Every time I revisit the Phantom Bullet arc of Sword Art Online in both larger and smaller capacities, I find myself increasingly adoring it more and more. In a way, it's a microcosm of everything I love about SAO and the way that it writes its characters with far more depth than most people care to give it credit for. I want take a moment to talk about one of the most prevalent themes of SAO, that being trauma and the ways people cope with it, and highlight particularly how the Phantom Bullet arc tackles the subject.

I feel the most natural place to begin with this discussion is with the arc's main deuteragonist, Asada Shino. The thing I find most interesting about Sinon is how her method of coping with her trauma from the incident where she killed a robber at a post office as a kid, that being to take on the persona of a badass sniper in GGO, is done in a way that makes her act as an inverse to Kirito. While Kirito sees his Black Swordsman persona from his Aincrad days as a symbol of everything he hates about himself, and something that he wants to distance himself from, Asada sees her "Sinon" persona as the only version of her that's worth existing. Sinon continually refers to her IRL sef as though she's a completely different person, someone she sees as weak compared to the Sinon that roams through GGO. Her playing GGO is her own way of not having to be herself, hoping to use it as a way for her to get strong enough to be able to be acknowledge herself. However, her method of completely rejecting that side of her is a mentality that proves to be ineffective and unhealthy, and the facade cracks when she's directly reminded of her trauma in her encounter with Death Gun and can't bring herself to fire a bullet even as Sinon. Her preconceived notions of the best way to deal with her trauma being ineffective in a game that she sees as her only chance to be strong is what makes Kirito get under her skin, someone who she sees as treating all of this like an ordinary game, someone strong enough to power through anything he might be going through. However, as Sinon, and us, take a look at Kirito, it's apparent how that couldn't be further from the truth...

There seems to be a widespread misconception about the nature of Kirito's trauma. Kirito being traumatized from the SAO incident doesn't really have to do with VR itself, by his own admission he still deeply loves the technology and wants to see where it's headed. Rather, Kirito's trauma stems from the lives that were lost by what he sees as his own hand, whether it be the people he failed to save like the Moonlit Black Cats and Asuna in the battle with Heathcliff or the Laughing Coffin members who were actually killed by his hand. Kirito's someone who heavily internalizes his failures more than anything else, being racked with intense survivor's guilt over the incident, which manifests in him taking an approach in situations to protect or save people that's reckless and borderline suicidal. He's not too unlike Sinon with how moments he sees as failures are ones that dominate his outlook. When Sinon asks how he was able to leave the trauma of killing people behind and move forward with his own strength, Kirito's answer is that he can't. Those are moments that'll stick with him for the rest of his life, moments of weakness that have and will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. However, the main lesson has to learn in this arc is not to fixate on the people he's failed, but to think about the people he's saved or impacted positively. That's what he tries to help Sinon understand, and how he's able to find the strength to face Death Gun head-on, and a way of thinking that lets Sinon accept Asada Shino as a part of her and take the steps to overcome her trauma and move forward with the strength she always had inside of her.

And those are the key words right there, taking the steps. The show understands that trauma like this isn't something that can be flipped off like a lightswitch. After she shows up the bullies that have been tormenting her by shooting a BB gun at a can with pinpoint accuracy, she's seen afterwards struggling to find her breath after doing so. And Kirito doesn't just completely get over all of the deaths he experienced in SAO now that he has an altered outlook. (In fact, that guilt is compounded even further in Alicization to the point where he falls deeper into his old mindset). However, SAO recognizes that these are major steps to moving forward, even if the harrowing feelings of trauma haven't gone away. When Sinon is greeted at Agil's pub with a family that she saved during the bank robbery, it's an incredibly moving display of her gaining the outlook of being able to focus on the people she's impacted for the better, not hyperfixating on what she sees as the worst of herself. Sinon, through both her time with Kirito and being thanked by the family, has living, undeniable proof...

...that Asada Shino is strong.