Ending of Sword Art Online II

FUCK. I had finals this week and I had nothing good to say and no energy to write so nothing I wrote over the past week got posted. Thank god that's over. I should probably try some more of the creative fiction tommorrow but today It's time for an anime rant.

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE TITITULAR SHOW.

So I watched the first half, the GGO arc, as it was coming out on Crunchyroll. It was bullshit and we won't speak of it ever except to laugh at it. Because it was so bad I abandoned all hope of the series ever rising to defeat my expectations and contented myself with other shows skipping the second half. Lo and behold my surprise when someone told me Kirito wasn't the protagonist of the second half. "Well," I said. "I guess I'll watch it then since a lot of my complaints are about the stupid harem thing." I was highly skeptical that thry would do it but they did. After a pointless arc involving the discovery of Excalibur, Kirito was promptly shoved away from the main plot like the collossal tool that he is and Asuna finally gets a chance to shine.

Of course the ending ruined it but I'm getting ahead of myself.

See, the arc is about Asuna joining up with a guild who wants to take on one of the uber-powerful floor bosses. Why they want to do that is unknown but what is known is that they are lead by an incredibly powerful swords-woman named Yuki who can kick Kirito's ass. Yes, the almighty Kirito gets his ass kicked. That alone is worth the price of admission. Eventually it's revealled that the entire guild is made of terminal patients who live in virtual reality, explaining their almost supernatural skill in a way that's not "I'm superpowered" the way Kirito's is. The arc examines how technologies like Virtual Reality and other such advances can help with how patients interact with the world. It's pretty interesting.

Now for the ending. The ending starts with Yuki dying which was forshadowed from miles away. The main cast then deals with the aftermath where its discovered that... everything the terminally ill patients were using was designed by Kayaba Akhihiko, the generic big bad of the setting who was responsible for the original VRMMO "People die when they are killed" death game that the first half of the first season of the anime takes place in. Ever since then there's been this huge push towards "humanizing him that's completely retarded. This is a man who tortured and killed people for fun! I'm supposed to sympathize with this asshole! Fuck you! I like sociopaths as protagonists but they need to at least face consequences for their actions.

Overall, this season is an improvement over the others, but it suffers from the ongoing characterization of Kayaba and Kirito that's thoroughly uninteresting or even pisses me off as it goes on. Maybe next season will be good.

On AP Lit

Well apparently some other people have actually seen my blog. Fuck. I already feel the responsibility bearing down on me like a giant flaming turtle descending from heaven. Probably want to add some meat to the blog. So as a senior I'm required to take English Literature as a course. Being one of those people who insist on making my life a living hell, a prestigious group currently filled by my AP physics teacher Mr. Khan from junior year, (names not changed so as to finger the guilty) the school admins with their idiotic rules with such selective enforcement on rules like IDs (the best way to stop criminal activity on campus because there's no such thing as forgers) which must be on a noo- lanyard around your neck except no one ever checks other than some teachers in the hallway, I took it as an AP class. WHY DID I DO THAT THE PAIN IT BURNS MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP. Allow me to rant a bit about the exact problems I've faced.

1. Choosing the least interesting books possible

So as we all know, work isn't work unless it's pointless and painful. As a result, for the modernism unit, our class is reading Heart of Darkness which is about the worst book I've ever read.

I highly doubt that's the one I;m talking about. It looks almost interesting

 Now, dear readers, you may believe I'm being whiny or unfair to the book but no, it sucks worse than that hooker you hired last time you visited Taiwan. The main problem I have is that every single character is portrayed as the second coming of Satan, to be judged by the fair and noble Joseph Conrad. Now look, I have no problem with moral ambiguity in my stories. Despite my poorness, I acquired the New World of Darkness PDFs and have been reading through them. They're quite enjoyable reads. I also really enjoyed Code Geass. I like moral ambiguity. I hate 40k style everyone is evil and no one has any redeeming qualities. I also had to read The Awakening and they taunt me by showing an exerpt from a much better book Lady Windsmere's Fan which appeals more to my satirical sense of humor.

2. Exalting obfuscated meaning as a virtue

So AP Lit requires that you read a lot of poetry. Now, if you've ever read poetry, you know that poetry has this awful habit of obfuscating all meaning behind several layers of bullshit and references which leads to it being rather hard to understand without an extremely thorough grasp on the other pieces of literature from the time period and an understanding of the cultural norms of the time. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't care enough to learn enough about Renaissance Christianity to understand John Dunn. I accept symbolism and enjoy analyzing shows and games, but the idea that making things unreadable is a good idea is completely unpalatable to me.

3. WHY THE FUCK DO I GIVE A DAMN?!

Now the usual answer to this question  is that English, and only English, will teach you how to think. This is the most stupid lie I have ever heard. From the start of the year, I learned quite a bit in school about debate, biology, and... history. I learned shit-all about writing or logic. I learned writing by, funny thing, reading. ON THE INTERNET. When the standard of the internet outpaces anything I can learn in a class, you are pathetic. There's really no point in continuing past this.I'm going into Engineering. Why do I give a damn if I don't know how to interpret Shakespeare. It's all meaningless.