Alright, wall of text incoming. Not all of it is going to be the most chill responses, as I feel like some of this just retreads the exact same issues as years ago with the Fanatio or "universe shook" cases. A lot of it revolves around how certain things work in Underworld, how Reki writes his stories and how "overinterpreting" stuff just has to get really tiring at some point. Including Moon Cradle Anime Cutscenes! Enjoy.
Time to preface all of this by saying "The entire story is told from Ronye's perspective, as she is the MC of Moon Cradle". She is such a low tier agent here, that she cannot even comprehend the concept of the Outer Wall surrounding the Underworld map. So while it is not at all fun to see us return to 5 years ago with Fanatio talking fancy about how her Heaven Piercing Blade is shooting out the light of Solus (which the excerpts provided here once again prove that it never did, thank you, we'll get to it), I find myself once again at a point where I need to ask "Do you guys actually read the books, or do you only grab epubs in order to do random CTRL+F searches for cherry picked sentences?
in order to swiftly defeat his Dark Minion's he uses the Memory Release of the Night-Sky Sword to absorb the ENTIRE light of Solus, which is the Sun in Underworld. As mentioned in the imgur link it describes that Solus had lost ALL its light, comparing the feat to Lunaria completely covering it like a solar eclipse.
Yes, he does absorb the Spatial Resources, that is what the Night Sky Sword does, just as what Gigas Cedar did as a tree. However, I am just completely lost on how far you are taking a simple "covering of the sky", although given the talks during War of Underworld days, I am not surprised.
Have you ever used a thick, dark umbrella during a summer day? Or sat under a beach umbrella? When you are covering the sky, it does become dark underneath the covered area. If I enter a building where the ceiling is glass, and someone decides to bring on the blinders to cover the glass ceiling, the inside of the building will also get dark.
What's happening here is literally no different than the WoU case, nor is it any different from the Fanatio fight, nor is it any different than Gigas Cedar having no smaller trees in the clearing around it, because its body is literally blocking the sunlight from reaching below it.
Although one thing your excerpt does is actually solidify what I have been saying with countless examples for the past 4-5 years. Divine Objects merely turn Spatial Resources into Sacred Arts Elements. I never thought to look towards Moon Cradle for a reference, but it's right there how the NSS absorbs the Spatial Resources from Solus and turns them into Luminous Elements.
Kirito is absorbing the luminosity of the entirety of Solus, not just getting blocking it out
I really have no idea what the argument being made even is. The NSS is blocking the sun out, by absorbing the sunlight, which is one source of Spatial Resources. When the 2nd Memory Ability of the Blue Rose Sword drains the Durability of nearby objects/people, do you just go "The Blue Rose Sword made the people and objects unexist"? Because that's the equivalent.
So I am not sure what you are trying to achieve by rephrasing the act of "Absorbing the spatial resources from the sun" into "absorbing the luminosity of the entirety of Solus". Well, except that you are making the statement false. That's like having a lightbulb in the center of your room, blocking the light with your hand in front of your eyes and claim you turned off the lights.
"He couldn't have absorbed all of it, the sun would have died!" Underworld is already unconventional by real world means, it runs on the shared memories of all its inhabitants and is quite literally a game/simulation, I would not be surprised if the sun just came back after some time
This just reads like "I like to think Kirito turned the Sun off and on and I want you all to believe it too". You make a claim, you have to substantiate it. A "belief" is not even evidence, let alone proof. It's all the more ridiculous, when we know how the Memory Ability of the NSS works from way before.
just like versus Vecta, Kirito's Release Recollection wears off, and the sky returns to normal, it's completely valid to assume it just returned overtime
Uhmmm, yes? Attacks have an ending. If I throw a rock, it will eventually fall down. If I swing a sword, it'll swing around and stop. Once again, I am so very lost on what the argument here is. You are trying to make everything sound as if the Memory Ability of a weapon concerns the entire simulation, but it doesn't. The ability of a weapon, concerns the weapon. The weapon is a tree that absorbs light. It is not a tree that jumps into space, eats up the sun, uses it as a nuclear reactor and then pukes it back out into its previous place.
Also, I'd like to remind you that the War of Underworld showcase of NSS' Memory Ability covered the sky of the entire Underworld map, which was a much bigger feat, than just draining the light based spatial resources around the measly Norlangarth villa. Don't get me wrong, the Villa and its garden are quite luxurious and big, would love to live there. But it ain't "the entire world map".
even Ronye says the Light Elements would fade away with time
This is basic Sacred Arts 101. You need to maintain the elements you create, or the elements will lose their potency and fade away. This is explained as early as the beginning of Alicization. There is no statement to be made here.
Kirito should be Tiered High 6-A as the luminosity of the sun is 3.846e26 watts and that's just 3.846e26 joules. His War of Underworld key would recieve High 6-A with release recollection and his Star King and Queen Asuna key would be High 6-A.
So anyone who goes out with an umbrella when its sunny outside is a "High 6-A" because the other people under the umbrella think they just gobbled up the entire sun?
I'm sorry, but this is once again a clear misreading of very basic text to interpret everything as you want to. So much so that in your post body, there aren't even any arguments being made to support your claims. You basically say "Kirito just ate the sun and the sun came back after he finished digesting". I am also unsure as to what people are agreeing with, since as I said... There are no arguments being made.
I think it’s important to mention the feat with Vecta where he turns the day time sky into night mag have to just be scrapped entirerly, this new text and some other quotes confirm he’s just changing it to night
Would love to see those quotes. I wonder if they are also from Ronye's own mind...
There is a significant issue of "not understanding context" going on here. Someone should check the Tsukigake's chapter, the little baby pet dragons perception of the world may bring some amazing feats never seen before!
Jokes aside, as I imagine the quote is referring to is from a descriptive paragraph back in Kirito's PoV, it is no different than me, covering the window with curtains and "turning day into night". It is as simple as it gets. And it is exhausting to keep seeing the same thing happen, over and over, people overinterpreting basic, casual, daily statements. We LITERALLY use these terms in our daily lives. The massive storm cloud turns day into night. The polluted air in China turned day into night. The solar eclipse turned day into night. The smoke from the forest fire turned day into night. "turning day into night" is the common phrase for "the environment getting dark". Or aside from such circumstances, the term is also used for sun setting down, which again, causes things to go dark. It does not refer to Sebek chomping up Ra and then Ra escaping to start a day anew. These are basic words. Stop being
the "blue curtain" meme please.
This sorta defeats itself.
DMUA put everything in much simpler terms than I did. How anyone looks at this and goes "this is impeccable" is beyond me.
all of its light had been lost
Yes, around the villa premises. All light is lost in my room, when I close the curtains as well.
with the text citing it was as if Solus had lost ALL its light
You do realize from inside the villa, which is where Ronye is at that moment, they do not even see Solus, right?
Oh and by the way, we actually have an anime version of this scene as well:
At this point, I am just going to stop repeating myself and stop pointing out you are bringing casual, non-literal statements by Ronye, who is barely seeing what's happening outside of the villa.
there is text from Kirito talking about Underworld as a planet
Of course. Colloquial speech. You are cherry picking word choices in ways that these characters have never thought about themselves. Stop. Overinterpreting. This is like Sonic fans and their "what is canon" obsession, that leads to Sonic the Hedgehog twitter account tweeting "Everything is canon" just to mock them... And then them taking that statement seriously and starting to preach that everything is canon, so much so that the writer Ian Flynn finally coming out and telling them they think too much about what is canon, making them forget to just have fun.
But to be frank, there are people here who take it one step further and yell "Death of the author" when such things happen, so why am I even going on about this.
These characters are not making a scientific presentation to a commission of researchers in every single one of their inner monologues. That's why it is important to be able to read and understand the context of what's being said, rather than trying to dissect random statements and word choices, then harass the authors when people point out you are wrong, and then yell Death of the Author when even the author refutes your claims.
The process is so much easier, when you do not overinterpret from the get go.
It is mentioned that the Sun is "Sacred Power"
Solus is not Sacred Power or anything. Underworld has numerous preconditioned Spatial Resource sources. Solus' light (and thus by extension Lunaria/Admina's light at night), the soil itself (and by extension flowers/plants, the more "exotic" the better), durability/HP (people, animals or objects) etc.
That's why the Dark Territory is called what it is and is such a wasteland when we first see it
We actually do not know whether Dark Territory is called that because the sky is "dark" (tbh, in which case, it should have been called Red Territory), or because the humans there are dark skinned. We know however that it's the skin color that dictated the names of the Dark Knights or the Dark Mages (and by extension Dark Arts in comparison to Sacred Arts, considering its literally the same spells otherwise), so again, random personal assumptions like these are the reason personal beliefs have no value in what is the reality.
it's a natural rule that things in Underworld regenerate life over time
This is absolutely incorrect.
Everything naturally loses life over time. Humans/animals can regenerate HP via healing through external measures, or by the sheer nature of being alive (which factors in eating, drinking etc, similar to real life). Swords being sheathed is a special condition specific to Project Alicization. Leave it out of its sheath and see if they regen any of their durability.
If my time with SAO has taught me anything, pretty much any circumstance of something being ambiguous is Reki writing for the lower end interpretation to be taken literally. It's a pattern that's repeated pretty historically with things being described to sound extremely high Tier, only to have multiple pieces of direct evidence to show that's not literal.
I will go one step ahead. Reki is not actively thinking about what he may have meant when he was using colloquial language or casual talks, because never in his mind has he imagined someone reading "It got dark a bit" and interpreting that as "The sun has been absorbed entirely by the sword to use as a power source and it reappeared afterwards".
Sometimes, you just have to wonder... In Japan where SAO is much much much more popular, there is not a single fan community who makes such absurd claims. I wonder why that is, compared to 3-4 people reinventing what it means to "get a bit darker" multiple times a year, in this community alone.
This is just the narration talking about all light being absorbed. So are we assuming the narrative's perspective is limited to a specific area?
Unless explicitly stated as an omniscient narrator (which only happened 3-4 times in War of Underworld to dive into the real pasts of Integrity Knights that they themselves do not remember), the narrator in Sword Art Online is always the perspective character of the given chapter. That narration is speaking from Ronye's perspective. We have been over this countless times, years ago, even with examples of how explicit Reki is when switching to an omniscient narrator.
He used that power to suck up the light of Solus
"Sucking up the light of the sun"... That is exactly what solar panels do. We have a bunch at our summer house too, we can even use them as a roof for a shed. If you stand under them, they can turn day into night! It's called a shade.
mainly because one of the main pieces of evidence is a leading question on twitter
Oh screw these arguments really. Literally in the next Unital Ring book, these were all put into a paragraph the same way he wrote on twitter, as if Reki was tired of this BS. There are too many people who just go above and beyond to refute everything they do not personally like.
But the thing I don't like is the idea that the other planets and sun aren't generated as of the current story, mainly cause of the claim that that stuff exists in a skybox.
Even to this day, I have no idea why people are interested in whether it is a full on universe simulation or a skybox, when the argument already stops when you actually read the text and realize it's just describing the visual effect of a shockwave.
I hate, hate, hate the fact that people kept pushing the goalpost over and over that a simple shockwave causing a visual ripple, became a thing about the universe and the stars and the sun etc.
You can ignore the skybox stuff entirely and nothing changes. So you do not at all need to acknowledge "the skybox argument" if you don't want to, as it is a moot argument in the first place.
Had to look at Underworlder history to remember that Solus' light specifically doesn't shine on the Dark Territory because of Solus driving out Vecta and his forces and being angry at them. Obviously this is a legend and myth made by Underworlders and the church, but it does in fact apply to those lands.
Correct. That is the religious explanation. The real reason is that RATH wanted Dark Territory to starve for resources, so that they would eventually be stressed enough to attempt invading the Human Empire for good, hence the Final Stress Test existing as a program module to remove the barriers inbetween to allow the invasion. It's all part of their plan.
Another important thing I'd like to add with this quote is that Kirito is directly stating Lunaria is a sphere like earth and that it reacts to the light of Solus in a way like our real moon, with different phases.
Again, just ignore the "skybox" argument if you want to. It really does not factor into anything in any argument. However here, Kirito is basically just explaining the concept to Ronye. That is exactly how it would work, if the content would have to be generated. And it is how it works 200 years later when that content is generated. Again, whether at that moment, if things are a skybox projection, or 3D models in a full universe simulation, none of it matters for any argument anyways.
An example is Bercouli’s “Time Splitting Sword” made from an in-universe clock, it taps into those memories allowing Bercouli to slice into the past and present when he activates it.
Time Splitting Sword is actually unique, compared to other Divine Objects. At least the Divine Objects of old, there are things to be said about future Divine Objects, like Istar's pistol. But either way, all Divine Objects we know from the original Alicization time are just "Sacred Arts automation programs" if you will. They consume their Durability to manifest as elaborate, elemental Sacred Arts. Bercouli's Time Splitting Sword is made from the clock object and actually uses Sacred Arts to not cast an elemental manifestation, but rather access system logs. It's quite the neat detail, as it was made from the System Clock that was put in there, an actual admin object.
This all culminates in this scene, where Kirito used the sword to absorb the ENTIRE light of Solus, because that is it’s memory. Rather than just create an eclipse he is actually just absorbing the sun’s light/energy, completely blotting it out to the point everything became dark, the sun did not return the entire time he was using this only returning once he had finished using the ability and presumably said energy, meaning the return of Solus' light and his use of the ability are directly tied to each other.
You are really doing a lot to spice things up. It is great for visualization purposes, which is why the novels are so vibrant when you read them. But what you are essentially describing is a Solar Panel. And to be frank, it can absorb all kinds of Spatial Resources. During daytime, sunlight is just the most abundant one and easily accessible.
If it was all of the sun's luminosity, that'd take over 8 minutes to restore rather than the very moment Kirito stops fighting. That's how long it takes light to cross that distance.
I'd imagine the normal response to this would be "It's a game world, it does not abide by our irl rules, there is no RTX tech being used, it's all baked in lighting", but then again, the entire "Sun is gone and then its back" is such an unfounded argument to begin with that I question why anyone is taking it seriously to respond and extend that argument.
It's the "Universe shook" leading into an irrelevant "skybox" argument. Whether there was a universe or a skybox is irrelevant, when the topic was a simple shockwave ripple from Sti and Laura's perspectives. And now, everyone is all about "Is it skybox, does that planet exist, is the sun real?" when none of it matters for any argument anyways.
Most things are on repeat anyways, so I guess this covers it.
