So here’s a question about Sword Art Online.

saintdane05:

So the Sword Art Online incident killed thousands of people using VR Tech, right? And it was a huge tragedy that traumatized those who survived (I guess) and was national fucking news. 

So  why are VR Games legal. Why does any corporation touch these goddamn things with a 10 foot pole! That’s not only asking for huge controversy, why would anyone buy something that could now have a huge chance of killing you!  Why do Kirito and Asuna continue to play VR Games despite being survivors and all the terrible shit that happened while they were inside of them!

Because that’s not how real life works.  We don’t put technology back in the box when something bad happens with it.  We just repackage it and promise that it’s safer.  Which is why you probably get in a car every day despite it killing three times as many people as SAO every year in the United States alone.  Which is exactly what happens in Sword art Online.  If you watch the show you know the device used after the original incident is completely different from the original Nervegear.  They removed both the giant battery that could kill people, and the technology that cancels external stimuli completely.  It’s now impossible to kill someone with the Amusphere, which is also a major plot point in the second season.

The technology would probably been abandoned commercially after the Alfheim incident if Kirito hadn’t released the software on the internet so anyone could design a VR game.  

As for Kirito and Asuna the reason why they continue to play despite all the bad stuff that happened to them, the answer is that they don’t see it that way.  Call it PTSD or Stockholm syndrome, but many of the SAO players are so conditioned to VR that they have trouble adapting back to reality.  That’s the whole reason they put them in a school, to monitor their psychological states.  There are many SAO survivors that never even touch a computer again after the incident or have no urge to ever go back in VR.  It may have been more realistic if at least one of the main cast had sworn off VR after SAO, but that’s why this is a work of fiction.