - a "nice gentleman". Then again, given just how scummy he is, for somebody like him, Sugou probably ''is'' a nice gentleman.
* FauxAffablyEvil: He has some superficial charm that doesn't go beyond your average corporate executive, but he instantly drops it the moment he remembers how much money Asuna's situation is costing him.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Of the second season. He only physically appears once in the first episode while his employee Sugou is the main villain, but Shouzou is the CEO of the company who marries off the comatose Asuna to Sugou to get out of paying medical bills and is presumably supplying Sugou with the means to perform his mind control experiments with no care for anything but his profits.
* {{Greed}}: While he ''does'' pay for his daughter's life support, he complains endlessly about it, makes it clear he would rather waste that money on endless Ferraris, and apparently would've unplugged her out of force of habit on more than one occasion had it not been for Kazuto. In fact, the entire arc is kickstarted by him selling Asuna to one of his deranged employees.
* ItsAllAboutMe: His rationale for deciding to marry off Asuna to Nobuyuki. He no longer wants to foot the bill for keeping his comatose daughter on life support but is all too happy to use the money to buy more Ferraris instead.
* {{Jerkass}}: Even if he wasn't fantasizing about killing his daughter, he's still a grade-A asshole. He essentially sells Asuna to a rapist ''in front of her boyfriend'' and then excuses himself to go buy a Ferrari. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking The prick doesn't even remember the name of his employees]], even the one he plans to marry his own daughter to.
* LackOfEmpathy: He doesn't seem to quite grasp why Kazuto would be upset at his comatose girlfriend getting sold to a man twice her age, treating the whole ordeal like an ordinary business transaction.
* MeanBoss: He doesn't bother to hide his lack of interest in Sugou's life, only remembering the name of the briefcase he kept Shouzou's money in. When corrected on this, he just flat-out tells him to keep the wrong name because he likes it better. Keep in mind, this is ''after'' he agreed to make him his son-in-law.
* PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: He seems to be just as racist as [[PoliticallyIncorrectHero Asuna]], but he lacks [[InnocentBigot her]] [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend redeeming]] [[TookALevelInKindness qualities]].
* PragmaticVillainy:
** He didn't take his daughter off life support to save money, if only because he'd be charged with murder otherwise.
** He took Sugou's suggestion to buy and maintain the servers holding the ''SAO'' players, keeping them alive, but only for the sake of getting good publicity and keeping up with the technology.
* TheSociopath: He resents his comatose daughter for making him pay for her life support, and casually states to Kazuto that he's marrying her off to some creep from his company, despite having enough money to waste on Ferraris.
* UpperClassTwit: It is made pretty clear that not only is he none-too-bright and has a rather limited attention span, but also that his money has allowed him to live a pretty sheltered lifestyle, leaving him blissfully unaware of how society at large actually functions. He treats setting up an arranged marriage for his daughter against payment and without her consent as if it is a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do. He also mistakes the brand on Sugou's briefcase for his name and speaks in an exaggerated Italian accent to his Ferrari guy.

[[folder:Shoji Yanai]]
[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_29_205456_9.png]]
[[caption-width-right:1000: Kyle! ''Kyle!'' What do we do?! ''I can already feel my grip slipping!'']]
->'''Voiced by:''' [=Grimmjack69=]\\\

A bumbling henchman working under Sugou who helps keep Asuna captive. Or he tries to, at least, but frequently finds himself the victim of Asuna's vicious rampages. He appears as a slug in-game thanks to his bullying of the modeler, Trisha.

* AdaptationalDumbass: Here, Shoji is a massive idiot who gets himself blacklisted and reported for sexual assault after he couldn't come up with a better alibi as to why he was releasing Asuna. To be fair, it doesn't make much sense that one of [[StrawMisogynist Sugou]]'s underlings would be against such a felony considering what their boss' [[SexSlave ultimate plan regarding Asuna]] is.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: {{Downplayed}}, as he's still a petty {{Jerkass}}, but he's not the [[NaughtyTentacles deranged sexual predator]] his original counterpart was.
* AdaptationalSympathy: In the source material, Asuna was an innocent victim of sexual harassment during her encounter with the slug. Here, however, ''the slug'' (Shoji) is the ([[AssholeVictim not so innocent]]) victim of blackmail and a self-inflicted FalseRapeAccusation. The event ends with Shoji crying of embarrassment as he loses his friend and possibly his job.
* AdaptationalWimp: Shoji's grip is much weaker than in canon, as he worries that Asuna might actually free herself if she struggles enough.
* AintTooProudToBeg: When Asuna goes loose for the nth time, Shoji begs for mercy. It doesn't work.
* AlasPoorVillain: As much of an asshole as he was, it's hard not to feel at least some pity for him when he breaks down crying as he "confesses" to having molested Asuna. The fact that he did so [[EvenEvilHasStandards to prevent his dog from being murdered]] adds sympathy points.
* AntiVillain: Downplayed, since he's implied to be a prison guard for Asuna as well as a technician, on top of being [[{{Jerkass}} more overtly malicious]] towards his co-workers compared to Kyle. However, he's too ineffectual to be taken seriously as a threat.
* AssholeVictim: This guy has a habit of asking for retribution from women. He works as one of Asuna's jailers and regularly steals the medicated yogurt belonging to his co-worker Trisha, who also happens to be ALO's model designer. As a result, he is the subject of Asuna's more sadistic impulses and Trisha has made his character a giant slug.
* BadLiar: He could learn a thing or two from [[ManipulativeBitch Asuna]] when it comes to covering his ass.
** In Episode 15, when Asuna asks Sugou if he's in that day:
--->'''Shoji:''' NO! Uh... I-I-I mean... ''([[LarynxDissonance falsetto voice]])'' Shoji's out sick today! ''(forced giggle)'' Uh...
** In Episode 17, he blames Trisha for him taking her yogurt, because "she doesn't label them", despite the fact that ''he never brings yogurt to work himself.'' Kyle is quick to point this out.
** The EmbarrassingCoverUp he comes up with to save his dog is as half-baked as can be, but Kyle [[NotSoAboveItAll believes it anyway]].
* BreakTheHaughty: Presumably the reason for Asuna targeting him. It works, and by Episode 17, Shoji is a NervousWreck who's left in tears after she's done with him.
* BullyingADragon: As Shoji soon finds out, antagonizing and harassing your avatar's modeler is a good way to get yourself screwed when you work inside an MMO.
* BullyingTheDisabled: His favorite pastime; Trisha and "her high horse" (read: wheelchair) is just too easy of a target.
* TheBully: Towards his co-worker Trisha.
* BumblingHenchmanDuo: Alongside Kyle, they're a pair of goofy slugs who have humorous dialogue with each other and frequently fail to keep Asuna imprisoned, suffering darkly hilarious misfortunes as a result. Shoji is the dumbest of the duo by far.
* ButtMonkey: Shoji spends most of his days at work having his avatar mercilessly mutilated and cannibalized by Asuna. As if that wasn't enough, said avatar then gets turned into a tentacled slug by a vengeful co-worker, and, after being forced into an EmbarrassingCoverUp, he gets reported for sexual assault by Kyle after getting his beloved dog threatened. He also gets uninvited to Kyle's son's christening.
* CanonCharacterAllAlong: Shoji, in his debut, seems to be a voice-only original character created as one of Sugou's employees. Episode 17 reveals him to be one of the giant slugs who molests Asuna in canon (Here, he merely pretends to have done so to explain why he is letting her go, because he doesn't want to say that Asuna threatened his dog). To add more to it, his full name is listed in the credits as Shoji ''Yanai'', which, if not directly states, then at least strongly implies that he is the character of the same name from the source material's ''Alicization'' Arc.
* TheChewToy: Literally for Asuna, who cannibalized him when making her escape, giving him a much harder time than his co-workers. Outside of that, everything that happens to him is one HumiliationConga after another.
* DespairEventHorizon: After Asuna is done with him, he's left a bubbling mess repeatedly calling himself "dirty boy".
* {{Determinator}}: Say what you want about Shoji, but the guy keeps attending his job even after being routinely targeted (and cannibalized) by Asuna and having his avatar turned into a giant slug. If Asuna's claims are any indication, the same can't be said for [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere a large majority of his fellow guards]].
* DidntThinkThisThrough: When he spots her at the admin console, Shoji grabs Asuna with his tentacles and lifts her into the air. He instantly regrets this decision when she predictably starts squirming to get free, as his tentacles aren't strong enough to fully restrain her.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Shoji is a self-centered asshole who keeps stealing a disabled coworker's medical yogurt "by accident" because it tastes better than his. But when faced with the threat of violence against his dog Biscuit, he's willing to let Asuna go.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's a bully and a terrible friend, but he's horrified by Asuna cannibalizing him and his co-workers and then threatening to do the same to his dog.
* EvilIsPetty: In addition to imprisoning Asuna and torturing numerous innocent people, Shoji messes with Trisha, a wheelchair-bound coworker with special dietary needs, usually by stealing her medicated yogurt. He also denies responsibility to an implausible degree.
* EyeScream: His eyes had apparently being pulled out (or eaten) by Asuna during their previous encounter, forcing his modeler to replace them with yellow ones. In Episode 17, Asuna later threatens him by asking him what color he wants for the next pair.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Shoji is clearly not very popular within the workplace. Other than his beef with Trisha and Kyle's brief abandonment of him, his boss Sugou prioritizes prepping for his wedding over his safety ''twice''. Once when Asuna escapes in Episode 15, and again when he's struggling with her in Episode 17. He's not getting any more popular anytime soon, especially after he's made to "confess" to molesting Asuna.
* GoryDiscretionShot: In Episode 15, Asuna does this to Shoji after breaking out of her CardboardPrison yet again. In Episode 17, it's implied [[EyeScream she ate his eyes]].
* ItsAllAboutMe: When informed that the yogurt he's been stealing was medicated, Shoji casually says that ''he knew'', and that's the reason he took it. It brings out the raspberries, you know?
* {{Jerkass}}: Shoji is the worst co-worker you can ever have. While stealing yogurt from a co-worker is already a dick move, intentionally targeting ''medicated yogurt'' for a woman with special dietary needs ''who is in a wheelchair'' is just plain awful. No wonder Asuna wanted his head so bad.
* KarmicTransformation: His and Kyle's avatars in ALO have been locked into the form of giant purple slug creatures, as Trisha's revenge on Shoji for stealing her medicated yogurt, making it his only way of interacting with the game.
* LarynxDissonance: Shoji briefly does a falsetto voice in Episode 15 to try to convince Asuna that he wasn't working that day. [[GoryDiscretionShot It doesn't work.]]
* LaserGuidedKarma: Shoji repeatedly [[BullyingTheDisabled antagonized his disabled coworker]] out of apparent prejudice, so it's only fair that his avatar gets turned into a massive purple slug with tentacles that are apparently very hard to utilize, effectively making him disabled as well.
* NamedByTheAdaptation: The depraved slug henchman in SAO proper didn't have an onscreen name.
* NervousWreck: Having been on the receiving end of several of Asuna's escape attempts/rampages, which apparently included not only her horrifically killing, but even ''eating'' parts of him (well, his avatar) several times, Shoji's nerves around her are frayed, to say the least, and it takes pretty much all of his willpower to simply not run screaming away from her. He also mentions that he has had to see a therapist in an attempt to cope with the traumas she has inflicted upon him.
* NeverMyFault: Shoji adamantly refuses to take responsibility for stealing Trisha's yogurt, which got him and his friend's avatars [[KarmicTransformation turned into slugs as a result]].
-->'''Shoji:''' Well, she doesn't ''label'' them, how am I supposed to know?\\
'''Kyle:''' Did you ''bring'' yogurt, Shoji?!\\
'''Shoji:''' I hardly see how that's relevant.
* OhCrap: When he realizes that Asuna knows the name of his dog.
* PetTheDog: Literal example. He cares very much for Biscuit, his dog, and gets himself humiliated and likely fired to ensure his safety.
* PunchClockVillain: Downplayed when compared to Kyle, but he still behaves like a (particularly mean) retail worker, and seems to have a normal life with his dog outside of ALO.
* TheyKilledKennyAgain: Since ALO is not a DeadlyGame, Shoji can just log back in once his avatar is torn apart or eaten, and since Asuna hates him the most out of all the guards, he gets this treatment a lot. Despite this, the process is still incredibly painful for him.
* ThoseTwoGuys: With Kyle in Episode 17.
* TooDumbToLive:
** Shoji couldn't come up with anything better than [[EmbarrassingCoverUp "I was just molesting her"]] when asked why he is letting Asuna go (really because she threatened to eat his dog), which gets Kyle to report him for sexual assault.
** On a related note, it ''really'' isn't a good idea to bully your avatar modeler if you're working inside an MMO.
* VillainsWantMercy: In Episode 15, after his LarynxDissonance act fails, Shoji resorts to screaming for his life as Asuna is tearing him apart or eating him.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: After believing he molested Asuna, Kyle cuts ties with him and reports him for sexual assault.
-->'''Kyle:''' I thought I knew you. Consider yourself uninvited to my son's christening.
* WithFriendsLikeThese: Shoji displays no remorse over getting Kyle turned into a slug, and even blames him for not having his back during his beef with Trisha.
* YankTheDogsChain: It's implied he was starting to improve on his mental health with the help of his psychologist, only for Asuna to kick that can down the drain and leave him traumatized for life (and with no friends).

[[folder:Kyle]]
[[quoteright:794:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_29_214717_9.png]]
[[caption-width-right:794:Alright, alright! Everything's fine! I have a plan!]]
->'''Voiced by:''' [=MyToasterIsMoist=]\\\

A technician for Sugou who has the misfortune of working with Shoji, and sharing [=MMOs=] with Asuna. He was turned into a slug by Trisha for being Shoji's friend, though he insists that he never wanted anything to do with their beef.

* AdaptationalIntelligence: The slug in canon wasn't exactly portrayed as an idiot, but here, he's the OnlySaneMan between him and Kyle, although this is partly due to Shoji getting [[AdaptationalDumbass the opposite treatment]].
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: While still a villain, he's far more sympathetic than their original incarnation. The slug in SAO proper was also against his friend harassing Asuna, [[PragmaticVillainy but only for pragmatic reasons]]. Here, [[EvenEvilHasStandards he's legit horrified]] and cuts ties with Shoji when he thinks he molested her.
* AdaptationalSympathy: You won't be feeling bad for [[HateSink his canon counterpart]] anytime soon, but you might feel bad for the HumiliationConga Kyle goes through in the abridged version. It helps that he's much nicer to boot.
* AdaptationalWimp: As the situation with Shoji was clearly not under control, Kyle comes across as more of a DirtyCoward in this version when he logs out to report Asuna's escape, while in canon, he was simply reporting her recapture.
* AffablyEvil: He defends Trisha from Shoji's bullying, even after she unfairly turns ''him'' into a slug as well, and would easily qualify as a NiceGuy if not for the fact that he works in a mind control factory as a brain technician, meaning he's aware of at least some of the horrors going on in ALO.
* AntiVillain: Kyle might be complacent in the ALO brainwashing process, but he's mostly a regular technician doing his job, [[EvenEvilHasStandards and seems to abide by his moral code]].
* AssholeVictim: He might be nicer than Shoji, but he's still complacent in Sugou's master plan, so one can't blame Asuna too much for maiming him alongside the other employees.
* BumblingHenchmanDuo: With Shoji, though he's much more competent than the former.
* ButtMonkey: Not only did he have to deal with Shoji's beef with his co-worker Trisha for quite a while, he also ended up being directly affected by it when she turns his avatar into a slug as well just for being friends with Shoji.
* {{Determinator}}: Like Shoji, he still shows up to work even after all the other guards had [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere quit over being cannibalized by Asuna]]. Downplayed, since we never see Asuna target ''him''.
* DirtyCoward: Despite coming across as the OnlySaneMan between him and Shoji, when they're confronted with a feral Asuna, Kyle's main plan is to bail to get Sugou for help, even if it means leaving his terrified colleague alone with the dangerous captive.
-->'''Shoji:''' Kyle, Kyle, what do we do?! ''I can already feel my grip slipping!''\\
'''Kyle:''' Alright, alright! Everything's fine! I have a plan!\\
'''Shoji:''' Okay, okay, l-lay it on me!\\
'''Kyle:''' I'm gonna go--\\
'''Shoji:''' ''I hate this plan!''
* DisappointedInYou: He tells Shoji "I thought I knew you" after he falsely confesses to molesting Asuna.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Kyle, who doesn't seem to have a problem with helping keep Asuna trapped inside ALO, uninvites Shoji from his son's christening after Shoji (falsely) confesses to have been attempting to molest Asuna.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Despite being part of Sugou's group, Kyle is disgusted by Shoji stealing yogurt from one of their coworkers. He's also disgusted at his self-imposed FalseRapeAccusation, vowing to report his behaviour. The latter might fall into MoralMyopia though, considering [[DudeShesLikeInAComa who they work for]].
* GuiltByAssociation: Trisha turned Kyle into a slug because he was friends with Shoji.
* KarmicTransformation: Subverted. Kyle expresses his annoyance at having been subjected to this punishment by Trisha alongside Shoji, [[GuiltByAssociationGag noticing that it seems to have been inflicted upon him simply for being on friendly terms with Shoji]], especially seeing how he expressively stated that he didn't want any part in Trisha and Shoji's beef.
* NamedByTheAdaptation: Like Shoji, his canon counterpart didn't have a name.
* NervousWreck: Not as much as Shoji, but still loses his composure when around Asuna, down to abandoning Shoji in a whim.
* NoRespectGuy: Nobody seems to acknowledge his efforts to avoid drama. Trisha gave him the same punishment she gave Shoji, and Sugou refused to listen to his concerns regarding Asuna because he was planning out the wedding.
* OnlySaneMan: The only onscreen RECT Progress employee with anything resembling a moral compass.
* PetTheDog:
** Even after Trisha turns him into a slug for being friends with Shoji, Kyle still calls out the latter for bullying her, showing sympathy for her situation.
** However frustrated he might be with Shoji, he still comes back to help him out after Sugou proves to be of no help.
* PunchClockVillain: While he's well aware of the horrors going on in ALO, he treats the whole situation as if it were a regular retail job, and doesn't seem to harbor any ill intent towards the test subjects they're meant to keep stable (save for [[TheDreaded Asuna]]).
* ThoseTwoGuys: With Shoji, although Kyle might be putting a few feet between himself and him after the latter falsely confesses to molesting Asuna.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Kyle instantly cuts ties with Shoji [[EvenEvilHasStandards after believing he molested Asuna]].
-->'''Kyle:''' I thought I knew you. Consider yourself uninvited to my son's christening.
* WithFriendsLikeThese: After having a deal with Shoji's bullshit for too long, Kyle readily abandons him to deal with a bloodthirsty Asuna while he logs out to warn the boss, though it's {{Downplayed}} since [[PetTheDog he]] ''[[PetTheDog does]]'' [[PetTheDog come back for him shortly afterwards.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Well, What the Hell AntiVillain, but he calls out Shoji for bullying his disabled co-worker Trisha.

[[folder:Trisha]]
The model designer of ''[=ALfheim Online=]''. She turned Shoji and Kyle's in-game models into slugs because Shoji keeps picking on her and stealing her medicated yogurt.

* AntiVillain: From what we hear of her, she seems like your average model designer, even if the avatars she models are used to facilitate brainwashing and sexual assault.
* CanonForeigner: While there was most likely an avatar modeler for ALO in the original anime, there's no evidence of them being disabled. The name Trisha is also never said in SAO proper.
* TheDogBitesBack: She designs Shoji and Kyle's avatars as ugly giant slugs and locks them in said avatars as revenge for Shoji constantly stealing her dietary yogurt and making fun of her for being disabled.
* EvilCripple: {{Downplayed}}. She's stated to be bound to a wheelchair, and she's an avatar modeler in a game that traps former SAO players against their will to use as test subjects. However, she is never seen and seems to be a PunchClockVillain at most.
* EvilIsPetty: She turned her co-worker Kyle into a slug for being friends with her bully, even though he had apparently defended her against him.
* TheGhost: She's only mentioned in episode 17 by Shoji and Kyle, the former complaining about her while the latter refuting that it was all his fault that they ended up as slugs.
* IllGirl: She is wheelchair bound and has special dietary needs that require her to eat medicated yogurt.
* MisplacedRetribution: Kyle had apparently made it clear that he wanted no part in his friend's beef with her. This didn't stop her from applying GuiltByAssociation and turning his avatar into a slug alongside Shoji's.
* LostFoodGrievance: Turned Shoji and Kyle into slugs because Shoji keeps stealing her yogurt and Kyle is Shoji's friend. To make matters worse, the yogurt was medicated due to her special dietary needs.
* PayEvilUntoEvil: Prior to Episode 16, she modeled the avatar of her bully Shoji into a slug after he stole her medicated yogurt for himself.
* PunchClockVillain: While we never see her, she seems to be more invested in messing with her co-worker Shoji than in Sugou's plan.

[[folder:Sean]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sean_63.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:I'm sorry Ma'am, I'm gonna need to transfer your call... please hold]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Chase "Coffinjockey" Corbin\\\

The Technical support representative of ''[=ALfheim Online=]''. Asuna briefly and mistakenly calls him while trying to log herself out.

* AffablyEvil: He's quite apathetic, but he tries to be cordial to Asuna as a tech support representative. He even apologizes to her for not being able to help her when Sugou fires him.
* AloofAlly: Despite working for a monstrous sexual offender who essentially lobotomizes players, he seems pretty casual when processing Asuna's request to free all their hostages. This gets him fired pretty quickly.
* AntiVillain: He operates and behaves like your average Technical support representative, even if it was all in aid of Sugou's master plan. He doesn't even seem to be all that invested in the brainwashing process regardless.
* CanonForeigner: Since Asuna never fat-fingered her way into Tech Support in SAO proper, there was never any evidence of Sean existing.
* CatGirl: His profile picture is of a white-haired cat girl.
* DisposableIntern: Sugou fires him upon asking if he can let the captives and Asuna out.
* FriendlyEnemy: Despite Asuna being one of his hostages, he acts rather casual with her, and actually processes her request to free the other test subjects. On her side, he's the only RECT Employee whom she treats cordially (while she would've otherwise threatened him or his loved ones if he weren't to release her).
* LackOfEmpathy: If his casual demeanor when talking about freeing or retaining their test subjects is any indication. He also doesn't process Asuna's desperation when she asks him for help and simply gets his co-workers to detain her.
* NothingPersonal: He only antagonizes Asuna due to his job being on the line, and apologies to her before forcing Shoji and Kyle to deal with her.
* {{Otaku}}: Implied by his anime catgirl profile.
* PunchClockVillain: He couldn't care less about what happens to the ALO test subjects: Log them out, keep them trapped... It's all just part of his job as a Tech support representative.
* TheSlacker: Not wanting to deal with Asuna escaping, or Sugou's wrath, he passes the responsibility of dealing with her to Shoji and Kyle.
* SoulCrushingDeskJob: Given how monotone his voice is when replying to Asuna, it seems that he isn't enjoying his job as the representative of tech support.
* VocalDissonance: His voice has a perpetually bored and apathetic tone coming from the profile picture of a cute CatGirl.

!''[=ALO=]'' Player Base

[[folder: General]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/29_2.png]][[caption-width-right:1000:Pictured: Some unfortunate ALO players who ventured outside of a safe zone.]]

The players of ''[=ALfheim=] Online'', who have taken what is ostensibly a children's game and made it their own.

* AloofAlly: Most of the players don't care about Sakuya' and Eugene's Race War, but play along anyway out of fear of being griefed like the Spriggans.
* TheBeastmaster: Salamanders have made their virtual pets extremely powerful due to their strong emotional connection to them. Even Becky/Eugene mourns when she hears that a bat named Squeaker was killed.
* FantasticRacism: With the nature of the [[TheRoleplayer roleplaying]] culture surrounding the game and the fact that the characters can be nine different races, not to mention the campaign that kickstarted the game's popularity being titled "Race War", it was really only a natural result. While it was initially meant to be a friendly competition between the races to see who could get to the top of the World Tree first, with the titualar "race" referring to this competition, it quickly spiralled out of control after two of the leaders broke up. Even when out-of-character, the Salamanders look down on Leafa for being a Sylph and call Kirito a "filthy Spriggan." The Sylphs aren't much better, so that Recon offers to kill Kirito for Leafa, while some other players capture a [[CatFolk Cait Sith]] and treat him like a pet.
* {{GIRL}}: Like in SAO, at least one male player plays as a girl to score with other players.
* GratuitousJapanese: The Cait Sith all speak with Japanese phrases such as "desu" and "sugoi" mixed into their sentences. Their leader is "Princess Hime Kuroneko Desu-Chan of the Nyan-Nyan Tribe," which is half [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant]] and half Japanese cat puns.
* HeroWorshipper: It turns out that all the Spriggan players were an alliance of Kirito fans, who based their name and appearance on him. It works as an explanation for both why Kirito had difficulty in finding a variation of his alias that wasn't taken, and why Kirito hasn't been able to find any other Spriggan Players due to the fact that the Spriggan's leader had tried to mediate peace on the server between Brian and Becky's breakup in order to bring fun back to ALO again: [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere resulting in the Spriggans being constantly griefed to the point where they just quit the game altogether.]] Not helping matters is that when Kirito actually arrived into the game, [[YourCostumeNeedsWork he is constantly mistaken to be one of his own fanboys rather than the genuine article]].
* ImAHumanitarian: Episode 16 implies that the other players have been eating the Cait Sith.
* LostInCharacter: A frequent problem for the excess of roleplayers in the community, going from merely acting FantasticRacism to actually living it, and Dylan the Salamander freaking out his friend when he gets lost in imagining the "Prophecy" role he was talking about.
* MisaimedFandom: InUniverse examples.
** The races are supposed to complement each other, and work together against educational [=NPCs=] like The World Tree. High-level players Brian and Becky ruin this gimmick for everyone after breaking up, rallying all their friends against each other as part of their petty squabble and hijacking the community's "Race War" that sucks in every new player.
** Terry The Tweaker Tarantula was created by the devs to be a strawman for drug dealers. However, since the LSD samples he hands out have no negative drawbacks, he became quite popular within the fandom, causing a revolt when he's changed into a CuddleBug.
* NightmareFetishist: A {{GIRL}} tries to flirt with another player by saying he's [[ItMakesAsMuchSenseInContext "definitely allergic to the latex"]]. The other player's smile implies ''this worked on them''.
* PeripheryDemographic: InUniverse. While ALO seems marketed to children ("aerial combat supremacy" notwithstanding), most players are older gamers taking advantage of its underpopulated server as a stage for roleplaying or were attracted to the VRMMO's flight mechanics.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: InUniverse. Players were ''not'' happy with the game's update in Episode 17, as it removed most of the benefits of the in-game drug items. Their drug-induced revolt afterwards implies they didn't quite get the intended DrugsAreBad aesop.
* ThePurge: Every Spriggan player ended up getting griefed into quitting the server, merely because their leader, Kirito Prime (aka Ted), [[NeutralityBacklash refused to pick a side in the very toxic break-up between Brian/Sakuya and Becky/Eugene]] and instead [[MediationBackfire attempted to initiate peace talks]] in an attempt [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished to keep the personal drama surrounding the whole mess from tearing the server apart]].
* TheRoleplayer: According to Leafa, a catalyst behind the game suddenly becoming so big was a roleplaying group finding the game and realizing the wide variety of races in the game made it perfect for a campaign they came up with. As a result, the entire culture of the game ended up revolving around roleplaying, and people can get very, ''very'' intense about it.
* SeriousBusiness: Leafa admits that she tries to stay in character for as long as possible while online, just because of how seriously most people take it.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: The founders of the RP server (the leaders and/or second-in-commands of the races) used to be real-life friends... however, because of a bad break-up between two of them, they dragged the entire server into it, [[WithUsOrAgainstUs forcing everyone to pick a side of their relationship]]. When Ted/Kirito Prime tried to deescalate things, [[MediationBackfire he and the Spriggans were griefed into leaving the server]], and things just got worse.

!!Sylphs

[[folder:Shinichi Nagata / Recon]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/abridgednagata.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350: ''"So, where are you guys off to? Going on a que... ''(ahem)''\\
You guys going on a mission?''"]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Spencer "[=BuddyVA=]" Downs\\\

A Sylph player who quests with Leafa in ''[=ALfheim=] Online'', and [[FriendsWithBenefits "quests"]] with Suguha in real life. He is usually the target of bullying by Leafa and Prince Cazmer, but tries to help out his princess nonetheless.

* AdaptationalAchillesHeel: His malfunctioning [=NerveGear=]. It occasionally pulses the fear center of his brain, triggering several hallucinations and occasionally ''paralyzing'' him. It becomes quite the hindrance during his covert mission in Episode 16.
* AdaptationalBadass: During his espionage mission, the original Recon blew his cover due to his own lack of stealth. Here, he kept himself hidden for far longer and only got discovered because his [=NerveGear=] misfired, something he had no control over.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: In the original series, Recon was extremely clingy with Leafa, but out of sincere, if immature love. Here, he's extremely nice, to the point where even [[{{Jerkass}} Kirito]] doesn't even try to mock or belittle him in any way. His more creepy tendencies are also completely phased out, while his naivety is increased.
* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: The [[LovesMyAlterEgo ship tease between Leafa and Kirito in the original series]] was moved to Recon and Leafa instead in the Abridged version.
* AffectionateNickname: "Nutter Butter". While [[DoubleEntendre it can be taken the wrong way]], it's the best you can get from [[{{Tsundere}} Suguha]].
* ApologizesALot: Mostly out of fear that someone will hit him if he doesn't retract.
* BadBadActing: When confronted with Kirito, his "threat" to the Spriggan is so wooden you could make household furniture out of it.
* BlatantLies: In Episode 16, if the shot of his corpse is any indication, he did ''not'', in fact, "fight bravely".
* BodyguardCrush: He's Leafa's guardian (or "fuck-boy"), and he has a crush on her that she secretly reciprocates.
* ButtMonkey: Poor guy gets treated like crap by Leafa, and also got the vice treatment by Cazmer once. His AdaptationalAchillesHeel doesn't help matters ''at all''.
* CalmingTea: He often deals with his panic attacks by pouring himself some tea.
* TheConfidant: The only person whom Suguha keeps in touch with both in real life and in ''[=ALfheim=]'', and as a result the only one who knows of her identity as Princess Leafa. However, he's not a shining example as he keeps accidentally addressing her by her screen name in real life when under pressure, much to her anger.
* CovertPervert: He agreed to a "sewer handy" from [[{{Tsundere}} Leafa]] once. [[BlatantLies "It was for a quest"]] not whistanding.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Averted. Despite his feelings for Suguha/Leafa, he has no issue with her hanging out with Kirito at all. Episode 15 shows he's more annoyed at being ditched by her causing her storyline fiance to torture him and he trusts Kirito to a degree that confuses him.
* TheCutie: A sweet and kind-hearted boy with an adorable crush on his princess.
* DoggedNiceGuy: He does whatever Suguha/Leafa tells him to because he's attracted to her. The attraction doesn't seem to be one-sided either; despite Suguha hitting him with the butt of her kendo stick when Shinichi asks her on an actual date in Episode 15, she also tells him to meet her in the janitor's closet for some implied sex. Suguha/Leafa also mentions that she "sucked him off one time", but insisted that it was for a quest. Finally, Yui notes that ''both'' of their heart rates [[MySensorsIndicateYouWanttoTapThat increased by 22% when near each other]]. Further complicating things is that Suguha is a MasterOfTheMixedMessage, abusing Shinichi/Recon one minute, then giving him sexual favors the next. As such, Shinichi/Recon is constantly nervous around Suguha, in part because he's attracted to her and in part because it's impossible to know where he stands with her.
* DumbIsGood: He's not ''dumb'', just very naive, but he truly is a pure and selfless boy.
* EmbarrassingNickname: His number is saved as "Nutter Butter" in Suguha's phone. [[AffectionateNickname Interpret it as]] [[DoubleEntendre you will]].
* ExtremeDoormat: As befitting for a princess' "fuckboy", he stands by Leafa/Suguha despite how horribly she treats him.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Leafa ''does'' like him, but doesn't want to show it. Kirito says that he is "too pure for this world," but that's the extent of it. Cazmer certainly doesn't have a problem torturing or even killing him in-game if he becomes too much of a nuisance.
* FriendsWithBenefits: Light on the "friends," and more emphasis on the "benefits."
-->'''Suguha:''' You and I are barely friends! ''Recon'' is Princess Leafa's ''fuckboy.'' Got it? Don't confuse the game with real life, you perv! [[HypocriticalHumor Now meet me in the supply closet after practice,]] I've got another ''quest'' for you.
* {{Foil}}: He's to Leafa what [[MoralityPet Sachi]] was to Kirito.
** They're both cute and ineffectual players with an AdaptationalAchillesHeel (bad internet and a faulty [=NerveGear=] respectively) who represent exactly what Kirito and Leafa respectively hate the most (Sachi is TheMillstone of her guild due to her lag, while Recon [[InTouchWithHisFeminineSide is an avid enjoyer of fairy games.]]) but who somehow managed to insert themselves in the SociopathicHero's lives and become their personal MoralityPet. The difference between them can be traced down to their personalities; Sachi was a pessimistic loner with self-esteem issues who hates being in SAO, while Recon is The TokenWholesome teammate who loves playing ALO, sometimes even mistaking it for real life.
** They were both [[ExtremeDoormat very submissive]] to their leaders, but Sachi was very perceptive and didn't hesitate [[PrecisionFStrike to call Kirito an asshole]] when he became too unbearable. Recon, on the other hand, is too scared of Suguha to call her out on her abuse and is a borderline SycophanticServant.
** When facing death, Sachi [[GoOutWithASmile simply smiled]], happy to be finally relieved of [[AndIMustScream her horrible life situation]]. Recon, on the other hand, [[FaceDeathWithDespair tried to run off screaming]] after being caught before getting shot in the ass by the salamanders, [[DeathIsCheap despite death not being permanent in ALO]].
* GagPenis: {{Implied}}. When Kirito and Yui are teasing Leafa about her apparent feelings for Recon and the latter points out their increase in heart rates when they interacted as evidence, she retorts that maybe she's scared of him because he has a "[[AccidentalInnuendo big knife]]", causing the two to crack up. It should be noted though that she doesn't deny their assumption upon realizing how ThatCameOutWrong, instead telling them to shut up before flying ahead with a LuminescentBlush.
* GoshDangItToHeck: He doesn't try to swear once (barring a small "frak" during his introduction), not even outside ALO. He also refers to Leafa's blowjob as a "sewer handy".
* GroinAttack: "He used the vice, Kirigaya. I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to Music/{{Cascada}} again."
* HeroWorshipper: Episode 15 shows that Shinichi would like to meet Kirito due to his fame as the Hero of Aincrad.
* HiddenDepths: Suguha is rather impressed with his stealthiness as a spy, managing to capture Cazmer's entire conversation without blowing his cover despite being a more cowardly player. He only gets caught after his broken [=NerveGear=] misfires and shocks him.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter:
** He's easily scammed by [[AbusiveParents the parents]] of a deceased SAO player who sold their damaged [=NerveGear=] for $100 more than the new ones were worth. When informed of this, he tries to justify their actions by saying that they were probably in mourning and didn't have time to process the price.
** {{Subverted}} in later episodes, where he's shown to be more perceptive than Leafa herself, as he quickly picks up on the fact that Leafa was trying to shoo him away by sending him to spy on Cazmer, and also rationalizes the latter's behavior as him being mad that Leafa wasn't playing along with the wedding storyline instead of him being up to any wrongdoing ([[AccidentalTruth even though it later turned out he actually was]]).
* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Or as Kirito puts it:
-->'''Kirito:''' You are too pure for [[CrapsackWorld this world]].
* {{Invisibility}}: Uses a cloak of invisibility to spy on Cazmer and the salamanders. Unfortunately, this doesn't help you much when your broken [=NerveGear=] triggers a loud shriek from you.
* MoralityPet: held in high regard by both [[{{Jerkass}} Kirito]] and [[AristocratsAreEvil Leafa]], while definitely being the type of person they would both relentlessly emotionally terrorize under normal circumstances.
* NervousWreck: After learning of Cazmer's "betrayal", he completely loses it and spends hours frantically trying to reach Suguha. He has to pour himself some tea to calm down.
* NiceGuy: The most wholesome [=ALfheim=] player ''by far'', and arguably the nicest character of ''the entire series'' as well, owing to being of the few to not receive the AdaptationalJerkass treatment, being ''even nicer'' than his original counterpart. Despite the fact that his [=NerveGear=] was bought second-hand for $100 more than a new one, and that he had to clean the previous user's brain out of it, he doesn't once criticize the sellers' heartlessness, but instead [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter chooses to assume it was due to grief.]] Additionally, upon [[AristocratsAreEvil Leafa]] describing a certain act she did with him, ostensibly in pursuit of a quest, Kirito goes so far as to call him "too precious for this world."
* OnlyFriend: With hints of ShipTease thrown in for good measure. He's the only person of [=ALfhem=] that Suguha actually gives a shit about, and he's also presumably the only person nice enough to stand her IRL as well.
* ThePollyanna: He takes his ButtMonkey status in stride, and seems to be the only ALO player whose enjoyment of the game hasn't been ruined by Sakuya and Eugene's race war.
* SatelliteLoveInterest: He doesn't have many interactions with anyone outside of his princess.
* TheScapegoat: Cazmer blames him for the wedding storytelling falling apart, [[GroinAttack and uses the vice on him]].
* ShipTease: It's suggested multiple times that he and Leafa are attracted to each other but Leafa refuses to act on her side of it because [[ClosetGeek she doesn't want to be outed for enjoying the fantasy genre]].
* ShotInTheAss: By the salamanders after blowing his cover. ''Three times''.
* ShrinkingViolet: In Episode 15, when asking Suguha out on a date, he acts shy and withdrawn.
* SpearCounterpart: To Silica. They're the smallest members of the main cast but have the biggest heart. They're also ThePollyanna to their companion's antics, whom they have crushes on (although Silica got over Kirito during Episode 4) and are some of the few characters to take their {{Jerkass}} demeanor in stride. While Kirito never hit Silica like Suguha did Nagata, they both had their traumatic experiences met with a similar LackOfEmpathy (Kirito shrugged off Silica's grievances with her deceased virtual pet, while Suguha couldn't care less about Recon's torture at the hands of Cazmer).
* SupernaturalFearInducer: On the receiving end of this due to a faulty [=NerveGear=], which occasionally "pulses the fear center of his brain" and sends him into shrieking fits where he hallucinates [[Manga/AssassinationClassroom tentacle monsters in classrooms]].
* SuperGullible: See HorribleJudgeOfCharacter above.
* ThrowTheDogABone: Leafa apparently baked him cupcakes once, not to mention her [[UnusualEuphemism "sewer handy"]].
* TinyGuyHugeGirl: Despite being around the same age, Leafa dwarves him.
* TokenGoodTeammate: He's the only Sylph player who isn't a complete {{Jerkass}}. Barring an awkward introduction, he also appears unaffected by his people's FantasticRacism for the Spriggans and warms up to Kirito rather quickly.
* UndignifiedDeath: After awkwardly blowing his cover, he gets shot in the ass by the salamanders, with mayo being thrown in for good measure. Luckily, DeathIsCheap.
-->'''Recon:''' I just need you to know... [[BlatantLies I fought bravely.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: He caters to Suguha/Leafa's every whim, and is extremely protective of her, to the point of calling her 96 times to warn her about Cazmer's assassination attempt.
* WrongNameOutburst: A variation. He accidentally calls Suguha by her ALO name while in real life, much to her embarrassment.

[[folder:Brian / Queen Sakuya]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_29_210335.png]]
[[caption-width-right:1000:Oooh, look at me! I idolize a time period where I'd have absolutely no rights or indoor plumbing! I'd probably make more sensible decisions if my make-up weren't just chock full of lead!]]

->'''Voiced by:''' Chase "Coffinjokey" Corbin\\\

A lifeguard in real life, in ALO Brian is the queen of the Sylphs, one of the most powerful factions in ALO, and one of the greatest combatant in the Race War. It later turns out that the reason he is a "she" in-game is because he hacked the account of his ArchEnemy and bitter ex, (and she returned the favor) and had roped half of the entire server into his fight. Kirito comes to a peace talk Sakuya is holding in Episode 16 in an attempt to gain his help in rescuing Asuna, only to get roped into fighting Eugene.

* AdaptationalDumbass: The original Sakuya was known as a very good strategist. Brian here sends one Sylph player to defeat an entire Salamander army and when she's killed, [[InsaneTrollLogic Brian thinks the enemy has been sufficiently intimidated]].
* AdaptationalVillainy: With Cazmer's AdaptationalHeroism comes Sakuya's instance of this trope. Her canon self was a ReasonableAuthorityFigure whose worst crime is attempting to seduce Kirito into joining her guild. Here, Brian is a [=Manchild=] who took his messy break-up out on an RP server, resulting in [[FantasticRacism the Race War that's the cornerstone of their "lore"]], and [[MediationBackfire any attempts to try to deescalate the situation results in backlash for the mediator]], such as ThePurge of the Spriggans and Cazmer's banishment.
* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul:
** There's no indication that Sakuya and Eugene had any personal connections in canon, while in the abridged series, they're bitter exes IRL. He's also not falling in love with Kirito anytime soon.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: For Denise, at least, who joins him in favor of [[ClashingCousins her cousin]].
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Queen Sakuya is responsible for the mass "extermination" (read: banning) of the Spriggan race, which are treated in-game as SpaceJews. Yeah...
* BadBoss: As if starting the Race War wasn't enough, he sends a fellow Sylph to a suicide mission against the Salamanders, casually talks about eating Princess Hime, and banishes Cazmer and all Spriggans from the servers when it's revealed he tried to stop the Race War.
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Not as pronounced as Becky, but Brian vomited on their neighbour's pet dog while inebriated at least one "out of solidarity".
* ControlFreak: He's accused of being this by Becky. His banishment of both the Spriggans and Cazmer for [[WithUsOrAgainstUs trying to pick a middle ground in the conflict]] proves her right.
* DirtyCoward: Is never shown fighting himself, instead forcing his allies to fight for him.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** He's disgusted with Becky for puking on the neighbor's dog more than once and forcing ''him'' to apologize on her behalf. Somewhat muddied when she revealed that he had also vomited on said dog before.
** BadBoss as he is, he's shocked when Leafa (falsely) tells him that Cazmer had tortured her into giving out information on the peace meeting, calling it "low, even for him".
* EvilIsPetty: Like Becky, he forces his friends to pick a side in his proxy war against Becky, and is responsible for the Spriggan race not wanting to play the game anymore. Later in Episode 16, he banishes Prince Cazmer for attempting to get them back together.
* FantasticRacism: Alongside Becky, he takes Cazmer's place as the main perpetrator of violence against both the Spriggans and the Cait Sith. Brian cranks it to its logical extreme, as it's later revealed he "genocided" the Spriggans after their leader tried to arrange a BreakUpMakeUpScenario between him and Becky.
* FauxHorrific: Sakuya banishes Cazmer from the game for [[SarcasmMode the horrific crime]] of trying to get him to make peace with Becky. The exchange has to be seen to be believed.
--> '''Cazmer:''' I JUST WANTED PEACE BETWEEN THE RACES!\\
'''Sakuya:''' Your ''mad dreams'' end here, ''Travis''. You're banished!
* GenderFlip: PlayedWith. Sakuya here is very blatantly a man playing a character of the opposite sex, while in canon, her player is assumedly the same gender as her avatar. Turns out he did originally belong to an avatar of the same gender, but him and Becky hacked each others' accounts after a nasty breakup and stole the other's avatar, leaving it vague who's each other's canon equivalent is.
* HypocriticalHumor: Brian uses Becky's incident of vomiting on their neighbour's dog as an example of why she's a bad girlfriend, only to go on the defensive when she reveals he had previously puked on it as well.
* InsaneTrollLogic: Many times throughout a single episode. The worst offender being referring to Cazmer's wish to end the Race War as a "mad dream".
* ItsAllAboutMe: Brian/Sakuya would rather keep fighting with Becky than sit down and talk, and isn't afraid to punish and cut ties with his concerned friends who don't want to take sides. He rallies his friends against Becky over a petty feud, and doesn't think twice in cutting ties or punishing all those who try to mediate or refuse to take sides.
* LiteralMinded: During the fight with Eugene.
--> '''Sakuya:''' Ew, ''no!'' The Undine have thrown in with the Spriggans?! I always knew there was something ''off'' about them! Breathe air ''or'' water, pick a side!\\
'''Leafa:''' Mom, please, read the room.\\
'''Sakuya:''' But we're outside, dear.
* IAmAHumanitarian: Sakuya refers to the Cait Sith as "a powerful and succulent ally", and Eugene outright states that she expects them to straight up eating each other.
* {{Jerkass}}: Alongside Becky, both are equally repulsive and childish assholes who purposefully alienate their friends by creating a proxy war after a messy breakup.
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Sakuya initially seems to be willing to talk things out with Eugene as she uses a spell to revive him after his CurbStompBattle with Kirito, only for the two of them to start fighting like usual. Things only get worse when it's revealed he exterminated the Spriggans after their leader suggested patching things up between them, and then again when he does it to Travis/Cazmer for the same reason.
* KimonoFanservice: He wears a revealing Kimono to taunt Becky (the original Sakuya).
* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Brian is a wannabe veteran who believes his job as a ''lifeguard'' is akin to working the Navy.
* NeverMyFault: Sakuya reveals that the peace treaty between the Sylphs and the Cait Sith was only an excuse to get them to admit that Becky was solely to blame for their fight and subsequent breakup, showing his unwillingness to compromise.
* PetTheDog: Brian once apologized to their neighbor on Becky's behalf after she vomited on their dog. Somewhat undermined by the revelation that he had once puked on said dog himself.
* SlapSlapKiss: How his relationship with Becky apparently used to work, if their multiple [[NoodleIncident Noodle Incidents]] are of any indication.
* TheStoic: When in-character as Sakuya, Brian rarely emotes.
* ToiletSeatDivorce: The reason for his breakup and endless fighting afterwards with Becky is because he wanted to see the Lakers game while she decided she would rather go to the opera:
--> '''Sakuya:''' Please. This is simply a non-aggression pact stating that Eugene knew exactly what he was doing when he bought those opera tickets, even though Sakuya had been talking about attending the Lakers game that night for ''actual months'', [[SuddenlyShouting BECAUSE EUGENE NEVER LISTENS UNLESS IT'S ABOUT HER THINGS]]!
* WithUsOrAgainstUs:
** This seems to be his mentality, as [[MediationBackfire Ted and the Spriggans]] soon learn. Cazmer learns it the hard way too.
** This seems to apply to other factions outside of his own, as he insults the Spriggans for supposedly throwing in with the Undeen.
--> '''Sakuya:''' Breathe air ''or'' water, pick a side!
* WithFriendsLikeThese: Poor Denise, Jonathan, Ted and especially Travis are forced to have their enjoyment of the game sapped [[WithUsOrAgainstUs and take sides in his Race War with Eugene]] just to spend a little time with him. Ted and Travis even got banned from the game after trying to take action against them.

[[folder:Travis / Prince Cazmer]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/25_96.png]][[caption-width-right:1000:I JUST WANTED PEACE BETWEEN THE RACES!]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Jesse Inocalla\\\

The prince of the Sylphs who is engaged to Princess Leafa. He behaves as an arrogant, temperamental noble who turns out to be scheming against his queen. He is actually a real-life friend of Brian and Becky who wants them to stop polluting the role-play with their bitter post-breakup fighting.

* AdaptationalHeroism: Prince Cazmer, in canon, is an underhanded spy for the Salamanders. Here, he's a real-life friend of Brian (Queen Sakuya's CrossPlayer) who is seriously upset with how his breakup with Becky (Eugene's player) has caused the roleplaying scene to devolve into a vaguely racist one-upsmanship game that chased all the Spriggan players out because of their anger at their Lord, Kirito Prime (aka Ted), trying to deescalate things, and his scheme was trying to force them to talk about their issues.
* AdaptationNameChange: From Sigurd to Cazmer.
* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Aside from the AdaptationalHeroism, Cazmer also proves to be a bit more personable. His earlier rude encounter with Kirito and Leafa, which mirrors his canon self's one, was largely the result of roleplaying and to avoid potentially exposing his plot to get Brain and Becky talking, and when exposed he apologises to Kirito for his previous behaviour before getting banished. Also, whereas his canon self was a horrible FantasticRacist, here he has a feeling of kinship with the now-persecuted Spriggans due to his friendship with their leader, Ted.
* AdaptationalSympathy: He is "banished" from ALO by Sakuya in both in the source material and the abridged version, but given that in the latter he was the TokenGoodTeammate of the sylph royal members, the impact is starkly different.
* AlasPoorVillain: Despite being on the receiving end of most of his harsher actions, [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Kirito can't bring himself to look at him in the eye]] as he goes on his MotiveRant and shows himself to be a WellIntentionedExtremist at worst. Thus, it's not cathartic at all when he gets banished by Sakuya.
-->'''Kirito:''' I don't feel good about anything that just happened.
* AllForNothing: All his "wheeling and dealing" does ''not'' pay off in the end. The Race War still continues and he's banished from ALO like the Spriggans.
* BigNo: When Sakuya banishes him from ALO.
* BreakupMakeupScenario: Tries to orchestrate one between Brian and Becky, but his plan is exposed by Recon [[NiceJobBreakingItHero and ruined by Kirito and Leafa.]]
* FauxHorrific: His attempt to achieve peace between the races is called a "mad dream" by Sakuya, who then banishes him for it.
* GoodAllAlong: It turns out he was secretly puppeteering to get his friends to reconcile and end the Race War.
* GreenAndMean: Subverted. He has green hair and is presented as an antagonistic force, but he turns out to be the attempted peacemaker between the races.
* HeroAntagonist: He's behind the Salamanders' attack that hinders the protagonists' progress, and is presented in an antagonistic light during his introductory scenes. In Episode 16, however, it's revealed he was actually just trying to make peace between the races to make ALO fun again for everyone.
* JerkassFacade: He's introduced as an irritable jerk who forces others to cater to his storylines and is racist to Spriggans, which quickly earns him the distrust of Leafa and Kirito. Despite this, both of these attitudes are just roleplay, and he's keen on maintaining the ruse until he can get Brian and Becky to talk. Before being banished, he also apologizes to Kirito for insulting him.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: As Prince Cazmer, Travis is something of a ControlFreak, as he is very insistent that his in-game engagement with Leafa follows through. He's also abrasive and has a terrible temper, [[BadBoss especially against his minions.]] However, this is all his persona. In reality, Travis is deeply upset about how Brian and Becky have turned the roleplay community toxic and desperately wants them to bury the hatchet, and believes his sabotage of the Sylphs' war will cease hostilities.
* KickTheDog: Yes, he had to maintain the ruse, but did he really have to use [[GroinAttack the vice]] against [[TheCutie Recon]] for not being able to convince Leafa to attend her wedding?
* LaserGuidedKarma: In a tragic sense, it's oddly fitting that his plan gets exposed by [[ButtMonkey Recon]], arguably the minion he abused the most while trying to maintain his ruse.
* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Prince Cazmer acts as a physically abusive BadBoss, but his player, Travis, while a bit manipulative, is honestly worried about Sakuya/Brian and his scheme is to make the RP less toxic. He even [[PetTheDog attempts to apologize to Kirito for the in-character treatment]] seconds before he's banned.
* MyGreatestFailure: Before getting banished, he tearfully apologizes to Kirito for being rude to him, knowing how much FantasticRacism he and the other Spriggans must be suffering at the hands of his other friends.
-->I only regret that I didn't stand with my Spriggan brothers when they needed me most! You! Last of the Kiritos! I'm so sorry for the way I treated you! I had to maintain the ruse! It was the only way! I just wanted peace between the races!
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: When Cazmer/Travis later attempts to mediate the fighting between Brian and Becky, he's banished from his race while being treated as the bad guy.
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: Brian/Sakuya (and only him) sees his banishment as this.
* ShootTheShaggyDog: He ended up meeting the same fate as his friend Ted, banned from playing ALO ever again by Brian.
* TokenGoodTeammate: The only other royal Sylphs shown in the series are Queen Sakuya (who kickstarted the war alongside his ex) and Princess Leafa (who happily partook in it), and of the three, Cazmer is the only one who wanted to put an end to the race war.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: He's very manipulative, willing to "kill" Recon in-game for interfering with his plans, and is very committed to maintaining his BadBoss persona, but he genuinely has everyone's best interests at heart, and believes the game will be fun to play again for everyone once his schemes pay off.
-->Well, Trav, you finally did it. All your wheeling and dealing has finally paid off. Sure, I wish it hadn't come to such drastic measures, but they'll come to see the necessity of it in time.

!!Salamanders

[[folder:Becky / King Eugene]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_29_205936.png]]
[[caption-width-right:1000:I just love pick-up trucks and football and an ice cold Miller Lite with just a smidgen o' lime! Gosh, I'm such an Alpha!]]

->'''Voiced by:''' Cat "Lunafreya" Protano\\\

A valley girl who likes ''Series/TheCrown2016'' in real life, in ALO Becky is the king of the Salamanders, one of the most powerful factions in ALO, and one of the greatest combatants in the Race War. It later turns out that the reason she is a "he" in-game is because she hacked the account of her ArchEnemy and bitter ex (and he returned the favor) and had roped half of the server into her fight. In Episode 16, in an attempt to gain Eugene's help in rescuing Asuna, Kirito gets roped into fighting her.

* AdaptationalDumbass: The original Eugene was more brawn than brains, but he had a sense of self-awareness, unlike Becky.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Eugene was already a villain in the source material, but Becky makes him even worse by taking messy break-up out on the RP server, resulting in [[FantasticRacism the Race War that's the cornerstone of their "lore"]], and [[MediationBackfire any attempts to try to deescalate the situation results in backlash for the mediator]], such as ThePurge of the Spriggans and Cazmer's banishment.
* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: There's no indication that Sakuya and Eugene had any personal connections in canon, while in the abridged series, they're bitter exes IRL.
* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: Becky had a bizarre habit of vomiting on their neighbor's pet dog while inebriated. It got so bad that Brian had to go and apologize to them on her behalf.
* ClashingCousins: Eugene is blatantly racist towards the Cait Sith, and doesn't seem to care if her cousin Denise is leading them. The resentment is very much mutual on Denise's part.
* DefeatEqualsExplosion: She bizarrely explodes after Kirito stabs her to death with his two swords. She gets better thanks to Sakuya's magic. The randomness of the explosion is {{Lampshaded}} by a Salamander.
--> '''Salamander:''' O-Okay, but, like... why'd he explode, though?
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes:
** Eugene loved the Salamanders' pet bat Squeaker. She expressed her eagerness to attend his pup's baby shower, and was visibly distraught when she heard of his demise.
** She also says she's in a healthy relationship with Jonathan/[=PantySmasher=]. Then again, she might be an UnreliableNarrator considering how petty she's shown to be. For what's worth, she ''does'' eventually leave the fight at his request.
* EvilIsPetty: Like Brian, she forces her friends to pick a side in their proxy war, and are responsible for the Spriggan race not wanting to play the game anymore.
* FantasticRacism: Alongside Brian, she takes Cazmer's place as the main perpetrators of violence against both the Spriggans and the Cait Sith.
* GenderFlip: PlayedWith. Eugene here is very blatantly a woman playing a character of the opposite sex, while in canon, her players is assumedly the same gender as her avatar. Turns out she did originally belong to an avatar of the same gender, but she and Brian hacked each others' accounts after a nasty breakup and stole the other's avatar, leaving it vague who's each other's canon equivalent is.
* GirlyGirlAndTomboy: Presented as an alpha male southerner who gloats about being a veteran and wears a red armour decorated with a fidget spinner, Becky/Eugene is the tomboy to her cousin Hime/Denise's GirlyGirl.
* HypocriticalHumor: Becky is a StrawFeminist, yet she idolises Feudal Japan, a time period when women didn't have any rights.
* IAmAHumanitarian: ZigZagged compared to the more blatant Sakuya. Kirito accuses her and the Salamanders of eating the Spriggans, and she doesn't deny it. The revelation that the Spriggans were griefed out of the servers after a MediationBackfire somewhat mitigates this but it's still plausible that she assisted in the griefing by cannibalizing her fellow players.
* {{Jerkass}}: Alongside Sakuya. Both are equally repulsive and childish assholes who purposefully alienate their friends by creating a proxy war after a messy breakup.
* ItsAllAboutMe: She would rather keep fighting with Sakuya than sit down and talk, and forces her friends to take sides and fight a proxy war so she doesn't cut ties with them. At one point, Sakuya complains that she's unable to listen unless it's about her things.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Becky was said to have [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals vomited on her neighbor's dog at least twice]], so it's tragically fitting that she loses her beloved virtual pet Squeaker later in the episode.
* PetTheDog: Eugene was looking forward to Squeaker's baby shower and was genuinely distraught upon hearing about his death.
* SlapSlapKiss: How her relationship with Brian apparently used to work, if their multiple [[NoodleIncident Noodle Incidents]] are of any indication.
* StrawFeminist: When her boyfriend Jonathan tries to break up her petty fight with Sakuya, she instantly assumes [[InsaneTrollLogic he's implying that she can't defeat him because she's a woman.]]
* ToiletSeatDivorce: The reasoning for her breakup and endless fighting with Brian afterwards is because Brian wanted to see the Lakers game while she decided she would rather go to the opera:
--> '''Sakuya:''' Please. This is simply a non-aggression pact stating that Eugene knew exactly what he was doing when he bought those opera tickets, even though Sakuya had been talking about attending the Lakers game that night for ''actual months'', [[SuddenlyShouting BECAUSE EUGENE NEVER LISTENS UNLESS IT'S ABOUT HER THINGS]]!
* TomboyWithAGirlyStreak: As Eugene, Becky puts on a deliberately gruff and manly southern voice, and sticks to the role even when Brian is not around. Despite this, she behaves like a GenkiGirl when she's around [[SecondLove Jonathan]].
* WithUsOrAgainstUs: This seems to be her mentality, and her distaste for Spriggans implies she was around for their mass genocide after they tried to mediate.
* WithFriendsLikeThese: Poor Denise, Jonathan, Ted and especially Travis are forced to have their enjoyment of the game sapped [[WithUsOrAgainstUs and take sides in her Race War with Sakuya's]] just to spend a little time with her. Ted and Travis even got banned from the game after trying to take action against them.

[[folder:Jonathan / General [=PantySmasher=]]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/33_4.png]][[caption-width-right:1000:I don't know what sorta arrangement you degenerates have made with the Sylphs, but know this. The Salamanders cannot be stopped... and we shall not rest... until we have... dat bootay.]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Logan "[=BlazingAzureCrow=]" Laidlaw\\\

A Salamander general who role-plays preying on Leafa. He is actually Becky's new boyfriend who works at a soup kitchen.

* AdaptationNameChange: From Kagemune to [=PantySmasher=].
* AdaptationalVillainy: The original Salamander leader (named Kagemune) was an AffablyEvil player who, while tasked to "kill" Leafa, still gave her a fair chance at fighting. Here, [=PantySmasher=] is a deranged predatory general who intends to rape Leafa before killing her. {{Subverted}} later when this attitude was revealed to be a case of MeanCharacterNiceActor, making him more of an AdaptationalNiceGuy.
* AntiVillain: He roleplays a sexual predator, but he's a normal guy outside of the game, and he's also a FriendlyEnemy to Leafa.
* BigNo: [=PantySmasher=] gives a particularly convincing one when his fellow Salamander Keith is "killed".
* CasualKink: Despite not knowing Suguha much, Jonathan isn't shy about his affinitty to role-play as a sexual predator.
* ChivalrousPervert: He and the other Salamanders target [[LustObject Leafa]] constantly to role-play their rape scenes, but he's still patient enough to put the roleplay on pause for a while to help her flesh out her character better first.
* DeepSouth: He affects a "redneck" accent and behaves like a character from ''Film/{{Deliverance}}'', something Kirito picks up on. It later turns out to be the Salamander more-or-less official accent, with the players only dropping it when not roleplaying.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Played with. [=PantySmasher=]'s [[BigNo reaction]] to Keith's "death" implies he cared dearly for him. Of course, it's all roleplay.
* ExtremeDoormat: He seems to be always in a state of perpetual fear when talking to his girlfriend Becky, choosing his words carefully so as to not upset her.
* EvilBrit: Played with. [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty PantySmasher's]] player is a Brit going by accent, but he only goes into it when speaking OOC and is a MeanCharacterNiceActor.
* FantasticRacism: As [=PantySmasher=], he considers the Spriggans to be "a garbage race". Thankfully, he doesn't seem to be LostInCharacter in this regard (unlike Sakuya and Eugene).
* FriendlyEnemy:
** With Leafa. In-game, she's [=PantySmasher=]'s main LustObject/assassination taget, but once the roleplay gets paused, they are rather cordial with each other.
** As Episode 16 reveals, with the other players as well, he worked with Sylph Prince Cazmer to arrange a BreakUpMakeUpScenario between Brian and Eugene.
* HeroAntagonist: In Episode 16, it's revealed he was hired by Cazmer to "kill" Princess Leafa as part of the latter's plan to get Brian and Becky to reconcile so that everyone can enjoy ALO again.
* HiddenDepths:
** Despite working at a soup kitchen, he's a rather talented actor, on top of being very invested in his character's demeanor and motivation. He also briefly serves as an acting coach for Leafa, giving her some rather sound advice.
---> '''[=PantySmasher=]:''' Yeeees. You see? That's exactly the kind of choice Leafa would make in this situation! You just have to ask yourself the right questions and the character basically writes itself!
** He's got some strange kinks, but he's a very supportive boyfriend to Becky.
* KnowWhenToFoldEm: He's quick to reprimand players who don't take their characters seriously, but he's smart enough to stay silent when his girlfriend Becky/Eugene breaks character to rant at her ex, knowing intervening would just piss her off more.
* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Johnathan works all day in a soup kitchen and, though frustrated with Leafa's shortcomings, still takes the time to coach her on her roleplaying, but spends his time in ''ALO'' as a "sexually-predatory general named [=PantySmasher=]".
* MoralityPet: He's this for his abrasive girlfriend Becky, who calms down after he shows up and leaves the fight with Sakuya at his request.
* NiceGuy: Bizarre fantasies aside, he's one of the more pleasant ALO players, and is happy to assist his fellow roleplayers when they're struggling with their role.
* OutOfCharacterMoment: InUniverse, during his EvilGloating, he slips and refers to Leafa's rear as "booty", then he immediately corrects himself and says that [=PantySmasher=] would never say "booty", and leaves in a huff.
* PetTheDog: While role-playing a rape scene with Leafa, he briefly breaks character to correct her on her BadBadActing. The revelation that he had been sent by Cazmer to "kill" her shows he really didn't have to bother, but did it anyway.
* TheRoleplayer: In ''ALO'', he role-plays as a sexually predatory general who is after a beautiful princess DamselInDistress. He also takes acting very seriously and takes time to coach said princess, Leafa, on how to properly behave as a damsel when she fumbles with her role.
* SecondLove: For Becky, after her big fight with Brian.
* SeriousBusiness: Role-playing and character consistency is this for him, and he gets very frustrated with players who fumble or outright refuse to commit to their characters.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After Kirito "kills" his Salamander CoDragons (and throws him off his rhythm with his refusal to role-play), he gives up on him and Leafa and flies away.
* SoulSuckingRetailJob: Jonathan talks about his job at a soup kitchen like this, imploring Leafa to play off him so that he can at least enjoy the role-playing at ALO while he can.
* VillainOfAnotherStory: Jonathan's role as [=PantySmasher=] was as a villain in Leafa's storyline, being hired by the sketchy Prince Cazmer to kill her. However, Leafa's BadBadActing ruins the narrative for him, and Kirito's unexpected intervention completely throws him off.

[[folder:Dylan / [=DeezGunz=] and Trevor / Keith]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/32_2.png]][[caption-width-right:1000: '''Trevor:''' Listen, Dylan, my mom says my pizza bagels are ready. I don't think we should see each other again.\\
'''Dylan:''' Whaaaaat?! Come onnn, it's just a little role-play, don't make it weird! ...Trevor? [[note]]Dylan/[=DeezGunz=] in the left and Trevor/Keith in the right[[/note]]]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Spencer "[=BuddyVA=]" Downs ([=DeezGunz=]) and [=FrozenFrost=] (Keith)\\\

General [=PantySmasher=]'s minions.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: The minions in the source material were still roleplayers, but were trying to harass and rob Leafa against her wishes. Here, she was a DeliberatelyDistressedDamsel with whom they were playing with no ill intent.
* AerithAndBob: [=DeezGunz=] and Keith. Subverted with their real names (Dylan and Trevor), which are both normal American names.
* AntiVillain: They're Salamanders, which in ALO makes them enemies to Kirito (a Spriggan) and Leafa (a Sylph) by default, but they're relatively normal people outside of the game.
* AxCrazy: [=DeezGunz=] is even more unhinged than [=PantySmasher=]. Subverted in real life, where Dylan is a bit scatterbrained at worst, but seems to be a nice guy.
* BloodKnight: If Dylan's alternative story is any indication, [=DeezGunz=] is this to the point of assassinating his best friend after he brings peace to the Salamanders.
* CainAndAbel: What Dylan was trying to mimic with his prophecy, with [=DeezGunz=] killing Keith in his sleep to usurp his position as leader. Alas, he never got to see it through.
* CoDragons: They serve as this to General [=PantySmasher=].
* CloudCuckoolander: Dylan is a scarily over-the-top roleplayer who freaks out even his closest friends with his angsty made-up storylines.
* DeepSouth: Exaggerated with [=DeezGunz=], who puts on a front as a [[HalfWittedHillbilly stereotypical hillbilly.]]
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The mayo item [=DeezGunz=] uses to flick at his victims. Considering what [[SerialRapist his character]] is supposed to be, one can imagine what it's supposed to represent.
* EveryoneHasStandards: Trevor has no problem roleplaying as a rapist, but he draws the line at Dylan's messed up betrayal script. It doesn't help that ''he'''s the victim in said script.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: In Dylan's story, Keith would've gone out calmly accepting his demise at the hands of [=DeezGunz=]. Trevor is not happy about this outcome.
* TheGenericGuy: Trevor doesn't put much effort into his roleplaying, so his character Keith ends up coming across as this compared to his peers.
* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Both get sliced in half by Kirito after he mistakes them for actual predators.
* HalfWittedHillbilly: Dylan seems to be trying to invoke this with [=DeezGunz=].
* HeroKiller: In the game, they "kill" Recon in Episode 16 after the latter blows his cover during their meeting with prince Cazmer.
* KilledMidSentence: {{Lampshaded}} when Kirito kills [=DeezGunz=] while he's ranting about his made up "prophecy".
-->'''[=DeezGunz=]:''' Argh! That darn Spriggan just done asploded Keith! Bu... but the prophecy said- (Kirito dashes up to him) Oh wow. You're not even gonna wait now, are you? (gets cut in half).
* {{Improv}}: While they're waiting to respawn, Dylan talks about a made-up prophecy that no one else has heard of, and spins a tale of destined kings, assassination and remorse. Trevor simply logs out to eat pizza rolls and says they should stop seeing each other.
* MeanCharacterNiceActor: Like Jonathan/[=PantySmasher=], their predatory behavior is just a part of their character, and they seem to be relatively normal people outside of their roles.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: According to Dylan, [=DeezGunz=] would've ended his story wracked with guilt after killing his best friend Keith over political differences.
* NamedInTheAdaptation: The Salamander general's cohorts weren't given a name in the original anime.
* OnlySaneMan: Keith seems to be one of the few ALO players who doesn't get LostInCharacter.
* PoorCommunicationKills: When Kirito shows up and mistakes them for actual rapists, the two refuse to break character, and Kirito promptly kills them both (in-game).
* TheRoleplayer: Although Dylan seems more invested in his role than Trevor. One could argue he's even more interested in ''Trevor's'' role than Trevor.
* SayMyName: Dylan screams Trevor's name at the top of his lungs after the latter breaks their friendship and logs out.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Once Dylan is done telling Trevor his insane script, the latter simply logs out.
* SeriousBusiness: Roleplaying is this for Dylan, to the point of writing an entirely made-up murder story involving his character and Keith, in which the former betrays and murders the latter in his sleep.
* TheChosenOne: Had Kirito not messed Dylan's story up by killing them, Keith would've been revealed to be this for the Salamanders, urging them to abandon their violent ways to embrace a culture of love, art, and veganism.
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: Dylan's TheChosenOne storyline, which was ruined by Kirito's intervention.
* ThoseTwoGuys: They're always seen together, even after Trevor apparently breaks off their friendship.
* TomTheDarkLord: "Keith" stands out as a particularly mundane username in comparison to the rest of the ALO player base.
* WeUsedToBeFriends: Trevor cuts ties with Dylan after sitting through his nightmarish backstory, much to the latter's chagrin. They're shown together in Episode 16 though, implying they may have mended their friendship.

[[folder:Squeaker]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/30_0.png]][[caption-width-right:1000:Master! Squeaker's frightened!]]
->'''Voiced By:''' Hayden Daviau\\\

The Salamanders' virtual pet bat and personal spy.

* AdaptationalSympathy: The bat in SAO proper behaved like an actual AI and thus its "death" didn't affect Leafa and Kirito's conscience in the slightest. Here, Squeaker is a RidiculouslyCuteCritter with a family and who loved his master very much, so nobody is happy when he dies.
* AlasPoorVillain: Kirito is shocked when Leafa kills him and is even more appalled when she tells him that he had likely been sent on a suicide mission to get them. The fact that [[LovedByAll this couldn't be farther from the truth]] only makes his fate all the more tragic.
* AntiVillain: He might serve as a minion for the Salamanders, but he's just a pet NPC following orders, and he offers no threat to the protagonists whatsoever. His last words upon death also imply he simply longed for his master's approval, which he got in his final moments.
-->'''Squeaker:''' D-did... did Squeaker do good... master?\\
'''Salamander:''' ''(tearfully)'' No... No... ''(sobs)'' Squeaker did ''great''.\\
''(Squeaker emits one last gasp and dies; the Salamander does an anguished SkywardScream in response)''
* BirthDeathJuxtaposition: He's implied to have died on the same day his wife gave birth to his babies. He never even got to ''meet'' them, as the Salamanders were hoping to surprise him during the baby shower.
* TheCutie: He's a skittish bat with a cutesy voice [[CutenessProximity whom everyone swoons over]].
* DiedInYourArmsTonight: Passes away in his master's arms, while the latter tearfully comforts him.
* EvilCounterpart: He's not ''evil'' per se, [[MeanCharacterNiceActor and neither are his masters]], but he's the Salamanders' version of Yui: a flying "pet item" (but only for ALO in Yui's case) who are beloved by their players as more than mere [=NPCs=]. Squeaker's demise also mirrors Yui's DisneyDeath due to [[HeroicBSOD how their masters reacted to it]]. What differentiates them (aside from Yui's admin privileges) is their relationship with their human companions: Yui regards Kirito as her dad, and gets mad when he calls her his pet, while Squeaker is content with his position, as evidenced by him calling the Salamander who held him "master".
* ItIsDehumanizing: Leafa refers to him as "it" after killing him, as she doesn't grasp how emotionally attached the Salamanders are to their pets.
* KillTheCutie: Leafa kills him with a spell after discovering he'd been tracking them.
* LovedByAll: Contrary to Leafa's claims, the Salamanders' love for him was real. Even the abrasive Becky ([[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals who makes a habit out of puking on dogs]]) was eager to attend his baby shower.
* MirrorCharacter: To Pina from the previous game. They're both cherished pet items to their respective masters (Pina is Silica's pet dragon and Squeaker is a Salamanders' pet bat) who are [[SuddenlyVoiced given a voice in the Abridged version]] and who are killed in combat while serving them, dying in their distraught masters' arms a few seconds later.
* MoralityPet: For Becky/Eugene and the other Salamanders. His death causes a VillainousBSOD in ''all'' of them.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: {{Subverted}}: He has red eyes, but is actually harmless.
* RidiculouslyCuteCritter: Which only makes his death all the more tragic.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After being discovered by Yui, he tries to fly away while crying for help. [[KillTheCutie Leafa makes sure he doesn't get far]].
* ThirdPersonPerson: He refers to himself in the third person, adding to the cutesy factor.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Lasts only two scenes before being disintegrated.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Leafa shows no remorse over killing him and disregards Kirito's complaints by saying the Salamander's affection for him was pure PragmaticVillainy. As it turns out, [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes it wasn't]].

!!Cait Sith

[[folder:Denise / Princess Hime Kuronekodesuchan]]

[[quoteright:932:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/28_8.png]][[caption-width-right:932:They've got us sur-meow-nded, Sakuya-Sama! What should we dooo? Desu.]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Bread Breaderson\\\

The leader of the Nyan Nyan Tribe. She is Becky's cousin who takes on many "fangirl Japanese" mannerisms.

* AdaptationRelationshipOverhaul: Canonwise, Sakuya and Alicia Rue both had ambiguous feelings for [[CluelessChickMagnet Kirito]][[labelnote:*]]The ambiguity comes from the fact that the source material makes it ambiguous whether they ''legitimately'' have feelings for him or were just trying to get a powerful player into their alliance, whereas the games and other official media depict them as being part of his UnwantedHarem with their feelings being legitimate.[[/labelnote]] and have a heavily implied relationship with ''each other''.[[labelnote:*]]Reki Kawahara hinted via a tweet that they are more than just friends, and their appearances in the "War of the Underworld" mini arc has them in a PseudoRomanticFriendship.[[/labelnote]] Here, Sakuya and Hime lack any romantic inclinations for either Kirito ''nor'' each other, with Sakuya instead being bitter exes with ''Eugene''. Not helping matters is that the IRL players for the latter two, Brian and Becky, used to own the ''others'' accounts before the breakup, in which they then hacked into and ''stole'' their exes, with Brian/Sakuya mentioning Denise/Hime is Becky/Eugene's ''cousin''.
* AdaptationNameChange: Alicia Rue is referred to here as [[OverlyLongName Princess Hime Kuronekodesuchan of the Nyan-Nyan Tribe]]. Her IRL name meanwhile is Denise.
* TheBabyOfTheBunch: She seems to be invoking this with [[BabyTalk her general demeanor]], though she's treated more like a nuisance (or a potential meal) than a child.
* CatGirl: She is the leader of the Cait Sith with [[UnusualEars fluffy cat ears]], a collar with a bell, CuteLittleFangs, claw weapons on her waist, a catsy grin, Cat tail, constant meowing, and deliberately trying to be as cute as possible (and mostly just annoying others in the process).
* CuteLittleFangs: One of her fangs is shown even with her mouth closed.
* ClashingCousins: She doesn't have a high opinion of her cousin Becky, and admonishes Brian for sleeping with her.
* EarsAsHair: She can even move them at will.
* ElmuhFuddSyndwome: Invoked. She speaks like this in what is clearly an effort to appear more cutesy (though other people tend to find it more annoying than anything else). She notably drops it whenever she breaks character.
* ExtremeDoormat: As part of her roleplay, she allows Sakuya to boss her around, and dutifully stays behind during his argument with Eugene.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: Both Sakuya and Leafa threaten to [[IAmAHumanitarian eat her]] at different points, and it's implied being a Cait Sith makes her an acceptable target in her friends' eyes. On Kirito's part, he instantly drops his roleplaying when she pulls a TheyCallMeMISTERTibbs on him, and ignores her afterwards.
* GenkiGirl: While Denise seems to be more serious IRL, as Princess Hime she behaves like this.
* GirlishPigtails: Unless they're [[EarsAsHair her cat ears]], she sports two small triangular pigtails.
* GirlyGirlAndTomboy: Presented as an overly cutesy cat girl who frequently uses cat puns and wears a one-piece armour, she's the GirlyGirl to her cousin Becky/Eugene's tomboy.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: When Kirito gets angry at Sakuya/Brian refusing to grant him an army to rescue Asuna, she tells him to chill out because "it's just a game", not knowing that his wife is currently being held prisoner by a megalomaniacal rich creep within said game and he is that at that very moment engaged in a deadly serious RaceAgainstTheClock to save her from [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe being forcibly married off]].
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She's an active participant in Sakuya and Eugene's "Race War", and shows NoSympathy when [[HeroAntagonist Cazmer]] gets banished from the game for trying to make peace. Other than this, she just seems to be trying to enjoy ALO as much as she can and is far nicer to Kirito than [[{{Jerkass}} Sakuya]].
* LittleBitBeastly: She's a CatGirl but still has her elf ears underneath her cat ears.
* MotorMouth: Much to Leafa's chagrin, she won't shut up, which coupled with her ElmuhFuddSyndwome makes her unbearable for many players.
* OccidentalOtaku: Denise loves to pepper her speech with GratuitousJapanese, even in her name, regardless of incorrect pronunciation or grammar, and will only answer to "Princess Hime-Senpai".
* OverlyLongName: Her "surname" is Kuronekodesuchan, a long string of GratuitousJapanese.
* PlayfulCatSmile: She's a GenkiGirl who grins like a cat, which is pronounced when she calls Kirito out for not showing her the proper respect.
* TheyCallMeMISTERTibbs: She insists on being called "Princess Hime-Senpai".
* UnusualEars: Befitting for a CatGirl. They even flop when Sakuya calls her attention.
* VitriolicBestBuds: With Queen Sakuya/Brian. Though they still fight and insult each other (and he threatens to eat her at one point), she considers him to be a better companion than her cousin and sticks with him through ALO.

!!Spriggans

[[folder:Ted / Kirito Prime]]

The leader of the Spriggans, a now-gone race of Kirito roleplayers, who was banished for attempting to stop the fighting between Brian and Becky.

* AmbiguousSituation: It's left unclear if he used Kirito's name to role-play as him (as the Spriggan skin does resemble the teenager in a way), or if he was trying to take credit as the hero of Aincrad by stealing his name.
* CanonForeigner: While there likely was a Spriggan leader in the source material, there's no indication of them using Kirito's alias or being "friends" with Sakuya and Eugene.
* DramaticIrony: The only chance of achieving peace between the races ended up being unintentionally foiled by his personal idol and true hero of Aincrad Kirito.
* TheGhost: He's only brought up in Episode 16, but never seen as he's long been chased out of the servers by Brian and Becky.
* HeroWorshipper: A possible reason for his chosen name. Definitely applies to some of his fellow Spriggans, though.
* MediationBackfire: His attempt at getting Brian and Becky to talk things out ended up getting his race "exterminated" by the former.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Kirito Prime/Ted, the leader of the Spriggans, simply wanted Brian and Becky to work things out between them to end the Race War they instigated so the role-playing could be less toxic and the game could be fun again. Sakuya and Eugene's responsed to this by persecuting the Spriggans, which ended up driving them out of the game.
* OnlySaneMan: Out of the entire ALO player base, he and the Spriggans are the only ones (aside from some of the players in the capital) who refused to participate (and even tried to prevent) the Race War. Even [[WellIntentionedExtremist Cazmer]] had to get his hands dirty to try to make peace.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After being griefed by his former friends for far too long, he quit playing ALO altogether, shortly before the real Kirito arrived at the game.
* ShadowArchetype: After his banishment, Prince Cazmer ends up following in his footsteps [[WellIntentionedExtremist taking a much more extremist approach]], only to end up meeting the same fate as him when his plans got foiled by Ted's idol and fellow Spriggan [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Kirito]].
* SpaceJews: After his banishment, this is the Sylphs' default treatment of any Spriggan straggler.
[[/folder]]

!"Educational" ALO [=NPCs=]

[[folder:The Math Tree]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/saoa_math_tree.png]]
->'''Voiced By:''' Ken Tynan\\\

An NPC, in the form of a creepy-looking tree, that challenges players to answer [[BlatantLies deviously perplexing]] math problems.
----
* BigNo: When Kirito answers his equation correctly, he lets off one of these before bursting into flames.
* CanonForeigner: As the original ALO wasn't meant to be an educational game, there was no "Math Tree" to be seen.
* DefeatEqualsExplosion: Blows up when Kirito solves his "mystical equation".
* FauxHorrific: Add two plus two -- if you dare...
* {{Foreshadowing}}: The tree's penalty for not doing its math equation implies some kind of torture, which is a more mundane form of brainwashing compared to being mauled by "psychic super bears" in the Halls of History, let alone Sugou's actual plot.
* {{Gonk}}: Has sunken yellow eyes, and dark gray teeth the size of car hubcaps. Its animation also clashes with the rest of the show's aesthetic, although (A) this is partly due to Something Witty's limited time and resources for original animation, and (B) it's completely intentional, in the name of comedy.
* SoundOnlyDeath: After his BigNo, we only hear the explosion and a faint glow from off-screen, followed by a "10 EXP" message popping up above Kirito's head.
* LargeHam: ''"Gather 'round, children, and test your NUMERICAL MIGHT! against my mystical equaaationnss..."''
* ThisCannotBe: He ''really'' thought [[FauxHorrific his equation]] would "stupefy the mind" and "perplex the soul", so he's rather shocked when Kirito solves it so casually.
* TheTreesHaveFaces: And a particularly creepy one.
* UnintentionalUncannyValley: InUniverse. RECT likely didn't expect him to turn out as scary as he was.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Is [[DefeatEqualsExplosion destroyed offscreen]] when Kirito gets tired of listening to it and yells "Oh my gosh -- ''FOUR!''"
* WiseTree: Likely what RECT was going for with his "soul-perplexing" and "mind-stupefying" equations. Unfortunately, it's a kids game, so Kirito passes his test with ease.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Animatronic Gandalf]]

[[quoteright:710:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_30_183601.png]]
[[caption-width-right:710:Question one! In what year did man first walk on the moon?]]
->'''Voiced by:''' Spencer "[=BuddyVA=]" Downs\\\

A robotic [[Characters/MiddleEarthFilmTheFellowship Gandalf]] who guards "the Hall of History".
----
* ArtisticLicenceHistory: His "Hall of History" is filled to the brim with this:
-->'''Animatronic Gandalf''': The moon landing was a communist conspiracy to lull America into a false sense of superiority and pave the way for the rusky's army of psychic super bears!
* CanonForeigner: Since Sugou wasn't portrayed as stealing ideas from anyone other than Kayaba, this animatronic was nowhere to be seen in the source material.
* CaptainErsatz: An obvious one for [[Creator/IanMcKellen Ian McKellen]]'s Gandalf, down to his vocal inflections.
* TheFaceless: We only see his shadow.
* FakeDifficulty: It doesn't matter how much you know about basic history, you'll fail his test and meet a horrible end.
* LargeHam: He's a copy of Gandalf, so this is a given.
* WouldHurtAChild: After a kid fails his test, he unleashes a pack of psychic super bears on him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Terry the Tweaker Tarantula]]

[[quoteright:600:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/31_73.png]]

ALO's anti-drugs NPC.
----
* BrokenAesop: InUniverse, he was created to give a DrugsAreBad lesson to the players by giving them free samples of LSD so that they could experience what it was like to take the drug without the negative drawbacks. No wonder it was patched.
* BreakoutCharacter: InUniverse, he quickly rose in popularity among the players due to handing out safe drugs, so everyone was upset when his ability was removed.
* TheCameo: After being introduced by the game announcer, he can be seen in Arun when Kirito, Leafa, and Yui are strolling through the town.
* CanonForeigner: Since ALO didn't have a drug problem in SAO proper, there was no Terry to be seen.
* CoolShades: Though they're mostly useless as they only cover two of his ExtraEyes.
* CuddleBug: After having his tweaker personality removed, he can be seen holding up a sign that reads "hugs not drugs".
* DrugsAreBad: The Aesop he's supposed to give. However, since the LSD samples he hands out have no negative drawbacks, it comes off instead as DrugsAreGood.
* ExtraEyes: As befitting for a tarantula. He's ComicallyCrossEyed in all of them.
* HeelFaceTurn: After the game was updated, he went from a tweaker to a hugger.
* TheSpeechless: Seems to be mute, as he [[TalkingWithSigns requires hand-held signs to interact with the players]].
* SmallRoleBigImpact: Only appears in a cameo, but his notoriety forces RECT Progress and Ubisoft to shut down the game to patch his behavior. This puts Kirito and Leafa's mission to rescue Asuna on hold and leads to them bonding a bit IRL, triggering the latter's JerkassRealization.
* TalkingWithSigns: Can be seen holding up a DrugsAreBad sign in Arun.
* TheVoiceless: Seems to be mute.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Guardian Knights]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_30_185021_6.png]]
[[caption-width-right:1000:Roger roger]]

Obvious rip-offs of the B1-Battle Droids who guard the world tree. Like their predecessors, they operate in strength in numbers.
----
* CannonFodder: For Kirito to dispatch. He even warns them to stay out of his way if they want to live.
* CaptainErsatz: They're obvious ones to the B1-Battle Droids from Film/ThePhantomMenace. They even use stolen lines from said movie.
-->'''Kirito:''' Oh COME ON, SUGOU! Who ''didn't'' you steal from?!
* HiveMind: They operate as this.
* MachineMonotone: Like their predecessors, they speak like this.
* MechaMooks: They serve as this for Sugou.
* ZergRush: What makes the world tree so impenetrable. It just continues spamming these guys until the inside of the tree is completely full.
[[/folder]]

!IRL

[[folder:Mr. and Mrs. Kirigaya]]
Kazuto and Suguha's unseen parents.
----
* AdaptationalJerkass: It runs in the family. From what little we hear of them, they're not the GoodParents they were in the source material.
* AmbiguouslyAbsentParent: While Episode 12 has Kazuto say that he's going to tell on Suguha to their mom, neither she nor Mr. Kirigaya is shown onscreen. Episode 16 implies they're somewhat neglectful, but it's unclear if they even live with them as of the events of the series.
* TheGhost: They're never shown onscreen, and we only hear about them from Kirito.
* ParentalNeglect: In Episode 16, Kirito states that "they're never around". Because of this, they apparently failed to notice [[spoiler:the grandfather's abuse of their daughter, and both her and Kazuto growing to become bitter {{Jerkass}}es as well]].
* PetTheDog: Kazuto's mom was implied to have been a bit neglectful, but she convinced him to leave Kendo in favor of coding because of his asthma, showing she cares about his well-being at least partially.
* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: As revealed in Episode 17, [[spoiler:Kazuto's mother getting him out of Kendo for his well-being not only led to Suguha getting abused by her grandfather for choosing to stay in Kendo (and growing up to abuse Kazuto in return), but also led to Kazuto getting into video games, and becoming a victim of the SAO disaster years later]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Kazuto and Suguha's Grandfather '''(Unmarked Spoilers)''']]
Kazuto and Suguha's maternal grandfather, and a renowned kendo practitioner.
----

* PeripheryDemographic: InUniverse. While ALO seems marketed to children ([[MisaimedMarketing "aerial combat supremacy" notwithstanding]]), most players are older gamers taking advantage of its underpopulated server as a stage for roleplaying or were attracted to the VRMMO's flight mechanics.

[[center: [- [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridged Main Page]] | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedMajorCharacters Major Characters]] ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedKirito Kazuto Kirigaya]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedAsuna Asuna Yuuki]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedLeafa Suguha Kirigaya]]) | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedSeasonOneCharacters Introduced in Season 1]] | '''Introduced in Season 2''' | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedAntagonists Antagonists]]-] ]]

[[center: [- [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridged Main Page]] | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedMajorCharacters Major Characters]] ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedKirito Kazuto Kirigaya]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedAsuna Asuna Yuuki]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedLeafa Suguha Kirigaya]]) | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedSeasonOneCharacters Introduced in Season 1]] ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedKayaba Kayaba Akihiko]]) | '''Introduced in Season 2''' | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedAntagonists Antagonists]]-] ]]

[[center: [- [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridged Main Page]] | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedMajorCharacters Major Characters]] ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedKirito Kazuto Kirigaya]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedAsuna Asuna Yuuki]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedLeafa Suguha Kirigaya]]) | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedSeasonOneCharacters Introduced in Season 1]] ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedKayaba Kayaba Akihiko]]) | '''Introduced in Season 2''' | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbrigedAntagonists Antagonists]]-] ]]

[[center: [- [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridged Main Page]] | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedMajorCharacters Major Characters]] ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedKirito Kazuto Kirigaya]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedAsuna Asuna Yuuki]], [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedLeafa Suguha Kirigaya]]) | [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedSeasonOneCharacters Introduced in Season 1]] ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedKayaba Kayaba Akihiko]]) | '''Introduced in Season 2''' ([[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedOberon Nobuyuki Sugou]]) -] ]]

[[folder:Brian / Queen Sakuya]]

[[quoteright:1000:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2023_10_29_210335.png]]
[[caption-width-right:1000:Oooh, look at me! I idolize a time period where I'd have absolutely no rights or indoor plumbing! I'd probably make more sensible decisions if my make-up weren't just chock full of lead!]]

->'''Voiced by:''' Chase "Coffinjokey" Corbin\\\

A lifeguard in real life, in ALO Brian is the queen of the Sylphs, one of the most powerful factions in ALO, and one of the greatest combatant in the Race War. It later turns out that the reason he is a "she" in-game is because he hacked the account of his ArchEnemy and bitter ex, (and she returned the favor) and had roped half of the entire server into his fight. Kirito comes to a peace talk Sakuya is holding in Episode 16 in an attempt to gain his help in rescuing Asuna, only to get roped into fighting Eugene.

[[index]]
* [[Characters/SwordArtOnlineAbridgedOberon Nobuyuki Sugou / Oberon]]
[[/index]]

* CatGirl: She is the leader of the Cait Sith with [[UnusualEars fluffy cat ears]], a collar with a bell, CuteLittleFangs, claw weapons on her waist, a [[CatSmile catsy grin]], Cat tail, constant meowing, and deliberately trying to be as cute as possible (and mostly just annoying others in the process).