The secondary protagonist of the entire Sword Art Online anime series was always Asuna, who was one of the original characters that entered the dreaded Sword Art Online game and survived it. However, the thing is that we actually saw Asuna’s character in the game dying in the battle against Heathcliff during the time when Kirito confronted him. Of course, we know that anyone who dies in-game will die in real life as well. So, did Asuna die in Sword Art Online?
Asuna’s character died in-game, but she didn’t die in real life. That’s because Kirito defeated Heathcliff and ended the game right before their bodies died. Akihiko Kayaba, who was disguised as Heathcliff in the game, also prevented their bodies from dying because he wanted to talk to them in a special zone.
There is a lot of confusion in relation to why Asuna didn’t die when Heathcliff supposedly killed him during the final battle of the Aincrad arc of SAO. But the thing is that Kayaba thought that she and Kirito were special enough to have been able to surpass some of the limitations of the game and defeat him. As such, Kayaba was the one responsible for keeping both Asuna and Kirito alive. And this is something that we’ll try to look at in this article.
Did Asuna Die In Sword Art Online?
One of the most popular anime series of the 2010s was Sword Art Online because of how it was able to elevate the MMORPG VR genre to a different level during its run. Of course, one of the things that made the series compelling during the earlier part of its storyline was the fact that death was one of the main themes surrounding it.
In Sword Art Online, thousands of players entered a virtual reality game called Sword Art Online, which they could access through something called the Nerve Gear. Their consciousness is sent to the game’s alternate reality while their bodies remain immobile in the real world. However, the big twist was that the game’s creator, Akihito Kayaba, revealed that they were stuck in the game, and the only way for them to exit it was to finish it. On top of that, death in the game means death in the real world.
As such, Kirito, the protagonist of the anime, worked hard enough to make sure that he got to survive the events of the game. He was also vital in clearing some of the floors of SAO to give himself and the other players hope that they could finish the game and exit it in the future. And it was through his adventures in the game that he met Asuna, who he teamed up with a few times before she became his lover.
Of course, while living in Aincrad, both Kirito and Asuna continued to try to defeat different floor bosses in an attempt to get to the 100th floor and beat the game by defeating the boss there. That was when Heathcliff, the leader of the Knights of the Blood (of which Asuna is a top member), said that they found the boss of the 75th floor.
Heathcliff said that the boss was a lot stronger than they thought and that it was able to kill half of the scouting party that he sent after it. That was when Kirito and Asuna decided to join the party that was going to go on a mission to try to defeat this boss, as doing so would allow them to advance to the next floor and hopefully get closer to the possibility of them beating the entire game.
When they got to the boss of the 75th floor, Kirito and Asuna joined up with the other guilds that wanted to beat this boss. However, they realized that this monster was incredibly strong. In fact, a lot of players died in the battle, as even the strongest characters of the game struggled against it and would have easily been killed. Despite that, the raiding party was able to defeat it at the cost of many different lives.
Everyone ended up realizing that the entire game was almost impossible to beat because of the fact that they all struggled to defeat the boss of the 75th floor. So, if that was the case, then the boss of the 100th floor would have been so much stronger than this one. As such, they all thought that they were never going to beat Sword Art Online and return to the real world.
Kirito, however, noticed that Heathcliff was barely damaged. He also cross-referenced this with the experience of his previous duel with Heathcliff as he noticed that there was something wrong with this character. That was when he exposed him as Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of SAO, as it was clear that he had been keeping himself invincible the entire time because of his control over the game.
In that regard, Heathcliff admitted that he was indeed Kayaba. He also told Kirito that if he could defeat him in a duel, he would allow them to beat the game without making them reach all the way to the top floor, where he was supposedly going to wait as the game’s final boss. And before the duel, he papalized all of the other players to make sure that they wouldn’t gang up on him.
Kirito, of course, struggled against Kayaba. But right when Kayaba was about to deal the killing blow to Kirito, Asuna was able to fight through her paralysis to move in front of Kirito. She took the killing blow as her character did indeed die in the game.
Yes, Asuna was killed in the Sword Art Online game because her life points dropped down to zero after that attack from Kayaba. And if she was a normal player, her real-life counterpart would have died right then and there.
Why Didn’t Asuna Die In Real Life?
As mentioned, Asuna’s character in Sword Art Online did indeed die in the game. But the thing is that she still continued to live in the real world long after the end of the SAO game. And the reason why this happened is connected to what occurred right after she died in that attack by Kayaba.
Thanks to Asuna’s sacrifice, Kirito mustered up the resolve to fight through his own death in the game. Even after his life points had dropped down to zero as well, he still managed to continue fighting. He used Asuna’s rapier to kill Kayaba and end the game. In that regard, Kirito defeated the final boss and forced Kayaba to fulfill his promise of allowing everyone to exit Sword Art Online.
After the battle, Aincrad began to break down. However, both Asuna and Kirito were taken to a special place that was designed by Kayaba himself. He revealed that he prevented them from dying in the real world because he wanted to talk to them after they were able to actually override his programming through sheer will alone.
In that regard, Asuna survived SAO because there was a long enough gap between her in-game death and real-life death for Kirito to defeat Heathcliff. And when the hero defeated the final boss, Asuna’s real-life death was halted as Kayaba himself said that he prevented them from dying because he wanted to talk to them and get to know them better.
Of course, both Kirito and Asuna had plot armor the entire time, as they were supposed to die the moment their life points dropped down to zero. But it was the fact that they were able to surpass the limits that Kayaba placed on the game that made both Kirito and Asuna very interesting people to him. As such, the main characters of the game continued to survive throughout the entire anime series.
