Real world names are in western naming order. Followed by their online name and worlds they played in.^note

This page details the various characters and NPCs first appearing in the server known as Alfheim Online (ALO for short); this includes characters from Fairy Dance, Calibur, Mother's Rosario, Sisters' Prayer, and Girls Op.

Note: Unmarked spoilers ahead.^noteEspecially from the web novels. If you're starting the anime, do not read this page!

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Introduced in Fairy Dance

Shinichi Nagata / Recon

Shinichi Nagata / Recon (ALO)

Voiced by: Ayumu Murase (Japanese), Marin Miller (English), José Luis Piedra (Latin American Spanish), Jorge Tejedor (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nagata_sao_2913.jpg

^{Click here to see Recon}

Suguha's real-life friend and classmate who introduced her to ALO.

All Love Is Unrequited: He Did Not Get the Girl even after mustering the courage to confess his feelings and still remains a Hopeless Suitor to Leafa to this day.
Black Magic: He performs a Heroic Sacrifice by casting very dangerous self-destruct magic in order to help Kirito clear a path through the guardians.
The Bus Came Back: He makes a return in Ordinal Scale after being absent since the Fairy Dance arc.
Catchphrase: A dejected "Leafa..." is his.
Dogged Nice Guy: He tends to be nice to Suguha in an attempt to win her over, albeit to the point of obnoxiousness and with a small amount of stalking involved.
Heroic Sacrifice: He uses a self-destruct spell to help Kirito on his second attempt at the World Tree grand quest. Sure, he didn't really die but the EXP penalty for using this spell is much greater than standard deaths so it still counts.
Hidden Depths: He's a better player than it may seem at first. He's captured once and is able to escape by himself by poisoning his captors. He really surprises Leafa when he uses Black Magic to immolate himself.
Honorary True Companion: Hinted in the light novels. It's mentioned he sometimes joins the core five (Kirito, Asuna, Leafa, Lisbeth, and Silica) when they need a six or seventh member, a rotating list of such that includes Klein, Agil, and Sinon. (Crysheight is technically on that list, but the group doesn't really consider him a ‘friend.’) Unfortunately, after the Assault on the World Tree, the Sylph leader Sakuya noted and liked his bravery, and he's now permanently stationed in Sylph territory as one of her staff. The group can only really hang out with him when New Aincrad is in Sylph airspace, and under different circumstances he'd probably be a more permanent fixture.
Hopeless Suitor: Has a crush on Suguha/Leafa, who is already in love with Kirito. He even tried to confess to her but was rejected. Although Suguha got a little bit more of respect for him afterwards.
Invisibility: Knows the transparency spell "Hollow Body." He once sneaked into a room where Leafa was resting and when caught claimed he was only there to secretly place her birthday present.^note
Master Poisoner: Implied. He explains to Leafa that he was able to escape Sigurd's Salamander accomplices and come to Alne by poisoning his captors after his paralysis wore off, hinting that his playstyle involves the use of poison.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: He reveals to Leafa that, while under watch by the two Salamanders he saw Sigurd meeting with, he was able to poison them and escape once his paralysis wore off, allowing him to fly all the way to Alne. Leafa's honestly surprised by this.
Only Friend: Downplayed. While Suguha isn't hinted to lack any friends IRL, Shinichi is the only person from real life she can discuss ALO with, and it's Implied that she mostly hangs out with him in-game.
Put on a Bus: During Calibur, he's assigned to the Sylph capital, and so can't accompany Kirito's group on their quest.
Satellite Character: His character doesn't appear to have any role outside of interactions with Leafa.
Spotting the Thread: He first suspected that Sigurd had gone rogue and was selling the Sylphs out to the Salamanders when, during Kagemune's ambush, he offered to act as bait and draw them away. Knowing that Sigurd was a Dirty Coward who never took personal risks, instead opting to have others act as bait or check for traps, he realized that this was very out of character of him.
The Sneaky Guy: His invisibility magic lets him try to be this, but his stealthiness needs some work.
Taking You with Me: Knows a darkness magic that kills himself while destroying nearby enemies. He uses it to create an opening in the enemy ranks for Kirito to break through. Too bad the enemies bring reinforcements so quickly it doesn't work.
Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: With Leafa. Though it's more of a case of tiny guy average girl. However it should be noted that Leafa is taller than Suguha in real life, so offline the two of them are closer in height.
Took a Level in Badass: Implied. When we first meet him, he's one of the few players shown to have difficulties with Voluntary Flight, still relying on the use of a controller whereas others like Leafa don't need it, with even Kirito mastering shortly after Leafa teaches him. In Ordinal Scale during the fight with the Incarnation of the Radius, he's not only shown not using the controller, hinting that he's finally able to fly without it, but he also appears to be flying about as competently as most of the others, dodging the boss' attacks with relative ease.

Sakuya

Sakuya (ALO)

Voiced by: Sayuri Yahagi (Japanese), Lauren Landa (English), Kerygma Flores (Latin American Spanish), Rosa López (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sakuya_34.png

Guild Leader of the Sylphs in ALO.

Actually Pretty Funny: In Rainbow Bridge, she ends up laughing when Kirito, in exchange for some information, says he'll tell her how he broke in so she can prevent it from occurring in the future.
Ambiguously Bi: While she and Alicia both firmly show interest in Kirito, their time in War of the Underworld shows heavy shades of a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, and then a statement from Reki Kawahara's twitter suggesting the two of them may be more than just friends.
Asskicking Leads to Leadership: She's a reconstruction of the trope. Being a guild leader, she spends so much time leading that she has little time for training and so her stats might be lower than some of her followers. However, her skill is such that she can still reach the finals of any given dueling tournament.
BFS: Her sword is pretty long, going up all the way to her shoulders.
The Bus Came Back: She makes a return in Ordinal Scale after being absent since the Fairy Dance arc. She returns again in the War of the Underworld half of Alicization.
Character Exaggeration: In canon, it's more than likely that her and Rue's attempts to seduce Kirito into being a mercenary for their own factions was because they saw him as a powerful potential ally, seeing as he just beat who was considered the World's Best Warrior. Some sources however, namely the gameverse and mobile games, tend to depict the both of them as seemingly having a legitimate thing for him, and get in on the other girl's antics when they appear.
Friendly Enemy: With Alicia, emphasis on friendly - and any technicalities of enemy are gone after the alliance anyway. The two also know each other in real life.
Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Downplayed. While she primarily wears green like most Sylphs, her kimono’s Obi and her Katana's scabbard are a shade of dark purple.
Kimono Fanservice: She mainly wears a kimono, and does so in a way that shows some cleavage and displays some of her legs.
Lady of War: Wields a nodachi in direct battle, along with a fan for anything less.
Master Swordswoman: While she's weaker than most other players due to not being able to grind as much, Sakuya compensates by being an incredibly skilled swordswoman. When she's rushing to assist Alicia during the War of Underworld, she cuts through several foreign players with ease.
Noodle Incident: In Rainbow Bridge, she briefly recounts how she and a small retinue also did the Pillager of the Deep quest like Kirito and the others did, but unlike them they handed to "pearl" over to the "old man", and were thanked by getting transported back to shore by a giant squid instead of a whale. She states that she didn't really enjoy the experience, likely for good reason.
Not So Above It All: Wasn't quite against seducing Kirito, in front of everyone assembled.
Reasonable Authority Figure:
- She goes along with Kirito's plan despite only having Leafa's vouch because the alternative is Salamander attack.
- When Kirito breaks into the Lord Manor to talk with her, she effectively lets him off after he promises to tell her how he broke in along with possible countermeasures to prevent others from repeating it, and tells her what he wants to know, even showing a map of quests that's supposedly a state secret to assist him.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Her calmer, serious demeanor makes her the blue to Alicia's cheerful red.
Roaring Rampage of Rescue: During the War of Underworld, she breaks formation when she notices Rue in danger and attempts to rescue, cutting through several foreign players along the way. Unfortunately, she gets taken down in a brief moment of distraction.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: In Girls’ Ops. When she hears of a PK Group attacking players in her territory, she makes capturing and defeating them a top priority due to the trouble they’re causing.
Samurai: Resembles one, given her nodachi and kimono, which leads to the impression of an Empress or Shogun due to her status as Race Lord.
The Strategist: Memory Defrag reveals that she is rather adept at Chess, Shogi and Go, few people ever beating her, despite not playing it all that often.
Tranquil Fury: When banishing Sigurd. She did it all with a calm smile on her face and a frown at worst. It's later stated that it was the angriest she’s even been with someone.
Statuesque Stunner: Compared to other female Sylphs, she's excessively tall.
The Stoic: Not to any excessive degree, but her emotions and tone are carefully controlled most of the time.
Universally Beloved Leader: Downplayed. She's adored by the majority of the Sylphs, having gotten 80% of the vote, and wishes to maintain this popularity, doing everything she can to benefit the Sylphs such as forming an alliance with the Cait Sith to rival the Salamanders. However, she can also worry how certain things and decisions can affect this, such as banishing Sigurd, Implied to have been their military leader, the moment he's exposed as a traitor and her inability to deal effectively with the PK Group attacking new players in Girls’ Ops.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Alicia. They tend to make jabs at each other, but they are shown to be close.
Weak, but Skilled: Downplayed. Ever since becoming Race Lord, she’s had little time to grind compared to before she was one. This proves to not be much of a problem for her as she can take on opponents with higher stats, typically reaches the finals of Swilvane Fighting Tournament.
You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Said nearly word-for-word in Episode 20, but it's the only proper response to being told the future of all their races depended on a new arrival she knew nothing about.

Alicia Rue

Alicia Rue (ALO)

Voiced by: Chiwa Saitō (Japanese), Cristina Valenzuela (English), Erika Langarica (Latin American Spanish), Silvia Cabrera (European Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alicia_rue.png

Guild Leader of the Cat Siths in ALO.

A-Cup Angst: Possibly alluded to when she argues how Sakuya's seducing Kirito with 'those things'.
Ambiguously Bi: While she and Sakuya both firmly show interest in Kirito, their time in War of the Underworld shows heavy shades of a Pseudo-Romantic Friendship, and then a statement from Reki Kawahara's twitter suggesting the two of them may be more than just friends.
Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Much like Sakuya her mightiness comes with the job.
Badass in Distress: During the War of Underworld, she and her forces end up getting surrounded by a group of foreign players, prompting Sakuya to attempt a failed Roaring Rampage of Rescue.
The Beastmaster: Dragoons, specifically.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She has something of a child-like body and she often behaves rather immaturely to go with it. Despite this, she's seen as a very competent and she often proves to be very Genre Savvy, easily seeing through the lie Kirito told General Eugene about being an ambassador for a Spriggan-Undine Alliance in Fairy Dance and being very aware of the dangers of Gwen’s PK group and how their recent fame would inspire other players to start doing the same in the third Arc of Girls’ Ops.
The Bus Came Back: She makes a return in Ordinal Scale after being absent since the Fairy Dance arc. She returns again in the War of the Underworld half of Alicization.
Casting a Shadow: Like Recon, she's a skilled Dark Magic user. Her skill in it is high that can she can use the Moonlight Mirror spell, which allows players to communicate from long distances.
Cat Girl: As a Cait Sith this is a given, she even laughs with a "Nyahahahaha".
Character Exaggeration: In canon, it's more than likely that her and Sakuya's attempts to seduce Kirito into being a mercenary for their own factions was because they saw him as a powerful potential ally, seeing as he just beat who was considered the World's Best Warrior. Some sources however, namely the gameverse and mobile games, tend to depict the both of them as seemingly having a legitimate thing for him, and get in on the other girl's antics when they appear.
Character Tic: When the situation is fairly relaxed, she's often seen with her hands behind her head.
Eating the Eye Candy: Gets right up close and personal in Kirito's business.
Fashionable Asymmetry: Wears a half-cape on her left side.
Female Gaze: Aside from calling Kirito handsome to his face, she isn't afraid to get 'friendly' with him. She practically wears him while she's flirting.
The Gadfly: She loves flirting with Kirito and making sure Sakuya is there to be jealous.
Genre Savvy: After the Salamander army left, she's the first to ask if Kirito was really part of what he claimed to be. He wasn't.
Hypocritical Humour: When Sakuya tries seducing Kirito into becoming an exclusive mercenary for the Sylphs, Alicia immediately calls her out on it… when she was literally trying to do the same mere seconds before, still clinging to his arm when she made the complaint. Sakuya immediately points this out.
Little Bit Beastly: As per Cat Sith standard, her character bears feline features.
Modest Royalty: Is very casual with people despite her status as Race Lord, never bothering to be formal with anyone and always taking a friendly tone with most people.
Multi-Melee Master: Implied. She's typically depicted using daggers and Wolverine Claws (and a rapier as a low-level Rising Steel unit). But it's revealed in Unital Ring that in order to be Dragon Rider, something that Rue is well-renowned for being, you need a high Skill Level in either swords or spears, hinting she has trained with one of them.
Pintsized Powerhouse: She's tiny in height but also the Guild Leader of the Cait Siths meaning she is very proficient at combat.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Her excitable, perky demeanor makes her the red to Sakuya's more calm, serious blue.
Universally Beloved Leader: It's stated that she's been a Race Lord longer than Sakuya has, hinting that she got elected in her Race's first election and got re-elected in the second.
Vitriolic Best Buds: With Sakuya. They tend to make jabs at each other, but they are shown to be close.
Wolverine Claws: Shown wielding these in the War of Underworld.

Sigurd

Sigurd (ALO)

Voiced by: Takuya Kirimoto (Japanese), Tony Oliver (English), Arturo Mercado Jr. (Latin American Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sigurd.png

A prominent member of the Sylphs, who's also a traitor.

Curse Cut Short: In the dub, he screams, "You bi-" at Sakuya before being banished.
Defeat Means Friendship: He recruited Leafa for his party after losing to her in a tournament. However, Recon says that he didn't do this out of friendship but rather to save face. On the contrary, he sees her as a possession.
Dirty Coward: It's noted that on every combat excursion he went on, he never willingly put himself in harm's way, always ordering someone else to do stuff like check for traps or act as bait for enemies. Him not doing so and volunteering to act as bait when they're ambushed by Salamanderis Recon’s first clue that he was up to something.
Disproportionate Retribution: He tries to kill Kirito for seemingly poaching Leafa from his group.
Jerkass: He often pushes Leafa around and disregards the agreement she made with him to associate with him when she chooses to. He also views everyone who works under him as items or possessions as opposed to fellow players and was perfectly willing to betray his race in exchange for being on the "winning side".
Fantastic Racism: While most ALO players can be this way, Sigurd is a particularly bad example as he's willing to attack and kill a member of another race (Kirito, a Spriggan) for calling him out on his possessive and objectifying behavior towards Leafa. Judging by his party member’s advice to not attack and the reactions of the people watching, this could be considered taking things a step too far by ALO standards.
- He also refers to the Salamanders as "incompetent lizards" after he realizes that the assassination on Sakuya and Alicia Rue failed thanks to Kirito and Leafa's intervention, despite the fact that he sold the Sylphs out with full intent of becoming a Salamander himself.
I Lied: A more subtle attempt at this. When Leafa decides to leave the party for a bit to guide Kirito to the World Tree, Sigurd confronts her and tries to pressure her into staying. She calls him on this, saying that part of their agreement was that she would help him when she had time and that she could leave as she pleased, but depending on the adaption he'll either claim he made no such agreement or that she's too well-known a member and that her leaving to work with a Spriggan would ruin the party's reputation, a blatant attempt at guilt tripping her.
Kick the Dog: When Kirito stands up for Leafa, Sigurd threatens to kill him in the middle of Sylph territory, where Kirito, as a Spriggan, can't fight back. Thankfully, the fact that people are watching causes Sigurd to reconsider.
Landslide Election: Compared to Sakuya's 80% of votes during the Race Lord elections, he only got a meager 20%. There's also the fact that, despite Sakuya's worries about how banishing Sigurd would affect her standing. However, none of the Sylphs seem too bothered by his banishment and she's still in charge in the present.
Laser-Guided Karma: He was disgusted by the Sylphs and wanted to leave the race, so Sakuya grants him his wish and exiles him as a renegade.
The Mole: He sells out the Sylphs in the hopes of rerolling as a Salamander for the next patch, in which they're set to be in a favored position.
Never My Fault: His decision to betray the Sylphs and be reborn as a Salamander is because he’s disgusted by how easily they’re losing territory and resource wars against them. This is in spite of the implications that he's in charge of the Sylph's military, meaning that it's arguably his fault that they're losing.
Oh, Crap!: He panics and spills his glass of wine when he gets a call from Sakuya.
Pragmatic Villainy: While he's short-tempered and vengeful, he backs down on killing a defenseless player when an underling points out that there are people watching.
Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Sakuya suggests that this would have happened to him if his plan had worked out, since Mortimer is unlikely to have kept his promise.
Smug Snake: He's arrogant, overconfident in his abilities and doesn't even seem to regard those he's collaborating with well, possibly being unaware that they intend to discard him once he's no longer useful, like how Sakuya speculates Mortimer will do to him if the assassination actually did work. He's especially confident that Sakuya won’t do anything too severe to him for his betrayal of the Sylphs since he’s Implied to be the Sylph’s General and is actually shocked when she decides to banish him, despite the fact that the Sylph's were essentially losing their power struggle against the Salamanders with him in charge.
- The Light Novel and Manga take it a step further with him threatening to report Sakuya to the GMs about her "abuse of power" despite the fact that, being a Race Lord to whom the GMs gave the ability to banish members of their race as they choose, Sakuya is well within her rights to banish Sigurd considering the severity of his actions and, seeing as her account is still active a full year after the incident, either the GMs likely didn't take the report seriously or he actually realized how pointless it'd be. Sakuya herself recognizes that this action would be fruitless and just tells him to "Do as you wish."
Villainous Breakdown: He has one when the still very much alive Sakuya contacts him to inform him that his plan has failed, and banishes him from the Sylphs.

Eugene

Eugene (ALO)

Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (Japanese), Joshua Tomar (English), Humberto Solórzano (Latin American Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/eugene.png

A powerful warrior among the Salamanders, and the brother of their leader, Mortimer.

Affably Evil: Is fairly polite and genuinely respects Kirito for both his courage and his fighting ability, and then it's revealed he's not such a bad person after all.
Big Bad Ensemble: He and the Salamanders provide the second biggest threat to Kirito and Leafa during the Fairy Dance arc, forcing Kirito to sidetrack his plans to rescue Asuna to deal with them.
BFS: Subverted. While his sword isn’t exactly bigger than him, it’s taller than most people.
Blood Knight: Originally during their duel, he was content with just having Kirito survive five minutes against him but changed it to a full on duel when he actually did.
Brains and Brawn: He's the Brawn to Mortimer's Brain. Even considering Kirito has the stats gained from his time in SAO, Eugene gives him a difficult battle in their one-on-one duel.
The Bus Came Back: He makes a return in Ordinal Scale after being since the Fairy Dance arc.
Combat Pragmatist: Shows shades of this in his fight with Kirito. Even ignoring his borderline busted sword, he also uses the sunlight reflected off his sword to blind Kirito before going for the first strike.
Cool Sword: His Demonic Sword Gram. Not only does it look pretty cool but its ability to phase through other weapons, bypassing any and all possible defenses, makes it look downright broken before the revelation that it can't do it in rapid succession.
Defeat Means Friendship: He and Kirito part on good terms after their duel, with Eugene coming to respect him and seeing him as a Worthy Opponent. In Ordinal Scale, he's even among the allies who arrive to help fight the Floor 100 Boss.
Good All Along: He was part of the Big Bad Ensemble for the Fairy Dance arc, but Kirito comes to learn he's not such a bad person after all.
Intangibility: His Demonic Sword Gram has the ability to phase through over weapons and shields, making blocking and parrying all but useless against him. As revealed by his duel with Kirito however it can’t phase through weapons and shields in rapid succession, meaning that if a player was say, Dual Wielding, they could block it easily enough.
The Heavy: For his brother Mortimer, whose orders he's acting under.
Kill It with Fire: As a Salamander, he uses various fire-related moves.
Large and in Charge: He's in charge of the Salamander Army, and is quite tall and muscular looking.
Legendary Weapon: He owns the Demonic Sword Gram, a powerful sword which has the power to phase through an opponent's sword, negating most defenses.
Lightning Bruiser: He was originally the World's Best Warrior of ALO and it shows; he was able to keep up with Kirito, who had his two years worth of stats from SAO compared to his roughly years worth.
Logical Weakness: His sword is able to phase through any weapon or armor to deal direct damage to his foe, but it can only do it once per strike. Kirito is able to counter this by blocking with a second weapon, catching him off-guard.
Meaningful Name: His name, Eugene, is derived from the greek word for "Noble", likely referring to how despite his position as part of the Big Bad Ensemble, he's not actually all that bad a guy. It could also be linked to his relation to Mortimer, who as Race Lord is effectively the closest the Salamanders have to a king.
Only Sane Man: Is briefly this in the Each Their Own Battles event in Rising Steel, trying to get everyone to focus on the War of Underworld instead of Kirito's Chick Magnet status.
Eugene: Hey. We're about to go to war. Do you guys understand!? What's with all this petty talk?!
Sakuya: It's not petty at all, Eugene.
Alicia: Yeah, dude! We're just fighting over a guy!
Eugene: That's the definition of petty! Sheesh. Can we really win with this lineup?
Sibling Yin-Yang: With Mortimer, who's described as more of a tactician than a warrior.
Signature Move: He possesses an Original Sword Skill that's an eight hit combo.
Strong and Skilled: Was said to be (at the time) the World's Best Warrior of ALO. It is noted that he's as equally skilled and strong as Kirito during their duel, however he's able to gain the advantage with his superior equipment. It takes Kirito using several sneaky tactics^note for Kirito to be victorious.
The Worf Effect: After she and Kirito end up stuck in Jotunheimer, Leafa explains how dangerous even one of the monsters there are by mentioning that a party led by Eugene himself, soon after Kirito's duel with him which started off as a Curb-Stomp Battle in the general's favour, was wiped out upon encountering one.
- He's often the subject of this in side materials to establish a threat. This is especially prominent in Memory Defrag, where he's often mentioned being beat by the Monster of the Week for events to establish how dangerous they are.
World's Best Warrior: Before Kirito and Yuuki showed up, he was regarded as the best player.
- Kirito was noted to be evenly matched in terms of skill Eugene, but notably struggled due to Eugene's superior gear and especially his Legendary Weapon. Kirito actually challenged Eugene as a wild gamble with no intention of winning, and had to resort to trickery and a second sword snatched from Leafa to level the playing field.
- The fact that he's able to deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to a properly equipped Klein in Rising Steel, who while not on Kirito's level was still one of SAO's Top Players, to the point that he's forced to perform a Suicide Attack to beat him is a testament to his great skill and power.
Worthy Opponent:
- Comes to see Kirito as this after losing their duel. Not many people in ALO can match him.
- In Rising Steel, he comes to regard Klein as this after he scores a tie against with a suicide attack, citing him as the second player to actually kill him in combat after Kirito. He even invites him to join his personal unit.

Mortimer

The leader of the Salamanders, and Eugene's older brother.

Brains and Brawn: He's the Brains to Eugene's Brawn, being a cunning tactician.
The Chessmaster: Manipulating Sigurd into being The Mole with the promise of allowing him to reincarnate as a Salamander, Mortimer has Eugene attack the Sylph-Cait Sith Alliance meeting in Butterfly Valley, which would not only allow him to kill two Race Lords and tax their races to earn enough money to attack the World Tree, but revealing that The Mole was a Sylph would allow him to worsen relations between the Sylph and Cait Sith, thereby preventing an alliance and maybe even prompting them to fight each other.
The Ghost: He's mentioned but never shown in Volume 3.
Greater-Scope Villain: While he's never actually seen, he's effectively the Big Bad on the Salamander's side of Fairy Dance, having Sigurd act as The Mole and, upon learning of the Sylph and Cait-Sith peace talks, planned an attack on them with Eugene at the helm, hoping to kill them so he can tax their people and ruin any chance of them joining forces.
Sibling Yin-Yang: With Eugene, who's considered the strongest fighter in ALO besides Kirito and Yuuki.

Kagemune

The leader of a Salamnder Sylph hunting party, who's attacks Leafa's party when first logs into ALO.

Affably Evil: He’s a Token Good Teammate and speaks politely to almost everyone, even when he’s charged with killing them and even willingly makes offers to spare Sylphs if they just give up their items.
Combat Pragmatist: He knows he can’t beat Leafa in a fair duel so he instead relies on numbers when facing her, stating that he’ll bring more soldiers the next time he has to fight her after she expresses her desire to actually kill him next time.
Famed In-Story: Downplayed. Among the Salamanders, he's noted as being among their more effective Sylph Hunters, which causes a bit of a stir when he's actually forced to retreat during an excursion, prompting Gtac's No Kill like Overkill strategy against Kirito and Leafa.
Know When to Fold 'Em: He recognizes that he doesn’t stand a chance against either Kirito or Leafa in an one-on-one so when Kirito asks if he wants to keep fighting, he politely declines and leaves.
Magic Knight: Implied. He opts out of fighting Leafa and Kirito after his party members are killed since he doesn’t want to lose the progress he made on upgrading his Fire Magic skill, while his appearance suggests he’s more of a Physical fighter. This is further enforced by the use of a Fire Spear spell to kill Recon despite the apparent lack of a mage in his group.
Mighty Glacier: He, like many Salamander soldiers at the time, wears heavy armor and uses a jousting as part of an Anti-Air tactic against Sylphs, using the momentum from both their flying and the weight to deal more damage. This however slows them down a good deal and makes them poor in close-combat.
Token Good Teammate: He this for the Sylph Killing party he leads, who are gleeful and excited about killing Sylphs, especially expressing excitement about killing a female Sylph like Leafa^note, while he himself is much more merciful, offering to let Leafa go if she just gave up the items she and her party obtained only for her to decide to be Defiant to the End. He also presents himself as honorable, repaying Kirito for sparing him by lying to Eugene, his boss, about him being with a Undine during their encounter to back up his lie about being an ambassador for a Spriggan-Undine alliance.
Unreliable Narrator: He tells Eugene that Kirito was travelling with an Undine to back up Kirito's bluff.

Gtacs

The Leader of a mage unit that's sent to kill Kirito and Leafa under Sigurd's orders.

Beard of Evil: The guy was a bushy and pointed goatee with side-burns that cover both cheeks.
Dirty Coward: When Kirito manages to overpower his squad, he attempts to flee despite telling his party members to suck it up themselves.
Dishing Out Dirt: Downplayed. He doesn't use the element much in combat, but he does know an Earth Spell that can create a giant earth wall that can only be destroyed when he's killed, which he uses to cut off Kirito and Leafa's escape.
Didn't Think This Through: His attempt at escaping from Kirito's monster-based counter attack, which involved jumping into a lake, resulted in him getting attacked by an underwater monster and getting killed anyway.
Fat Bastard: A smug mage player employing No Kill like Overkill, albeit under orders, and his avatar has quite the gullet.
Hypocrite: When his mages panic once Kirito changes forms, Gtacs admonishes them for breaking formation, citing that the change is only to his appearance and not his stats and that they should be safe should they remain in formation. That being said, when Kirito is about to kill him, he panics and tries to flee.
Kill It with Fire: Being a Salamander Mage, he has an expected aptitude for fire magic. His favourite appears to be the high-level Attack Spell "Fire Ball".
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Leafa can't help but notice that the set-up he brought to deal with her and Kirito seems geared towards fighting a boss as opposed to just two players, with three tanks at the front to keep the enemy at bay while the nine mages hiding behind to cast healing spells and launch attack spells. One of them was even baffled at first at how far they were going, outright calling it torture, until being told that they were the ones who took out Kagemune's squad and forced him to retreat.

Friscoll

A Mook Mage in Gtac's squad.

The Bus Came Back: Returns in Unital Ring as one of the players afflicted by Mutasina's Noose of the Accursed, ending up in a scouting party to Ruis Na Rig and subsequently captured when his party gets into a conflict with the Insectsite players.
The Cameo: He evidently quit the Salamander forces after Fairy Dance, being shown in Mother's Rosario as a member of the boss clearing guild Asuna and the Sleeping Knights come into conflict with.
Defiant to the End: When he becomes the Sole Survivor so he can be interrogated, he's quick to demand that they just kill him until Kirito just outright bribes him with his party member's drops. He does this again after he's captured by the Insectsite Players in Unital Ring, with Kirito making a similar offer with Mutasina's inventory should the group kill her.
Even Evil Has Standards: He for one is utterly baffled at how he and his group are targetting two players with a party that would normally geared towards fighting bosses, outright calling it torture. Subverted when he's told that the guys they're targeting are the ones who took out Kagemune, at which point he completely understands and goes along with it.
Greed: While he initially tries being Defiant to the End when Leafa tries interrogating him, he's quick to change his toon and spill his guts when Kirito bribes him with the drops Kirito got form killing the rest of his party.
Green-Eyed Monster: Part of the reason he accepted Kirito's bribe is that his friends tended to flaunt their rare stuff.
Mook: A self-admitted one, stating his knowledge of the Salamander's plans is limited due to how low he is on the totem pole.
The Nicknamer: Unital Ring reveals that he has a penchant for bad nicknames, such as Muta-Muta for Mutasina and Sino-Sino for Sinon, the latter of whom threatens to set his ghillie suit on fire and notes that Mutasina would probably go out of her way to murder him if she heard about it.
No Name Given: We don't learn his username until Unital Ring.
Oh, Crap!: In Mother's Rosario, this is his reaction to Asuna using Flashing Penetrator to reach him and his fellow mages and recognising her as the "Berserk Healer".
Pragmatic Villainy: While he does accept Kirito's bribe, he makes sure to look around to check if his party member's Remain Lights have all gone out first. He also states that he's not actually going to wear the gear himself, but sell it all off and buy himself something.
Sole Survivor: At Leafa's suggestion, he becomes this so she and Kirito can grill him for information. He earns this status again in Unital Ring, after the VSS scouting party he's forced to join bumps into the Insectsite Players.

Introduced in Extra Edition and Rainbow Bridge

Kraken the Abyss Lord

A giant squid creature that disguises itself as an old man to trick players into stealing a pearl-shaped egg for him.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He puts up the front, and takes the form, of a harmless old man wanting some help reclaiming a stolen pearl from some thieves. In reality, that "pearl" is some manner of egg, and he's actually a sea monster planning to raise whoever hatched from it into a Tyke Bomb to use against the Æsir.
Combat Tentacles: Only natural for the infamous sea monster.
Curb-Stomp Battle: When the group find themselves fighting them, he quickly puts their HP down into the red and prepares to eat them. Yui states that this is because his stats are higher than even a New Aincrad Floor Boss'.
Evil Former Friend: Implied, seeing as he refers to Leviathan as "old friend".
Healing Factor: He almost immediately recovers when Kirito slashes his tentacle with a flaming Sword Skill.
I'm a Humanitarian: He comes close to eating the party before Leviathan intervenes.
Know When to Fold 'Em: He chooses to withdraw once Leviathan shows up
Manipulative Bastard: Unable to enter the temple due to a barrier, he instead takes the form of an old man and manipulates players into grabbing the egg for him.
Mook Maker: Sakuya recounts how when she and a small group completed the quest by giving him the "pearl", he summoned a giant squid to transport them back to shore.
Rage Against the Heavens: It's Implied that his actions are because he has some manner of grudge against the Æsir.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: He's got glowing red eyes.
Significant Anagram: His alias, Nerakk, is an anagram for it's true identity.

Leviathan the Sea Lord

A jotunn guarding over the egg Kraken is attempting to steal.

Badass Cape: A magnificent blue one
Big Damn Heroes: Before Kraken can eat the party, he throws his Prongs of Poseidon in front of him to stop him.
Pet the Dog: Unintentional example, but him summoning a whale to transport Kirito's party back to shore ends up fulfilling their goal of showing one to Yui.
Prongs of Poseidon: Fitting enough for the "Sea Lord".

Hraesvelg the Sky Lord

A jotunn with dominion over the sky chamber, and a friend of Leviathan.

Animal Motif: Considering the fact that he's a eagle in the original myths, it's natural he has this. When he creates a wind vortex to send Kirito and the others back to where they came from, his arm gains a transparent aura resembling a wing.
Blow You Away: He's capable of summoning tornadoes, which he uses to dispel Kirito and the others out of the Sky Chamber.
Lean and Mean: Described as thin, and Kirito speculates that he's over six feet tall. Though he isn't mean in any capacity, unless you count him sending Kirito and Co. back by hurling a whirlwind at them, just rather stern.
Reasonable Authority Figure: He's hardly mad when Kirito and the others arrive at the Sky Chamber, at most questioning if they're in league with Kraken and choosing to believe them when they say no. Also, as far as Kirito and the others can tell, he has no plans on delivering "divine punishment" on Kirito and Co. for accidentally breaking a branch off the world tree.

Introduced in Calibur

Tonky

A Beast-Type Evil God Class monster from the Jotunheimer Bonus Dungeon that Kirito and Leafa save twice, first from another Evil God Class monster and again from an Undine Hunting Party. He serves as the party's method of transport during the quest for Excalibur.

Adapted Out: Zig-zagged. Kirito and Leafa's encounter with him isn't adapted in the first season, but his existence and their relationship with him is explained in the Calibur Arc in a brief flashback. However, it never mentions the time they saved him from the Undine Hunting Party.
Artificial Intelligence: Despite being a simple Monster NPC, he's surprisingly intelligent and chooses not to attack other players after Kirito and Leafa save him.
Big Damn Heroes: He arrives just in time to save the party from falling into Niflheim.
Last of His Kind: Narrowly Averted. Most of his kind are the targets of a fake Excalibur quest that takes place at the same time as the real one. At the end of his quest, it's revealed that many of his kind are alive.
Non-Malicious Monster: Despite being classed as an enemy, he's friendly to Kirito and Leafa after they save him from another monster, and even helps them leave Jotunheim after they save him from an Undine Hunting party.

Urðr

Urðr (ALO)

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (Japanese), Karen Strassman (English), Reyna López (Latin American Spanish)

An NPC who is based on the Norse God.

Artificial Intelligence: She's more intelligent than the standard NPCs and does not have a fixed response routine, being capable of holding a much more sophisticated conversation.
Big Good: Provides the quest that is crucial in saving ALO.
Giant Woman: She's one of the three Hill Giant sisters.
Inconsistent Spelling: Her name is inconsistently spelled Urðr, Urd, or Urdr across media.
Physical God: Based on the goddess from Norse Mythology.
Quest Giver: Provides the gang with the quest to retrieve Excalibur.

Thor / Freyja

Thor / Freyja (ALO)

Voiced by: Yuko Minaguchi (Freyja, Japanese), Mela Lee (Freyja, English), Romina Marroquín Payró (Freyja, Latin American Spanish); Tesshō Genda (Thor, Japanese), Richard Epcar (Thor, English), Eduardo Fonseca (Thor, Latin American Spanish)

An NPC companion who shows up in the Excalibur quest. Initially appeared to be the goddess Freyja before being revealed to be a disguised Thor.

Adaptational Wimp: Unlike in the original myths, Thor gets caught while trying to steal back Mjölnir while disguised as Freyja.
Brain Bleach: Thor the God of Thunder disguised himself as the beautiful Freyja, whom Klein had a crush on. Poor Klein is left quite unsettled by the revelation.
Crutch Character: Upon revealing himself to be Thor, he completely turns the tide of the battle against Thrym.
Damsel in Distress: As Freyja, she presented herself as one to the Heroes of Aincrad. She was chained up in a cage and beseeched them to free her. It was only later that he revealed himself to be a disguised Thor.
Five-Second Foreshadowing: Kirito struggles to move Mjölnir when he finds it and it is only with great effort that he flings it over to Frejya. "She" effortlessly holds it in one hand before transforming. Only Thor is worthy of Mjölnir.
Gender Bender: He disguised himself as Freyja and posed as Thrym's wife.
Monochromatic Eyes: As Thor his pupils are not visible.
Physical God: Based on the Thor of Norse Mythology. He is huge and powerful, single-handedly turning the battle against Thrym in the heroes' favor.
Shock and Awe: Given it's Thor, of course he can command thunder and lightning. Though he could use it even while disguised as Freyja.

Thrym

Voiced by: Shozo Iizuka (Japanese), John Snyder (English), Eduardo Fonseca (Latin American Spanish)

The King of the Frost Giants and the Arc Villain of the Excalibur Quest.

Adaptational Villainy: He's somehow worse in the manga adaption of Caliber, being more openly perverted and fantasizing about practically raping Freyja in front of the party.
Arc Villain: Of the Excalibur Quest, being the reason that Jotunheim is frozen over and, should his fake quest be completed, plans to take over Alfheim next if he isn't beaten.
Curb-Stomp Battle: With the help of Kirito and the others, he's the victim of one by Thor.
An Ice Person: He's is the King of the Frost Giants, and can create weapons with his cold breath.
Manipulative Bastard: He tricks player into killing any giants who oppose him by offering a fake Excalibur called Caliburn.
Oh, Crap!: When Freyja reveals herself to actually be Thor.
Our Giants Are Bigger: He lives up to being a Frost Giant, being the size of a tower and the party not even coming up to his toe.
Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: In a manner eerily reminiscent of Sugou, he keeps Freyja in a cage and, in the manga, is not so subtle about wanting to sexually exploit her.

Introduced in Mother's Rosario and Sisters' Prayer

The Sleeping Knights

In General

A guild led by Yuuki who aim to beat a boss in ALO and earn their place in the highscores.

Badass Crew: They beat a Boss using only seven players, making them simultaneously one of the strongest and smallest guilds in ALO.
Big, Thin, Short Trio: The three male members of the group are this. Tecchi is the big, Jun is the short, and Talken is the thin.
The Bus Came Back:
- The remaining Sleeping Knights reappear in Ordinal Scale. It's revealed they didn't disband their guild as they had originally planned and are still playing ALO.
- The Sleeping Knights reappear again in War of Underworld, being among the VRMMO players to join in the defense of Underworld. Yuuki's spirit also briefly appears to aid Asuna.
Damager, Healer, Tank: Yuuki, Talken and Nori are Damagers, Siune is the Healer, Jun and Tecchi are Tanks. When Asuna joins she also takes up being a Healer but frequently switches to Damager.
Delicate and Sickly: All of them are chronically ill, with their members dwindling as their illnesses claim them one by one.
The Disease That Shall Not Be Named: Rather noticeably averted for at least half the members. A significant amount of detail is given regarding each member's various conditions, especially in the novels.
Dwindling Party: Their numbers plummet as each of their illness claim their lives.
Fighter, Mage, Thief: This dynamic applied to the guild's three founders when they played Asuka Empire. Yuuki was The Fighter, playing as the Samurai class, Ran was the Mage, playing as the Miko, and Merida was the Thief, playing as the Ninja.
Gender-Equal Ensemble: The group has three girls- Yuuki, Siune and Nori- and three guys- Jun, Tecchi and Talken.
- Averted if the deceased members are counted, in which case it becomes five girls (Yuuki, Ran, Merida, Siune, and Nori) to four guys (Jun, Tecchi, Talken, and Clovis).
The Ghost: Of the deceased members, Ran and Merida are seen in the Sisters' Prayer side story. However, Clovis is never seen at all in the main series, having only a few mentions in Mother's Rosario. Averted in Clover's Regret, where Clovis is central to the plot of the first volume.
Guest-Star Party Member: Asuna is recruited by them, however she never officially joins their guild due to it disbanding shortly afterwards.
Honorary True Companion / Sixth Ranger: Asuna becomes this over the course of Mother's Rosario. She never officially joins the guild, but the rest of the members consider her as such. She even shares the opening theme and an Image Song with the group.
Town Girls: The three current female members of the group are this. Nori is the butch, being the most tomboyish of the three. Siune is the femme, being the soft spoken healer of the group, Yuuki is the neither, being tomboyish but with a girly streak.
- The original three members also count. Merida is the butch, being an energetic bug-catching tomboy. Ran is the femme, being the spellcasting Miko of the group and the most girly. Yuuki is once again the neither for the same reasons as before.
True Companions: The Sleeping Knights treat each other like family.
You Are in Command Now: Yuuki's twin sister, Ran, was the original leader of the guild. However she passed away and leadership was given to Yuuki. With Yuuki's passing at the end of Mother's Rosario, Siune has become the guild leader.
Your Days Are Numbered: Several of them are terminally ill with only months to live. They decide to disband because two of them, including Yuuki, are going to pass away in the near future. Yuuki succumbs to AIDS related complications and passes away by the end of the arc. It is implied that Siune was the other person, but unbeknownst to her, she was not in the terminal stages.

Yuuki Konno / Yuuki

See Sword Art Online Major Characters

Shi-eun Ahn / Siune

Shi-eun Ahn / Siune (ALO)

Voiced by: Yu Shimamura (Japanese), Erika Harlacher (English), Alejandria de los Santos (Latin American Spanish)

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/siune.png

The second-in-command of the Sleeping Knights and their primary healer.

Adaptation Name Change: From Shi en Ahn / Shiien in the original web novel, to Shi-eun Ahn / Siune in the light novel and subsequent adaptations. This was due to the author consulting a Japanese-Korean translator, and learning that "Shi en" did not exist as a name, but "Shi-eun" was a popular Korean name.
Bare-Handed Blade Block: During the War of Underworld, she catches a Korean Player's blade with one hand when he tries attacking her. Got a lot more STR than she looks, huh...
Baldness Means Sickness: She's bald in real life, as a result of her battle with leukemia. Asuna notices that she's wearing a wig when they meet in person.
Entertainingly Wrong: She assumes, based on the fact that her treatments are slowing down, that she only has months to live. In fact, she's about to be discharged from the hospital.
Image Song: "Sleepless Legend" (along with Asuna, Yuuki and the rest of the Sleeping Knights).
The Medic: She's noted to be the Sleeping Knights' primary healer before Asuna comes since she plays an Undine.
Number Two: To Yuuki, after Ran's death.
Survivor Guilt: She feels upset that she's going to significantly outlive Yuuki, Ran, Merida, and Clovis, but Asuna comforts her.
Team Mom: While she didn't take over as The Leader until Yuuki's death, she seemed to have been this to the Sleeping Knights from the get go.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: Is the Girly Girl to Yuuki and Nori's Tomboys.
White Mage: She's the group's sole mage, and seems to mainly use healing spells.

Jun

Jun (ALO)

Voiced by: Daiki Yamashita (Japanese), Max Mittelman (English), Carlos Siller (Latin American Spanish)

One of the Sleeping Knight's tanks, and the youngest member.

BFS: His weapon is a two-handed sword, which stands out especially against his small size.
Big Eater: At the Celebration party, he and Tecchi are scarfing down food.
Big, Thin, Short Trio: Among the Sleeping Knight’s male members, he's the short to Tecchi's big and Talken's thin. Justified since he's a child.
Hot-Blooded: He's certainly cheerful and excitable, and he's eager to fight.
Littlest Cancer Patient: Implied to be pretty young, and has a "tricky" form of cancer according to Siune.
Muscles Are Meaningless: Since his avatar resembles a young child, he doesn't appear to be very muscular. However, he's also one of the Sleeping Knight's tanks and can a lot of punishment while giving back just as much.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The shortest member of the Guild, but also one of it's tank players.

Tecchi

Tecchi (ALO)

Voiced by: Nobuyuki Kobushi (Japanese), Chris Cason (English), Miguel de León (Latin American Spanish)

One of the Sleeping Knight's tanks.

Big Eater: At the Celebration party, he and Jun are scarfing down food.
The Big Guy: He's one of the two tanks of the Sleeping Knights, and unquestionably the biggest.
Big, Thin, Short Trio: Among the Sleeping Knight's male members, he’s the big to Jun’s short and Talken's thin.
Carry a Big Stick: He wields a Morning-Star like mace.
Eyes Always Shut: His eyes are almost always shut. You can very briefly see them open when he's fighting the floor 27 boss. When seen in the real world in War of Underworld, his eyes are shut there as well.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Fitting his role as a tank, he's got a big shield.
Stout Strength: Being a Gnome, his STR is naturally much larger than any other race, and he's got quite a bit of height and girth as a result.

Talken

Talken (ALO)

Voiced by: Atsushi Tamaru (Japanese), Zach Aguilar (English), Elliot Leguizamo (Latin American Spanish)

One of the Sleeping Knight's damage dealers.

Big, Thin, Short Trio: Among the Sleeping Knight's male members, he’s the thin to Jun's short and Tecchi's big.
Cannot Talk to Women: Nori notes that he gets nervous talking to girls. When introducing himself to Asuna, he stutters through most of his introduction.
- In the manga, a panel of him during the barbecue party at the log house shows him panicking with a Luminescent Blush when interacting with Liz and Sinon.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: He's frequently seen with Nori, who compared to him comes off as much more confident and boyish.
Leprechaun: His character race in ALO.

Nori

Nori (ALO)

Voiced by: Asami Tano (Japanese), Erica Lindbeck (English), Elizabeth Infante (Latin American Spanish)

One of the Sleeping Knight's damage dealers.

Action Girl: One of three women in the Sleeping Knights, and one of it's two frontline fighters.
Boyish Short Hair: Compared to Yuuki and Siune, who have long hair, she has short hair with a fringe on the left side.
Hard-Drinking Party Girl: At the Celebration Party, she and Talken occupy the drinks and she's pouring him a glass.
Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: She's frequently seen with Talken, who compared to her comes off as much more timid and formal.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: Like Yuuki, she’s the Tomboy to Siune's Girly Girl.

Aiko Konno / Ran

Aiko Konno / Ran (ALO, AE)

Yuuki's older twin sister.

Always Someone Better: She's significantly more talented than Yuuki, and this is shown when Ran wins the standing on one leg contest that serves as a test of Full-Dive Conformation. Yuuki even claims she's stronger than she is to Asuna, having seen her skills in prior VRMMOs before she passed away.
- This also applied in regards to IRL tests and physical education, with Ran always just beating out Yuuki by a smidge.
Consummate Liar: Aiko is much better at telling lies and keeping secrets than Yuuki is. After Yuuki almost reveals the Medicuboid's existence by telling Merida that she isn't using an Amusphere, Aiko quickly spins a story about Yuuki using a modified NerveGear.
Cool Big Sis: To Yuuki in a similar way to Asuna, which is why Yuuki unknowingly called the latter "Sis".
The Ditherer: Averted. Yuuki notes that one of the areas Ran is better than her at is making decisions, almost never having to think too hard on something. An example of this is when Merida takes them to a crepe shop in Serene Garden, and she makes her order almost instantaneously, much to Yuuki and Merida's surprise.
Heroic Sacrifice: She insisted on having Yuuki test the Medicuboid, knowing that the sister who did so would get a clean room, and thus a longer life expectancy than the one who didn't.
Like Mother, Like Daughter: Yuuki recalls that both Ran and their mother were always afraid of bugs, with her even claiming that whenever she brought a grasshopper inside, they would scream and run around.
Meaningful Name: Oddly enough, she's said to be named because of her birth in September, when the indigo blooms, even though she's Yuuki's twin sister.
Miko: Her Prestige Class in Asuka Empire is a Japanese style cleric.
Motherly Side Plait: Aiko's hairstyle both in real life and in VRMMOs, with the personality to match. Unfortunately also makes her a rare sister example of the "dead anime mom hairstyle" cliché, as she passes away in what is essentially Yuuki's origin story.
Playing with Fire: When she, Yuuki and Merida fight Akuro-ou, the boss for the class upgrade quest in Asuka Empire, she launches a magic fire seal at his head.
Posthumous Character: By the time the Sleeping Knights are introduced, Ran has been dead for some time.
Real Name as an Alias: Her online alias, Ran, is an alternative reading of the kanji used for "Ai" in her first name.
Sweet Tooth: Like her sister, she's rather fond of crepes, in part due to the ones their mother made, and when she and Yuuki went to a crepe shop with Merida when they first met, she immediately ordered with a lot of toppings. Also, part of how Merida convinced to play Asuka Empire is mentioning their collection of Japanese-style sweets, namely oshiroku^note.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: With her twin sister Yuuki. Aiko's a polite, motherly, and well mannered girl, in contrast to Yuuki's tomboyish behavior. This is even reflected in their Asuka Empire classes - Aiko plays a spell casting Miko to Yuuki's sword-wielding Samurai.
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Unlike her sister, Ran is very afraid of bugs.

Merida

Merida (ALO, AE)

A friend of the Konno sisters, a founding member of the Sleeping Knights, and an SAO beta tester who was unable to participate in the final game due to a brain tumor, which eventually led to her death.

Bug Catching: A hobby she picked up in Serene Garden, along with bug battles. In fact, when she first met Yuuki and Ran, she was clad in a camo outfit and holding a net, chasing after the Royal Triton Stag beetle (or royton for short) that Yuuki managed to catch barehanded.
Color Motif: Green. Her hair in Serene Garden and Asuka Empire is dyed green, and her Ninja outfit in the latter has a green colouring. When Yuuki and Ran first meet her, she's even wearing green camouflage.
Death Seeker: Since she has a tumor that has a 70 percent chance of killing her, she believes that if she's going to die soon, she should go back to SAO and risk her life to help her friends. Thankfully, Yuuki talks her out of it.
Delicate and Sickly: Merida has a brain tumor that stands a high chance of killing her. Unlike most examples of this trope in the franchise, this actually impacts her ability to play in VR from time to time with fainting spells.
Don't Call Me "Sir": She insists that the Konno sisters don't need to use "-san" on her, since she isn't that much older than they are.
Double Jump: An ability she has as a Ninja, which she uses in her duel against Yuuki to create some distance between them.
Experienced Protagonist: Compared to Yuuki and Ran, she's the most experienced VR player among thanks to her time in the SAO Beta Test, and her prior experience in Asuka Empire allows her to guide the Konno sisters.
Genki Girl: Even more so than Yuuki. Despite her Death Seeker tendencies, Merida is almost always energetic and hyper. More than once Ran has to calm her down as a result of getting too excited.
Lifesaving Misfortune: Inverted. Her brain tumour inadvertently prevented her from dying in SAO, since she was diagnosed with a minor brain tumour that doctors thought would heal on it's own shortly after the Beta-Test ended and was temporarily banned from playing VR games, causing her to miss the launch, which her parents and doctors saw as an inadvertant miracle. Subverted though as the tumour, which should be noted was in a place where removing it would kill her, worsened to the point that it had a 70% chance of killing her anyway, making her wish that she did get trapped in SAO so she can help the friends she made in the Beta and, in the event she did die, she would at least feel that it was meaningful than just dying from an illness.
Named Weapon: In Asuka Empire, she wielded a ninjato called "Akezuki", or "Scarlet Moon".
Ninja: Her Prestige Class in Asuka Empire is styled stealth and such skills.
Please Keep Your Hat On: She wears a beanie hat in the real world to conceal the hair loss from her tumor.
Posthumous Character: She died of her tumor around the same time Ran died.
Self-Duplication: As a Ninja, she has the Body Double skill, which allows her to create clones to help in attacking.
Small Role, Big Impact: Her introducing Yuuki and Ran to Asuka Empire not only played a part into turning Yuuki into the Genki Girl she is when we meet her, but also led to the Sleeping Knights forming in the first place.
Tomboyish Ponytail: How she wears her hair.
Troll: After meeting up with them in Asuka Empire, she decides to use a Smoke Out ability to sneak up behind Yuuki and grab her from behind to startle her.
Warrior Therapist: Upon noticing Yuuki freeze up in their duel out of fear of hurting her, she recounts to her the time she got into her first duel, where her opponent, a fellow One-Handed Sword user, said that a duel was more than just killing your opponent, but using their swords to communicate.
What You Are in the Dark: After Yuuki and Ran seemingly manage to dispel her wishes to enter SAO to help her guildmates, she immediately decides to do it after hearing about how Ran's using a modified NerveGear to dive with, saying she wants to meet her and Yuuki on their birthday as a pretext to visit their hospital and swipe Ran's NerveGear.

Clovis

Kiyofumi Yanagi / Clovis (AE)

Another member of the Sleeping Knights. Clovis has passed away by the time the Sleeping Knights are introduced in Mother's Rosario.

Bodyguard Crush: Implied between him and Ran when Yanagi looks at the artwork of the Sleeping Knights on the sliding doors. Whether or not she reciprocated is unknown.
Child Prodigy: Implied. Clevel gives praise at the mechanism he designed to create "ghosts" in his Asuka Empire quest, going as far to call Clovis a prodigy.
Delicate and Sickly: He spent the vast majority of his life hospitalized with an unnamed condition.
Easter Egg: He created a number of these for his Asuka Empire quest, including a hidden room dedicated to the Sleeping Knights.
The Ghost: Gets only a few mentions in the main series, with absolutely nothing known about him. Averted in Clover's Regret, where Clovis is central to the plot of the first volume.
Interface with a Familiar Face: The A.I. that appears in his Asuka Empire quest is modeled after him as a child.
Posthumous Character: He died sometime prior to the Sleeping Knights meeting Asuna, and is only mentioned a few times in the main series. However, he plays a major role post-death in the spin-off novel Clover's Regret.
Shout-Out: His online name is a reference to the protagonist of Namco's Dragon Buster arcade series
Walking Spoiler: As evident by the number of spoiler tags, it's nearly impossible to discuss his role in Clover's Regret without spoiling that he's Yanagi's grandson, or that their story relates to the Sleeping Knights as a whole.
Your Days Are Numbered: He knew from a young age that he would probably not live long.

Boss Clearing Guild

General

A well-known frontline guild that dedicate themselves to defeating Floor Bosses.

Adaptational Nice Guy: In the anime, two of their leaders are shown attending Yuuki's in-game funeral.
Animal Motif: Their guild symbol is depicted as being a white silhouette of a horse in a red shield crest.
Dirty Coward: Want to fight a boss but don't want to risk losing stat points and items from dying? Well, just use let some other players fight them knowing that they'll lose and record the whole thing so you can swoop in and steal the win!
Evil Virtues: If there's any good qualities the guild collectively has, it’s Determination. Despite losing over half of the players they were planning on fighting the Floor 27 Boss with due to The Sleeping Knights killing all the first arrivers and Kirito and Klein taking out some of the late arrivals, they still decided to try fighting the boss despite losing most of their men and resources. Sure, the boss was already beaten when they were actually able to enter, but props for trying.
Glory Seeker: The Guild itself is famous, or infamous, for challenging Floor Bosses and will typically monopolize the boss room entrance and prevent players from entering just so they can have the honour of defeating the boss.
Hate Sink: They use a familiar to spy on Asuna and the Sleeping Knights during their first attempt on the boss, and then show up to kill the boss before Yuuki and the others try again, refusing to let them make another attempt despite the fact that the guild isn't fully ready yet, even rubbing salt on the wound by telling them to take it up with headquarters, knowing fully well it would be an hour trip and they would have beaten the boss by then. They basically serve as nothing more than an obstacle to be overcome, and receive no sympathy from the narrative, which constantly points out their monopolization of game resources that should be accessible to everyone.
The Heavy: The closest thing the Mother's Rosario Arc has to some kind of antagonist, with them being the ones directly in the way of the Sleeping Knights achieving their dream.
Jerkass: Everyone in this guild have literally no qualms with monopolizing Floor Bosses and resources that should be accessible to everyone, using other players as pawns in defeating bosses with no recompense, and taunting those who want to fight a boss when they beat them to it.
Kick the Dog: As if using them to scope out a boss fight and then planning to steal the glory from them wasn't enough, they deny the Sleeping Knight's request to attempt the boss again despite the fact that all their guys weren't there yet and, as if to rub salt in the wound, tell them to take up with headquarters when they persist, despite the fact that the trip there and back would take at least an hour and they would have beaten the boss by then.
Kill Steal: They adopted a tactic of letting other players fight a Floor Boss first while using a Dark Magic spell called "Peeping", which sends a familiar that records everything it sees, to watch them so they can formulate a strategy and then defeat the boss before anyone else can get the chance.
No Name Given: Neither the guild nor any of the onscreen members are named in the novel or the anime. However, in the video game continuity, they're given the name Shamrock in Lost Song as the ones trying to beat the boss before the Sleeping Knights.
Obliviously Evil: While they're a bunch of Glory Seeker Jerkasses, they were likely completely unaware that the Guild that they were using to scope out a bunch of bosses before stealing their glory were a bunch of terminally ill patients with two of them being told they’re gonna die soon who just wanted to leave a mark on the world. The fact that two of the Boss Raid leaders were seen at Yuuki's funeral in the anime adds credence to this theory.
Villainous Valor: While they're understandably shaken from discovering that they're facing a guy with fast enough reaction speeds and precision to deflect spells, the same guy is one of the top contenders for World's Best Warrior who's known for Dual Wielding, and he's whipping out Excalibur to face them, they still decide to try fighting him.

Gnome Raid Leader

One of the guild's commanders, and the one who deals with the Sleeping Knights when they request another run at the boss.

Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: A Faux Affably Evil Jerkass wielding a Two-Handed Axe.
Faux Affably Evil: In all adaptations, he acts professional and even friendly when telling Asuna and the Sleeping Knights that they can't fight the boss, but this comes off as more mocking that actually polite, especially when he tells them to take up with HQ which in itself would be an hour trip. He drops the facade when Yuuki attacks him, accusing her of pulling a cheap trick when she was upfront about challenging him for the rights to fight the Floor Boss.
Hypocrite: When Yuuki challenges him to a fight and puts his HP down to the red, he claims that she pulled a dirty sneak attack despite the fact that she directly challenged him, he tried fighting back and that his guild is pulling an arguably more dirty move by monopolizing the floor boss.
Large and in Charge: As expected of a Gnome.
Pet the Dog: In the anime. He, along with Salamander Raid Leader, attends Yuuki's in-game funeral.
Punch-Clock Villain: Tries to pass himself off as this, saying that the reason he can’t let the Sleeping Knights make a second attempt against 27th Floor Boss in spite of the fact that his guys won’t be ready for another hour is because he’s been given orders from above.

Salamander Raid Leader

Another Raid leader of the Boss Clearing Guild, whose group Kirito and Klein holds off.

BFS: Appears to be his weapon.
Oh, Crap!: Has this reaction when Kirito uses Spell Break.
Pet the Dog: In the anime. He, along with the Gnome Raid Leader, attends Yuuki's in-game funeral.
Smug Snake: He's pretty confident that his guys can take on Kirito, merely having the mages fire at him with nary a care. Then Kirito uses Spell Break.
You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Exactly what he says upon seeing that the Sleeping Knights beat the Floor Boss.

Introduced in Alicization

Salamander Commander

A nameless Commander in the Salamander Army, making him second only to Eugene and Mortimer.

Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: A massive Jerkass whose weapon is heavily Implied to be the large axe that hangs from his back.
Composite Character: He's Adapted Out of the anime, where instead the entire crowd starts berating and calling out Liz on her plea.
Everyone Has Standards: While he’s a major asshole who doesn't seem to care much for SAO Survivors, even he seems surprised by the treatment they suffer IRL as revealed by Liz.
Fantastic Racism: He establishes himself as discriminatory against SAO Survivors when he accuses Lisbeth, one herself, of looking down on people who weren't in the Death Game.
Green-Eyed Monster: It's implied his Fantastic Racism against SAO Survivors stems from a belief that being trapped in SAO make them stronger players and they look down on Non-SAO Survivors like him as a result, never mind the fact that not all of them fought on the frontlines and that those that did got their combat experience from being forced to risk their lives almost daily.
Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: He wears a helmet with his armour and is a major Jerkass, having Fantastic Racism against SAO Survivors, who are essentially kidnapping victims, and refusing to help the Underworld's inhabitants.
Jerkass: He establishes himself as this by refuting Liz’s plea for help more harshly than necessary before establishing himself as to having a Fantastic Racism against SAO Survivors because he sees them as "arrogant", seemingly ignoring the fact they were forced to put their lives on the line for about two years.
Jerkass Has a Point: Despite his harsh and even condescending tone, he makes multiple valid points against Lisbeth's call for ALO players to help defend the Underworld. First, he asserts that Lisbeth is asking a lot by requesting that they dive into a server and possibly risk losing their characters (to say nothing of the pain absorber being off), a point that Lisbeth is forced to concede. Second, he accuses the SAO survivors of being cliquish, and claims that the problem has nothing to do with him; Lisbeth mentally acknowledges she spends most of her time with fellow SAO survivors. As a result of his arguments, the assembled ALO players are temporarily swayed to not help the Underworld until Lisbeth delivers a heartfelt rebuttal.
The Lancer: His position implies he's this to Eugene. While Eugene was content with quietly listening to Lisbeth’s plea with Sakuya and Alicia Rue, he shows himself to be comparably louder by actively trying to deliver a "Reason You Suck" Speech in response to her request.
No Name Given: Despite effectively being both Mortimer and Eugene's second-in-command, he's never really given a name.
No Sympathy: In line with his previously mentioned Fantastic Racism, he evidently has none towards SAO Survivors in regards to how they went through an event in which their life was at risk and they potentially lost friends and family, believing that they look down on non-SAO Survivors due to having greater experience with VR. Possibly Subverted when Liz reveals how poorly they're treated by the government.
Refusal of the Call: While a lot of players were uncertain about whether to answer Liz and her friend’s plea for help or not, he’s the only one who actively states his refusal to help and tries to convince everyone else to do the same.

Introduced in Girls Ops

Hiyori Kashiwazaka / Kuro / Lux

Hiyori Kashiwazaka / Kuro (ALO) / Lux (SAO, ALO)

Voiced by: Chinatsu Akasaki

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lux_8.png

^{Click here to see Kuro}

^{Click here to see Lux in RL}

A young girl and SAO survivor that Silica, Lisbeth, and Leafa first meet in New Aincrad and main character of the Girls Ops spinoff manga. Silica and Co. first meet her in the midst of the quest Angel's Whisper Rings.

She also appears as a DLC playable character in Lost Song, where she is voiced by Chinatsu Akasaki.

Ascended Fangirl: She becomes a massive fan of Kirito upon hearing of his exploits and how he ended SAO, even trying to emulate him when her original ALO avatar, Kuro, bore a striking resemblance to his original SAO avatar. Eventually she becomes acquainted with two of his friends from SAO and his sister and even gets the chance to meet him… albeit, not in the way she had hoped… But after getting over the embarrassment of that, she’s at least been able to party with him a few times.
- In Lost Song she get to be rescued by her hero Kirito when she's in trouble.
Awesomeness by Analysis: Despite being The Ditz, Lux proves to be very insightful and can make reasonable, and usually correct, deductions.
- While she dismisses it shortly after due to her lack of confidence, she correctly guesses that the swimsuit contest she and the girls are in isn't just based on physical appeal, but also on completing tasks and quests hidden around the beach, based on the flyer saying "Be the Hero of the Beach!", seeing other participants get into duels and discovering a quest, which shouldn't be possible if it was just a run of the mill event.
- As opposed to the other girls, she almost immediately sees Granze as the Bitch in Sheep's Clothing she is based on Argo mentioning the rumours surrounding her guild and recognizing that her seemingly polite and helpful conversation and the initial low price for the Fairy Mallet Recipe was just to trick them into letting their guard down so they'd let slip the name of the quest, allowing her to monopolize it for herself.
- Over the course of the heist on Elves and Shoemakers, she realizes that Adie was still working for Granze and was planning to betray them, a deduction that she thinks is shot down when Liz vouches for her. Fortunately, Liz’s faith prompts her to change sides.
- Using her experience fighting him as Kuro, where he had fixed attack patterns like most enemy NPCs, Lux is able to realize that Einherjhar Kirito was only pretending to revert to his previous Jerkass personality so the girls would fight him seriously, based on how his attacks have started lack any noticeable patterns. With this knowledge, she's able to fluster him into dropping the façade and throwing off his Sword Skill by saying "I love you".
Battle Strip: In Volume 2, When Lux offers to go on ahead of the girls in order to fight the octopus monster, she removes her pareo to use as a makeshift sail to work with Liz's shield.
Becoming the Mask: Tries to invoke this with her Kuro avatar, hoping to become like her image of Kirito.
Best Friend: Out of all of the girls in the main cast of Girls’ Ops, she is arguably the closest with Silica.
Beware the Nice Ones: Lux is generally a nice, if somewhat ditzy, girl. But she's also a capable swordfighter who can easily see through shady actions and waste no time calling people out on them.
Black Swords Are Better: As Kuro, one of her swords was black to help simulate Kirito. After converting to ALO as Lux, she is given a new sword by Lisbeth that is also black. She emulates the "Black Swordsman", after all.
Boob-Based Gag: Not as prominent as Leafa, but the first two volumes have some jokes about her chest.
Brutal Honesty: While Liz and Silica somewhat alleviate Garnet’s worries about SAO being a Death Game, a concern stemming from people believing her cousin's marriage with a fellow SAO Survivor is "fake", with their own more positive experiences, Lux doesn't hesitate to inform Garnet that while SAO wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be, it was still a Death Game where people died and abruptly asking people about it like she did them can be seen as Innocently Insensitive.
The Bus Came Back: The Kuro Avatar makes a return in the Fairy Mallet Arc, when Lux logs out and goes to intercept the Einherjar on their route to Jotunheim.
Change the Uncomfortable Subject: During the Swimsuit Contest Arc when the girls find themselves behind on the rankings, Liz asks Lux if she followed her advice and squeezed her breasts together when serving the yakisoba. This prompts Lux to quickly change the subject to the climbing girl providing a low angle she and Silica saw on the way back.
Character Development: She gets this in almost every appearance she has, largely because her previous development paves the way for a new problem, ironically enough.
- When first introduced, she is utterly dedicated to emulating how everyone viewed Kirito: A loner Dual-Wielder in black with absurd strength who kept everyone at an arm’s length to protect them. However, her means of doing this, namely by not making any friends, not accepting help and attempting difficult tasks alone, proves to do more harm than good by only making her lonely and stressed. It’s only after meeting his friends Lisbeth, Silica and Leafa and learning what he's really like that she breaks out of this, willingly making friends with the three girls and even retiring her Kuro avatar in favour of her old SAO avatar, Lux.
- From the get-go Lux has very little self-confidence, which is very likely the reason for her previous emulation of Kirito. In Volume 2 when she suggests a theory about a quest they had the option of initiating being connected to the swimsuit contest they're in, she quickly tries to dismiss the theory in fear of it actually being an attempt to waste their time, even if the quest giver is a Cutie crying about getting separated from her sister. After getting a pep talk from Liz and convincing that she shouldn’t take ALO as seriously, along with light admonishment that she shouldn't ignore a sad child, she becomes more than willing to help in the quest and even helps encourage the kid. This culminates in her willingly going on ahead of the others to deal with the Jellyfish Monster that fled to the beach with little hesitation and even dealing the final blow.
- In both Volumes 2 and 3, it becomes evident that her guilt from joining Laughing Coffin weighs heavily on her. This first shows when she opts to cover her legs with a pareo during the swimsuit contest arc due to her Mark of Shame having been there. It takes Silica telling that she's got beautiful legs for her to fully accept that it isn't there anymore, which gives her the confidence to use her pareo as a makeshift sail to chase down the boss monster the girls found to the beach. Later on, when Gwen threatens to reveal her Dark and Troubled Past to Silica, Liz and Leafa if she doesn't break ties with them, she stops hanging out with them and even tries quitting ALO, believing that they'll hate her. And when Gwen tells them anyway since the method she chose means she wouldn't have Lux to herself and she's forced to reveal the whole truth to them, she says that she'll understand if they want to stop being friends with her. When they tell her that they understood her decision and that she shouldn’t be blamed for it, cementing that they want to remain friends with her, she immediately starts crying Tears of Joy. While her guilt over it doesn't completely subside, she becomes a lot less affected by her past. This extends to wanting to properly reconcile with Gwen as opposed to just avoid her all-together.
Cosmic Plaything: Nothing seems to go right for Lux. If getting trapped in SAO wasn’t enough, she was forced to join SAO's most infamous PK Guild that caused her no end of guilt, lost her Only Friend at the time, Gwen, due to her mistaking her desire to leave as a personal betrayal, and lost her next Only Friend, Rossa, after she ended up Taking A Bullet for her. By the time of Girls’ Ops, every arc so far seems to link to her Dark and Troubled Past, the first one having a reminder to her friend’s death and the quest she’s on seemingly out to remind that she’s an Ineffectual Loner instead of a One-Man Army like (her image) of Kirito, the second arc having her paranoid that her Laughing Coffin tattoo could be seen, the third arc having Gwen return to stir up trouble and guilt trip her over her so-called betrayal, and the fourth causing her to think that Rossa’s ghost is haunting her and digging deeper into this causing her and her friends to become targets of the Elves and Shoemakers Guild, a group of Con-Artists who are Only in It for the Money and want to take advantage of her friend’s ghost for this end. On a lighter note, there are times when she ends up the Butt-Monkey due to her ditzy nature and Hero Worship of Kirito.
Dark and Troubled Past: When she meets Silica and co. her time in SAO has become this. In SAO while separated from a temporary party, she was saved from death by Laughing Coffin and forced to choose between joining them or risk death in the dungeon, and forced to join as a green intelligence agent to survive. During this she befriended Gwen, the leader of an orange subordinate guild of Laughing Coffin guild, out of a desire to have someone close to despite simply joining only to survive. Eventually when Laughing Coffin was purged by the clearing group she was spared as it was believed by those that found her and Gwen that she was a hostage. Gwen escaped from those that sought to capture her but left a parting message and left revoking their status as friends. After the incident she did her best to lay low with the only person who she interacted with being a girl named Rossa who perished protecting her, after which she began avoiding others all over again not wanting to lose anyone else.
David Versus Goliath: Ends up as the "David" in the scenario when she, as Kuro, duels Einherjar Kirito, who's essentially Kirito from SAO with an endless supply of Throwing Picks to all but nullify her flying advantage.
Distaff Counterpart: Visually, Kuro's quite literally meant to be a female Kirito, which is ironic considering at the same time she showed up, Kirito was busy in GGO using a girly-looking avatar.
The Ditz: She has some tendencies of this in the omakes, such as how she realized she got Kirito's swords in the wrong hands because she was looking in a mirror when she did it.
Dual Wielding: As Kuro, she wields dual swords in order to imitate Kirito, whom she greatly admires. She uses her left sword to parry and imitating One-Handed Sword Skills that she used in Aincrad. As Lux she later replaces wielding a second sword with a white dagger she receives from Silica. The other was made by Liz.
Epic Fail: Being The Ditz she is, she's prone to these. During her fight with Einherjhar Kirito, she's able to lower his guard, parry his Sword Skill, and is about to unleash a powerful sword combo on him... only to trip. It's a good thing the other girls were there to follow up in her place.
Fangirl: A massive one towards Kirito for being the one to clear SAO, which for Lux was a Trauma Conga Line. It's to the point that she began to emulate him when her initial ALO Avatar, Kuro, ended up resembling him, and she briefly fangirls after witnessing a Dual Blades skill and managing to deflect it by luck when facing his Einherjar copy, and is even excited at being killed a Starburst Stream.
Gamer Girl: The Omake for Volume 6 implies that even before SAO Lux was an avid gamer.
G.I.R.L.: Inverted. In the Omake of Volume Lux admits that she prefers playing as males and that her original SAO avatar was a man.
Genius Ditz: Downplayed. While she's often a complete klutz, something even her friends acknowledge, she's shown to be quite skilled in a few areas. For example, between the four main heroines, she's the one who almost always figures out something that helps the girls' with their objective, such as that the swimsuit contest is based on both their appearance and their ability to complete quests, or that Granze is a Con Artist that planned on monopolizing the quest they were on for herself, allowing them to continue the quest with full knowledge that'll she oppose them instead of having the quest stolen out from under them without their knowledge.
Girls Love Stuffed Animals: When we see her bed during a between chapter illustrations in Volume 4 and when her Amusphere forcibly logs her out after she sees Rossa's ghost, her bed is shown to be covered in a variety of stuffed animals.
Good Is Dumb: Downplayed. While generally coming off as The Ditz, Lux is actually quite intelligent and sharp.
Heroes Prefer Swords: She consistently fights with swords. In ALO, she wields a One-Handed Sword made by Liz with the dagger she received from Silica, representing their bonds of comradery. She also wielded swords in SAO and dual wielded them with her Kuro avatar when she emulated the hero of Aincrad.
Heroic BSoD: A few times.
- Enters one after Silica takes a blow meant for her from some slimes when they first meet, causing her to remember when Rossa did the same thing as the cost of her life and causing her to have a breakdown.
- Enters a minor one in Volume 2 over the possibility that her suggestion that Emely's quest is connected to the swimsuit contest might be incorrect, trying to convince the girls to ignore it out of fear that they'll have wasted precious time because of her.
Hero-Worshipper: Towards Kirito. Who she looks up to as a model for independent strength. Even after she stops trying to emulate him with her Kuro Avatar, she still looks up to him.
Identical Stranger: As Kuro, her avatar looks pretty much identical to Kirito. This was intentional on her part, as after noticing how her auto-generated ALO avatar's resemblance to Kirito, she decided to wear black clothes and wield two swords much like her idol.
I Did What I Had to Do: Subverted. While joining Laughing Coffin was her only feasible option for survival, especially with them threatening to leave her alone in a dungeon full of monsters or maybe even kill her if she didn’t, she deeply regretted it for her whole life due to the fact that she was supporting a Guild which actively murdered people and worked to halt progress in clearing the game. She states that she doesn't see her circumstances as an excuse. Then the trope is double-subverted. Keiko pulls a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man and reminds her that everyone made painful choices to survive Aincrad; Lux's choice is no less valid than anyone's and she doesn't deserve to feel such crushing shame.
Idiot Hair: Has a curled strand of hair on the top of her head, emphasizing her ditzy nature.
Ineffectual Loner: What she was in her first appearance was a deliberate loner, because she assumed that was how Kirito became strong. This lead to her being overwhelmed by large numbers of slimes. The first thing she had to do was grow out of it. She much prefers having friends.
It's Personal: The reason she's doing the Angel's Whisper quest in Volume 1 is because Rosa did the quest and gave her the ring she got from it, and Lux promised to get one to give to Rossa before her death.
I Work Alone: As part of her attempts at emulating Kirito, she initially refuses the girl's help in the "Angel's Whisper" quest.
Lady Looks Like a Dude: As Kuro, she looks just like Kirito from a distance and even when they learn that she isn't him, they still assume she's a guy until Silica accidentally falls on top of her and they notice that the Anti-Harassment Warning didn't go off, at which point she reveals the truth.
Leg Focus: Silica comments positively on her legs convince her to not be embarrassed by them during the swimsuit contest arc, not knowing that the reason for is due to her Mark of Shame.
Licked by the Dog: What gives her the final push to accept Silica's party invite and work with the girls to defeat the boss is Pina using her healing breath on her before she even joins the party.
Loving a Shadow: A Hero-Worshipper variant. While her admiration of Kirito doesn't at all diminish after she learns the truth about him, it's clear from how she operated as Kuro that it stemmed largely from the stories she's heard of him, which are noted multiple times by Kirito and people who know him to be very exaggerated. As a sign of Character Development, she Subverts this in the girls' fight against Einherjhar Kirito, where she gets the copy to lower his guard and drop his evil façade by saying "I love you", flustering him and throwing his Sword Skill for her to successfully parry it, with her internally recognizing that behind the Invincible Hero image she saw him in, was just a regular teenage boy who lies to protect a girls' feelings.
Mark of Shame: Had the Laughing Coffin tattoo carved onto her leg. Even with it now gone, she doesn't like baring where it was due to the memory of it.
Messy Hair: Downplayed. Her long hair is slightly curly and unkempt, but not in a way that makes her appear messy.
My Greatest Failure: Joining Laughing Coffin out of a desire to live and the death of Rossa are both candidates for the worst events in her life, and both of them haunt her.
The Power of Friendship: A constant theme in Hiyori's character arc is how valuable friends can be in helping one get by.
- In Volume 1, she tries to become as strong as Kirito by solo-grinding and fighting bosses on her own. Then she discovers that Kirito, as powerful as he is as a player, draws strength from his bonds with others and works with them.
- In Volume 2, she resumes dual-wielding thanks to gifts from her friends, a sword made by Liz and a dagger back-up weapon from Silica. A four-girl Combination Attack is necessary to defeat the boss at the climax.
- In Volume 3, she comes clean to her friends about her dark past in SAO, and they assure her that they are still her friends. It is through them that she finds a measure of absolution for her sins.
Oh, Crap!: In a Flashback, she has a major one when she realizes that "saviours" are Laughing Coffin.
Samus Is a Girl: When she first meets Silica and co. as Kuro she is at first mistaken for a boy due to her avatar resembling Kirito.
Secretly Selfish: She states that her desire to reconcile with Gwen is because she thinks that Gwen is lonely and in need of the same kind of friendship that she herself found with the main girls. At the end of Volume 4, she's called on this by Gwen herself, and she acknowledges that she's really just selfish; she wants to start over with Gwen and be her friend despite all the trouble in their history, and she doesn't want to lose her other friends in order to be Gwen's friend again, which means she is ignoring Gwen's opinion on the matter.
Stepford Smiler: When they first meet, Silica notes that "her smile isn't the kind you have when you want to be alone", which is what prompts the girls to follow and help with the rest of the quest despite her request to do it alone.
Supporting Protagonist: Despite being the main character whose personal conflicts drive the plots of Girls' Ops, she doesn't actually get too much focus compared to the other girls, especially Silica.
Took a Level in Badass: Less in being a "badass", as she's already one in her own right, but more in confidence. The last scene of Girls Ops has her, Rika and Keiko run into Kazuto on their way out of the school to meet with Suguha. When it looks like Hiyori's gonna have one of her embarrassed Freak Outs, she remembers Rossa's Last Request to smile and instead greets him with one before continuing on her way. Though she did say "good morning" by mistake.
Trauma Button: Due to her experience with Rossa, seeing a player die in front of her, especially if they do so Taking the Bullet, can bring up some nasty memories. Thankfully, she appears to be growing out of this by Volume 5.
Walking Spoiler: A good deal of Girls' Ops arcs have links to Lux's Dark and Troubled Past back in SAO.
Weight Woe:
- In the Omake for Volume 5, she decides to try spending time away from the girls upon realizing that their Sweet Tooths and tendency to invite her for sweets is causing her to gain weight
- In Volume 6, the girls come across a pressure plate that they need to activate to open a door. Lux is the only not keen on this, scooting further and further away from it. She eventually resorts to dumping a bunch of items from her inventory to take her place, which turns out being the right call since the plate needs to be held down indefinitely.
You Are Not Alone:
- During her Heroic BSoD in Volume 1, Silica tells her of how Kirito didn't clear SAO all on his own like everyone believes and that he had people helping him, and that it's because of that that they won't let him be alone, and that the same goes for Kuro. This motivates her to keep fighting and, when all is said and done, actually befriend the girls.
- Gets this again after she reveals to the other girls that she was in Laughing Coffin and states that she'd understand if they wanted to stop being friends with her. Instead of rejecting her like she expected, she's surprised when they instead comfort her and reassure her that she didn't do anything wrong, affirming that they are still want to be friends with her. This causes her to cry Tears of Joy.
You Don't Look Like You: In-Universe. When they first met Kuro, she came off to Silica and the girls as a calm and collected, androgynous looking girl. So imagine their surprise when a ditzy, excitable girl with long hair and a very feminine figure glomps them out of nowhere at school, and said girl turns out to be Kuro's real life identity.
You Remind Me of X: After Silica and co follow her, Kuro notes that she's "just as nosy and kindhearted as [Rossa] was", which motivates her to fight harder and keep them alive. This makes it hurt more when Silica does the same thing Rossa did to protect her.

Ashley

A former SAO Survivor who maxed out her Sewing Skill in the Death Game and repeated this feat in ALO.

Ambiguous Gender Identity: There are hints that Ashley is Transgender; She has a female username, she's referred to using female pronouns and acts in a effeminate manner, yet her avatar looks male, likely the result of being forced to play as her biological gender. The official YenPress translation, however, makes her look like a Camp Straight, referring to her using male pronouns yet keeping her effeminate mannerisms and username.
Awesomeness by Analysis: In part due to her high skill level, she's able to realize that the girls' clothes were damaged by a unique substance, Slimes, and that they now have a debuff that lowers their values, which would remain even if the visible damage was repaired, thus the high repair price of 1,000,000 Yrld.
Berserk Button: People not taking proper care for their clothes. She gets visibly annoyed when Leafa complains about the high price for their equipment repairs since she's "just repairing them", going on a small tirade about it and the true measure of the damages, and claiming that their carelessness would make her reluctant to do the job even if they did have the money.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: When recommending Ashley's shop to Lisbeth, Asuna remarks that Ashley is a highly skilled tailor and also "a unique individual". Both are understatements, as Asuna's friends see for themselves.
Cuteness Proximity: She's shown to like cute girls but seems to have a fondness for Cait Sith, groping Silica’s ears when she and the others visit her to ask for repairs and after getting the money to pay for said repairs.
Doing It for the Art: In-Universe. Her dedication and love for fashion prompts to take only custom orders from customers.
The Fashionista: She was the first SAO player to complete her Sewing skill, opening a clothes shop where she only takes custom orders. She repeats this feat in ALO. When repairing the girls' clothes in Girls' Ops v2, she makes a few cosmetic alterations.
No Hero Discount: She never ever gives discounts, not even to SAO survivors recommended to her by an old friend.
Nudity Equals Honesty: Downplayed. She apparently has a liking for swimsuits since she feels that they draw on the wearer's natural charm and beauty, and that they test the wearer's confidence and drive.
Pet the Dog: Along with repairing the girls' clothes once they get the money, she also upgrades their parameters for free because they impressed her during the swimsuit contest. She also makes Lux her own new set of gear since she figured Lux would feel left out being the only one in starter gear. This was also for free.
Reasonable Authority Figure: She proves to be surprisingly helpful to the girls during the Swimsuit Contest Arc; while she will not simply give them a discount on the premise of them being friends with Asuna, she does direct the girls to the swimsuit contest that rewards the exact amount they need for the repairs, and even lends them swimsuits to use in competition that, with some input from Liz, plays to their strengths.
Serious Business: Sees clothes and fashion as this, and Leafa complaining about the 1,000,000 Yrld price for repairs by claiming that all she's doing is repairing their clothes presses her Berserk Button.
Worthy Opponent: Ashley has great respect for Lisbeth as a fellow crafter, having known her by reputation before they meet in person (so to speak).

Garnet

A new player to ALO who constantly finds herself getting tricked by her more experienced friends.

Badass Family: Her cousin is an SAO survivor who got married to someone in-game. However, a lot of people are suspicious of how genuine these feelings are due to them having met in the infamous “Death Game.”
BFS: Her weapon appears to be one of these.
The Ditz: She has very little experience with games like ALO and so is either tricked easily or doesn’t have a firm grasp on the mechanics.
Face of a Thug: When she first comes to Liz's shop, she acts like a stereotypical punk to come off as an experienced player.
Informed Attribute: Inverted. Her red Color Motif and use of fire magic implies that she's a Salamander, but it's never outright stated.
Innocently Insensitive:
- Due to the fact that her cousin found love in SAO, she has something of an idealized view of the “Death Game” as opposed to how most people view it as… well, a Death Game. When she asks Liz and the others about upon learning they’re survivors, they willingly answer her questions but warn her that she can’t go around asking people about stuff like that since not everyone had a great experience compared to them.
- Later on when she starts to view herself as The Load, she suggests letting herself die so she won’t hold the others back, not knowing that watching her friends die in-game is a major Trauma Button for Lux.
Leeroy Jenkins: When she and the girls discover the boss room and the other girls speculate that there's some kind of secret they discovered, she's quick to rush in out of excitement.
Magic Knight: She has a certain aptitude for magic.
New Meat: She’s a new player to ALO.
Not-So-Badass Longcoat: She wears a red and white longcoat, but is a newbie player who’ll believe whatever anyone tells her about the game and constantly bumps into failure and problems as a result. She begins to grow out of this at the end of her introduction.
Pride Before a Fall: As a result of her friends taunting her for being a Noob, she boasts that she can do the quest by herself. She fails before she can even get started.
Sarashi: Wears one around her chest.
Took a Level in Badass: Downplayed. Starting out, she's a Super Gullible New Meat player who's rather clumsy and has trouble mastering the mechanics, such as Flight and Switching. By the end of the quest, she's able to deal with final blow on the boss and feels confident enough to tackle it again with her friends.
Took a Level in Cheerfulness: In the beginning, having to deal with her Jerkass friends who lie to her about how the game works to mess with her and give her grief for being The Load severely hindered her enjoyment of ALO, to the point that she considered quitting. The girls doing the quest with her, and her dealing the final blow to the boss, allows her to truly enjoy ALO and keep playing.
Walking Shirtless Scene: Downplayed. Her outfit consists of a long coat and a Sarashi around her chest.
With Friends Like These...: It's evident that her friends that she's playing ALO with are kind of dickish. When they failed a quest, they effectively blamed her for it despite knowing she was still a new player and getting used to things, and it soon becomes clear that they lied to her a lot about how ALO works to mess with her, making it evident that it's partially their fault that she became The Load.
Leafa: Those are some friends you got...

The Batty Bats

General

A group of PKers led by Gwen that have been harassing caravans and newbie players in Sylph territory recently.

Crazy-Prepared: Despite not expecting Sakuya's Big Damn Heroes, they reacted calmly and even brought out hooked throwing spears that would be ideal against her.
It Amused Me: Due to their lack of discrimination over what players they target, whether it be experienced players, merchant caravans or even new players, Sakuya speculates that this is the reason for their actions.
Karma Houdini: In the end, while they're forced to Break The Fellowship when Gwen's Anti-Magic trick is discovered and with Sakuya's forces in-coming, they're able to escape with no punishment for their P King antics. Plus, with the implications that a few or maybe all of them were former Laughing Coffin or members of their subsidiaries, they got a double count of this.
Stock Ninja Weaponry: Following Gwen's lead, a lot of their weapons appear to follow this trend, with things like nets, Wolverine Claws, tonfas, a kusarigama^note, and smoke bombs. The one exception appears to be a Battle Boomerang wielded by the sub-leader.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Ironically, they end up pulling this on Gwen since they only followed her due to her Anti-Magic trick, which was just exposed by the girls, and they didn't want to get killed by Sakuya's forces.

Meimi Tsurusaki / Gwen

Meimi Tsurusaki / Gwen (ALO)

An ex-friend of Lux's and the first official antagonist of the Girls' Ops Manga.

Ambiguously Bi: During her stint as an Arc Villain, she's comes off as a clingy ex-girlfriend who's bitter over a break-up, even calling Lux "beloved" one time. And after her Heel–Face Turn, not only does this behaviour morph into something resembling an overprotective girlfriend who's prone to Crush Blushes, but she immediately cosies up to Kirito, and actually seems annoyed when Leafa tells her to buzz off.
Anti-Magic: Appears to have the ability to negate spells through unknown means. In reality she’s throwing small pieces of a rare material that increases an armour’s Magic Resistance with an Original Sword Skill, negating magic spells while giving off the impression of a special, unknown skill.
Badass Adorable: After her Heel–Face Turn, she switches her ALO Avatar for her old SAO Avatar, which bears greater resemblance to her Token Mini-Moe appearance IRL.
Bait-and-Switch: Following her Heel–Face Turn, it appears as if she's solidifying it by turning herself into the Sylphs, handing over all her items, and deleting her account. Only for it to turn out that she's actually transferring her old SAO data like Hiyori did with Lux.
Berserk Button: She gets easily enraged with Silica, Lisbeth and Leafa’s “false” friendship with Lux and them flaunting it around. She drops it after her Heel–Face Turn.
Betrayal by Inaction: Viewed Lux’s indecisiveness on whether to run away with her and go on the run or not and free herself from Laughing Coffin as breaking their friendship.
Big Damn Heroes: With the help of Argo, she jumps in to help the girls deal with Granze and her Guild, with her taking out the soldier holding Lux's avatar hostage.
Chekhov's Gun: When we first meet her, she's shown to be using throwing knives, which are noted later to be widely unused compared to bows and spells due to possessing less power. It turns out that her use of them plays into her Anti-Magic skill.
Chekhov's Gunman: Her "ability" to cancel out other players' magic props up again in the Fairy Mallet Arc, where she uses to prevent the Elves and Shoemakers' mages from using their Facsimile Staffs.
Dark Action Girl: She first appears as an antagonist. Later subverted.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
- She couldn’t understand why Silica, Lisbeth and Leafa would still want to be friends with Lux despite knowing of her involvement with Laughing Coffin and all of her threats, and was very surprised when they tried to save her from the Golem she summoned despite it being designed to be seemingly unbeatable.
- In her and Lux’s backstory in SAO, she’s outright baffled that Lux would want to surrender to the Clearers and be free of Laughing Coffin, seemingly forgetting that her first meeting with Lux consisted of the other girl expressing how guilty she was of being in a PK guild and viewing it as a betrayal of their friendship, as she was a leader of one of Laughing Coffin’s subsidiary guilds.
Flechette Storm: Wields a set of kunai like throwing knives.
Freudian Excuse: Implied. If her IRL appearance and the size of her bed^note is anything to go by, then Meimi is from a rich family IRL. And based on Asuna's experiences, we can safely assume that such a life isn't as glamorous as it would seem, which would explain her I Just Want to Be Free mentality that leads to her becoming the Internet Jerk in-game and why she actually enjoyed SAO.
Heel–Face Turn: She eventually reconciles with Lux and stops trying to break apart her friendships.
Height Angst: Can be easily annoyed by her IRL(And later in-game) height, due to how it’s difficult for her to reach things.
I Just Want to Be Free: Her main reason for actually enjoying SAO was the freedom it gave her compared to IRL and she enjoys ALO for similar reasons.
In the Hood: When she first appears, she's donning a hooded cloak to hide her identity.
Karma Houdini: Technically. While she does lose her guild, has her The Aloner and Internet Jerk worldview shattered, and makes a Heel–Face Turn, when she turns herself in to the Sylphs for her crimes and hands over all her items in apology, Sakuya can't actually punish her for what she did since her actions, while not exactly justified, aren't technically illegal within ALO and not something that could get her in trouble with the administrators, forcing her to basically let her go.
Kick the Dog: Her spiteful tormenting of Lux, which includes Blackmailing her to cut ties with her friends, telling them anyway, and constantly guilt-tripping her over her past in Laughing Coffin.
Lack of Empathy: Her response to Liz accusing her of being a Jerkass with no consideration to the feelings of others?
Gwen: ...? What's wrong with that?
Laser-Guided Karma: Her Freudian Excuse for her actions is that she felt that she was betrayed and abandoned by Lux back in SAO. In the end, she gets betrayed and abandoned for real by her own guild once the secret to her Anti-Magic is exposed.
Never My Fault:
- She pins all the blame for her and Lux's falling out on her former friend, ignoring the role her own selfishness and desire for freedom played.
- When Lux is forced to confront her alone after the group falls for a trap, she informs her that she ordered her cronies to capture them and decides to taunt her by stating that if they get killed, it's Lux's fault for defying her.
Princesses Prefer Pink: She’s Implied to be from a rich family and she has a liking for the color pink, wearing it in-game and IRL.
Rebellious Princess: It’s heavily Implied that she’s from a rich family and that she doesn’t like how restrictive the life of an upper-class teenager is, which is why she actually enjoyed SAO.
Refuge in Audacity: "Silver Palace Fragments", a material that can be used to raise an armour's magic resistance and is what Gwen uses for her Anti-Magic trick, is such a rare material that no normal player would think of using it the way she does, which helps in keeping up the illusion until she drops a fragment during the fight when the girls get the better of her, with Liz recognizing it and explaining it's properties.
Reverse Grip: Wields her ninja sword in this grip,presumably for R- value.
Stock Ninja Weaponry: She wields a ninja sword, several Kunai and a collection of smoke bombs.
To Create a Playground for Evil: She claims to the girls that her PKing activities are because she wants to make ALO like how SAO was; a place where players can be who they really are and do what they want, including fighting and kill each other.
Technicolor Ninja: She has a favoritism for the color pink, with her main outfit being pink despite her stealth build.
Villainous Breakdown:
- Starts to have one when Lux becomes unaffected by her repeated attempts to lay all the blame for their falling out and her subsequent actions on her and tells her to turn herself in. She starts going from smug and self-righteous to more angry and vindictive, as well as sounding more desperate to claim that everything's Lux's fault. Then when she goes to try and kill the other girls to torment Lux in retaliation, she's shocked to see that they haven't been captured like she ordered.
- After her Guild abandons her upon the exposure of her Anti-Magic trick, she attempts to fully embrace her The Alone mindset and intentionally triggers a trap that summons a golem monster that will kill her and the girls.
Walking Spoiler: She has an important role in Lux's Dark and Troubled Past
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once her anti-magic trick was discovered and they hear that Sakuya’s forces are approaching, her Guild Mates are quick to abandon her and continue on their own.

Elves and Shoemakers

General

A Leprechaun guild that specializes in dealing in item recipes. In reality, they're a group of Con Artists who monopolize any in-game resource they can.

All Men Are Perverts: The soldiers, under the orders of Granze, were planning on paralysing the girls and taking all, and we mean all, of their equipment, with intentions to examine "every last inch". One is even shown smiling when Leafa reminds Silica about this and gets increasingly frustrated when she dodges his slashes in a panic.
Awesome, but Impractical: To make up for a Leprechauns lack of magic ability in exchange for their blacksmithing skill, the guild's mage players are equipped with "Facsimile Staffs", crafted wands that, when forged, gets a random spell attached to it that any player, even those without the skill levels to cast it normally, can use so long as they cast it properly. The main problems with them are that they get High-Level attack spells attached to them less than 1% of the time, meaning you'd need to go through some trial-and-error to get the spells you want attached to them, an issue confounded by how much resources you need to create just one. They also have a ten minute cooldown after use. They're able to Subvert this however in two ways; one, they have enough resources to do the trial and error without too big a blow to their wealth, and two, they found a loophole where the cooldown can be reset if the staff to given to someone else through a trade.
Booby Trap: Their hideout is filled to the brim with various mechanisms and traps, including giant boulders, weight panels needed to open doors, and razor wires to damage equipment. Justified since it's technically a dungeon that opens up when other races are invading.
Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Many of the guild's frontline warriors are shown wielding shields.
No Kill like Overkill: Like what Gtacs and his party did against Kirito in Fairy Dance, they attempt to finish off the girls with a party set-up suited for bosses, with shield-wielding tanks at the front and mages using powerful spells, with the help of a special wand, at the back.
Fantastic Racism: Adie claims that her guild gives preferential treatment towards members who are actually Leprechauns while subjecting non-Leprechauns like her to grunt work and denying them certain facilities.
Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Save for Granze and Adie, who removes the armour when she betrays the guild and is out of the armour by the time of her full Heel–Face Turn, all of the guild's frontline fighter wear helmets that expose their mouths.

Granze

The Leader of the Elves and Shoemakers Guild.

Ambition Is Evil: She essentially wants to rule ALfheim by amassing enough resources.
Awesome, but Impractical: Her Double-Edged Hammer is considered this; while it's ability to cause AoE's when it impacts something is certainly dangerous and damaging, it's use is Cast from Hit Points as the shockwaves will also damage the wielder, which is why their use is practically unheard of. And while Granze did manage to get her hands on a version that doesn't damage her with it's shockwaves, she has to wear minimal armour to equip it, turning her into a Glass Cannon.
The Bad Guy Wins: Just barely Subverted. In the end, she's able to trick the girls into leading her to the Quest NPC and hand her the recipe, creating the Fairy Mallet, using it to create the false Gjallrhorn to summon the Einherjar, and then striking a deal with them to ensure she can reap the rewards of their conquest of Jotunheim, preparing to finish off the girls after getting five minutes for Einherjar Kirito. However, Adie is able to ruin things for her using one of her barrier bombs, which remains for over the five minute time-limit given to her, causing the Einherjar to leave without her or her men and ensuring she'll ultimately gain nothing from their attack.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: When someone comes buying info from her, she presents herself as a friendly and helpful individual who will flatter her clients and offer compliments. The moment she learns the quest or item they came to her about though, she will quickly have her guild monopolize it for themselves and, if someone sees through the façade, will quickly attempt to bribe them for the information and even resort to force to get what she wants.
The Coats Are Off: When she finally decides to fight the girls herself, she removes her coat when she whips out her Double-Edged Hammer and fights the girls herself. Argo speculates that it's because her particular one doesn't damage her like Liz says most Double-Edged Hammers do, but in exchange it can only be equipped from wearing minimal armour.
Dark Is Evil: Has black hair and dresses in dark clothes, and is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Con Artist who monopolizes quests and items for herself.
Depraved Bisexual: Implied. To prevent them from leaving, Granze opts to capture Lux and co., take their equipment for her guild, and “examine every last inch” of them. If she’s been exposed before, it’s likely that she’s done the same to male players.
Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She seems to think that, should her true self be exposed, that she can simply use ludicrous amounts of money to get what she wants, and is surprised when the Silica and the girls refuse her 20,000,000 yrld offer, being too disgusted with her blatant monopolization of game resources and It's All About Me attitude, and decide to take their business elsewhere.
Evil Is Petty: While Con Artists in SAO and GGO are understandable enough, the former being a Death Game with limited resources and the latter having a cash conversion system that can convert in-game credits into real money, ALO has no such stakes or system, meaning that Granze’s borderline illegal conning is likely just for the pleasure of it.
Exact Words: When confronted by Adie before she betrays her, she tells Adie that she's "always watching her". Yet when Adie checks herself for spells later, she finds nothing resembling a tracking spell. As revealed when Granze catches up though, she reveals that she cast the spell on Silica as early as when the SAO footage aired, meaning she was watching her through the Familiar she cast on someone else.
Fantastic Racism: Implied. While Granze never exhibits such behavior, Adie claims that her guild gives preferential treatment towards members who are actually Leprechauns while subjecting non-Leprechauns like her to grunt work and denying them certain facilities.
Glass Cannon: Her Double-Edged Hammer is a powerful weapon that can create shockwaves with each strike but, as Argo realizes, it's use restricts the amount of armour the wielder can wear, meaning Granze can be taken down in a few good hits.
I Lied: When Leafa tries to remind her that they only came to to buy info on the Fairy Hammer recipe, she reveals that she was never gonna sell it to them to begin with.
It's All About Me: Silica accuses her of this, describing her attitude as someone who views games like ALO, which have multiple players, as a game that only she’s allowed to enjoy.
Killed Offscreen: Defeated, more accurately. After Sinon pulls a Big Damn Heroes and Holds The Line against her, she isn't seen again until after Rossa's final farewell to Lux, where a panel shows that Sinon beat her and tied her up.
Lack of Empathy: She displays a severe case of this towards SAO Survivors, seeing no issue with kidnapping people she realizes are ones, despite having pratically been kidnapped before, and trying to take of SAO player data, with is essentially personal information. Later on, she even mocks them after she has one of her men take Lux's logged off Avatar hostage for how sensitive they are about dying in-game.
- Silica accuses her of this in regards to how she plays ALO, claiming that she seems to view it as a game only she’s allowed to enjoy with little to no concern for other players.
Large Ham: Her introduction consists of her sitting on what appears to be a floating throne, making a show of making a dagger disappear and reappear while making a point about always taking whatever opportunity you can and making a grandiose introduction for her guild. This gets lampshaded by Lisbeth.
Logical Weakness: Her Double-Edged Hammer needs to impact some manner of ground to create it's shockwaves, meaning it's not a practical weapon for air combat. During the fight with her however, she's able to get around this using earth she scrapes and launches off the ground and shields she has in her inventory to create impacts instead.
Magic Knight: She's capable of some magic. As a Leprechaun, it doesn't deal much damage, but it's enough for her to interrupt Leafa's spell-casting.
Oh, Crap!:
- When she realizes that Lux logged out to cut off the Einherjar with a sub-account, Kuro.
Shed Armor, Gain Speed: Inverted. When she removes her coat to fight the girls, she's actually Shedding Armour for Power, as her Double-Edged Hammer places a restriction on how much armour can be equipped for it to be used.
Stripperific: The clothes under her pirate-esque coat is essentially just a one-piece swimsuit and short shorts.
Strong and Skilled: Her weapon is a hammer that causes AoE with each strike at the expense of her Defence stats, but she's not only skilled enough to avoid getting hit while wielding it, but she has figured out several work-a-arounds for it's Logical Weaknesses.
Take Over the World: The reason she became a Leprechaun, the Blacksmithing Race, and started a guild to hoard equipment and weapon recipes, was so she could garner enough power and resources to rule over ALfheim herself.
Villainous Breakdown: She gets her perpetually smug look wiped right off her face when, after being given five minutes to deal with "unfinished business" before going with the Einherjar to attack Jotunheim, Adie uses a barrier item to trap her and guild for longer than the agreed time limit, meaning the Einherjar will leave without her and she'll get none of the spoils of war.
We Can Rule Together: When Adie confronts her, she offers her literally anything, even a higher position in the guild that she was denied often, if she just follows through with the plan. Adie refuses.
Xanatos Gambit: Subverted. She thinks her 20,000,000 Yrld offer to the girls for the Fairy Hammer quest was foolproof, since it’s certainly a hefty sum and even if the amount didn’t tempt them, she wouldn’t give them the recipe at all so they would get nothing unless they sold her the quest. She didn’t account that they would outright refuse her offer, call her out on her bullshit and decide to take their business elsewhere.

Adie

A Cait Sith member of the Elves and Shoemakers Guild who's planning on betraying them.

Anti-Hero: Her motives for betraying the Elves and Shoemakers Guild can be summed up as petty revenge, not that they don’t deserve it, and she resorts to theft for the sake of it, but she's ultimately a Nice Girl.
Barrier Warrior: She's in possession of grenade-like items that, once activated, will erect a barrier that remains active for several minutes and prevent anyone from entering or leaving. She first uses to prevent some of her guildmates from chasing the girls, and again later after Granze summons the Einherjar and is given five minutes to deal with the girls before going with them, forcing them to leave without her and preventing her from getting any of the spoils from their conquest of Jotunheim.
Because You Were Nice to Me: Having been discriminated against heavily against by the Leprechauns in her guild, it's the girls' kind treatment of her and Liz taking her dream of being an Ultimate Blacksmith despite not being a Leprechaun seriously that gets her to legitimately change sides.
Berserk Button: Questioning why a Cait Sith would want to be a Blacksmith, which she wants to be despite Cait Siths, like other races, lacking a Leprechaun’s ability to be an Ultimate Blacksmith.
Defector from Decadence: Part of the reason she betrayed her former guild was that she was against the extortion the guild usually pulls and her disgust for Granze. It turns out her betrayal was, initially, fake but her dislike of Granze appears genuine.
Failed a Spot Check: She failed to realize that the dagger she placed down for the weighted door was the first weapon she ever crafted, causing Liz to go and grab it for her.
Fantastic Racism: Heavily implied to be the reason she betrayed Elves and Shoemakers, a Guild largely consisting of Leprechauns.
Hypocrite: Subverted. She hates Granze for her extortionist ways, but she’s actually still working for Granze and was going to give Liz and the girls a fake recipe, until Liz vouching for her when Lux found her out prompted her to make a Heel–Face Turn.
Heel–Face Turn: It's revealed that she was actually The Mole, and was planning to betray the girls to Granze in exchange for getting a higher position in the Guild. However, spending time with them and Lisbeth vouching for her when Lux figures her out and convinces her to change sides and betray Granze for real.
Inexplicably Awesome: A desire of hers. She wants to be able to make rare and powerful weapons despite the fact that Leprechauns are the only races that can really do that.
Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Aside from disgust over their extortionist methods, her other reasons for betraying Elves and Shoemakers are as a result of her being largely disrespected, being unable to access weapon recipes, forced to do menial tasks, getting shunned by other guild members, left out of group chats, and not getting standard job rewards like the rest. This becomes Double Subverted when it turns that, while these grievances were very real, she was still working for Granze but betrays her for real after bonding with the girls.
Redemption Equals Death: A thankfully non-lethal variant, as ALO isn't a death game like SAO, but after betraying Granze and foiling her deal with the Einherjar with a barrier item, she gets killed by one of the Elves and Shoemakers members under Granze's orders.
What You Are in the Dark: When they're alone after she tackles her into the vault, Granze offers Adie anything she could want in exchange of following through with the plan and giving the girls a fake recipe. Adie refuses, ties her up, and takes the real recipe.

NPCs

The Angel

The quest NPC for the Angel's Whisper quest.

Human Shield: The Giant places entraps her where his Achilles' Heel is, meaning the girls risk harming her by attacking it.
Race Lift: In the original, she was an angel like the name of the quest suggested. In ALO, to fit with it's Norse theme, she's revealed to be some manner of deity with some authority over Valkyries.
Support Party Member: During the fight against The Giant, where's she's stuck in it's chest, she heals the girls when it launches another thunderstorm attack. She apparently threw buffs at the party occasionally back in SAO, which is how Liz knew she'd do this.
Tsundere: Has this personality, apparently as a result of having been betrayed by humans before. She's even stated to follow a Tsundere script.
Ungrateful Bastard: Subverted. After being rescued from the giant and says she didn't ask for help in a very Tsundere manner, but thanks them and grants them all Angel Whisper rings for completing the quest.
Womanchild: Leafa, in her bafflement over her Tsundere behaviour, outright accuses her of being a sulky child.

Emely

A Quest Giver who appears during the Swimsuit Contest in Girls Ops Volume 2, taking the form of a little girl who got separated from her sister.

Big Sister Worship: Downplayed with the girls. When Silica reassures that they'll be safe by showing off her dagger skills, she gets all sparkly eyed and says "Cool!"
The Cutie: Very likely made to Invoke, being an adorable little girl introduced crying her eyes out over her sister going missing and rewarding Lux with an adorable smile when she beats the quest's boss.
It's Personal: Downplayed. She doesn't fight it herself obviously, but she does ask Lux to go beat the Kurage for tormenting her sister.
Tagalong Kid
Video Game Caring Potential: Throughout the quest, the girls act like Cool Big Sisters to her, comforting her over her missing sister and reassuring her that they'll fight off any monsters. Liz even lightly calls out Lux when she hesitates to do the quest out of fear of wasting their time because of this trope, saying they shouldn't just ignore a sad child, NPC or otherwise.

SPOILER CHARACTER

The Einherjar

The deceased souls of brave norse warriors that are summoned in Ragnarok. In reality, they're all NPCs based on SAO Character Data, including those of Kirito and Rossa, that are falsely summoned to attack Jotunheim.

Badass Army: An army of NPCs based on SAO Character data that, as proven by Kuro's fight with their Kirito, likely have the skills their real counterparts possess.
Logical Weakness: Being based on SAO player data and being inspired by Viking warriors, the naturally lack the ability of flight that every ALO player possesses. This makes them, or at least those without ranged weapons like throwing picks, vulnerable to Alfheim's fairies, and they possess a disadvantage in travel speed as they have to go on foot.
Unwitting Pawn: As Lux realizes, they're all pawns in a story sense, and a meta-sense. Story-wise, they were all summoned by a fake Gjallarhorn to kickstart Ragnarok early by attacking a now peaceful Jotunheim, which will likely get them all killed. In the meta sense, they're essentially amnesiac copies of SAO players told they were brave Norse warriors and forced to kill each other under Cardinal's directive for the sake of their quest.

Einherjar Kirito

An NPC clone of Kirito who leads the Einherjar.

Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: As a "Einherjar", he's naturally confident in his abilities as a warrior, even getting angry when Lux(as Kuro) tries to stop him and his forces on their route to Jotunheim under the claim that they'll all be killed. Though seeing as his data's copied from SAO's Best Warrior, he shares his busted reaction speed, and has the added benefit of possessing an endless supply of throwing picks that he can use to deal with flying fairies, his confidence is well-founded.
Dual Wielding: Being based on Kirito during his time in SAO, he wields replicas of the Elucidator and Dark Repulsor.
Jerkass Façade: In his final fight against the girls, he pretends to revert to his NPC programming so that the girls wouldn't hesitate to go all-out against him on account of their feelings towards his real counterpart. Lux however is able to see through it due to him not being bound by the fixed attack patterns he had when she fought him as Kuro. He does briefly however revert to his programming when he has a sliver of HP remaining before Pina finishes him off.
Fantastic Racism: It likely applies to all of them, but this Kirito is especially vocal about the group's hatred of giants, who they're supposedly ordered to kill by Odin, and fairies, viewing them as weaklings and cowards and getting insulted by Kuro trying to block their path due to them not wanting to get themselves killed.
Flechette Storm: Like Kirito's old SAO avatar, he carries a selection of throwing picks on his person, which he uses to get around Kuro's Flight ability and the range it gives her. And not helping matters for Kuro, is that whenever NPCs have a ranged weapon of sorts, they typically have Bottomless Magazines.
The Leader: Evidently this for the Einherjar forces.
Lightning Bruiser: He utilizes Kirito's iconic Dual Wielding style for fast, hard-hitting strikes and shares his real version's Super-Reflexes. Additionally, he possesses multiple HP bars akin to a boss, and a unique skill that that increases his damage proportionate to how much HP he's lost.
Mellow Fellow: This Kirito acts very casual about being an NPC and the fact that he the the only way out of his situation is to fight his friends and effectively die after the fact. As he reveals to the girls when they express frustration at this, he finds that he's incapable of really feeling things like fear or sadness, only really having the desire to enjoy himself he had when he first logged into SAO
The Power of Love: What ultimately allows the Kirito in him to break through the Cardinal System's forced programming is when he accidentally hits Rossa when she Takes the Bullet for Lux, as it reminds him of when Asuna did the same for him during the fight against Heathcliff.
Super-Reflexes: Just like the actual Kirito, and likely helped by him being an NPC, he has remarkable reaction times, being able to block Kuro's Sword Skill with his own despite starting it up later, and recovering from his use quicker than Kuro.
Troll: When he fights the girls one last time after breaking free of his programming, he's not above teasing them about certain things, such as when he and Liz held hands, to get an edge against them. In order to beat him after he puts up his Jerkass Façade, Lux turns this around on him by saying "I love you" as he's preparing to strike, flustering him enough for her to parry the blow and leave him open for the girls to deliver a beating to.
Turn Red: He reveals in his final fight with the girls before "reverting" to his normal programming that he has a Unique NPC Skill called "Odin's Protection", which increases his attack power the lower his HP is, which combined with his multiple health bars, allows him to pull off absurd feats like knock Lisbeth's HP down by almost three quarters with an otherwise normal attack.

Other:

Cardinal System

The Cardinal System for Alfheim Online.

Almighty Idiot: Being what effectively keeps the game running, generates the quests to keep players invested, and is shown to have no upper limits to what it can cause or generate for the sake of the previous directive, it's effectively the most powerful thing in the game. Problem is it takes it directives a bit too seriously, generating one quest that would threaten send the entire game into Ragnarok if failed^note, and then it generates another quest using copied SAO character data to serve as Einherjar NPCs, which is a massive privacy violation and could have probably gotten Ymir in trouble IRL.
Exact Words: It's sole purpose and function is generating quests that fit with ALO's Norse theming. Unfortunately, the lack of specifics given to it has caused it to generate a few quests that threaten to kickstart Ragnarok early.

Characters / Sword Art Online - Alfheim Online

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Introduced in Fairy Dance

Shinichi Nagata / Recon (ALO)

Voiced by: Ayumu Murase (Japanese), Marin Miller (English), José Luis Piedra (Latin American Spanish), Jorge Tejedor (European Spanish)

Sakuya (ALO)

Voiced by: Sayuri Yahagi (Japanese), Lauren Landa (English), Kerygma Flores (Latin American Spanish), Rosa López (European Spanish)

Alicia Rue (ALO)

Voiced by: Chiwa Saitō (Japanese), Cristina Valenzuela (English), Erika Langarica (Latin American Spanish), Silvia Cabrera (European Spanish)

Sigurd (ALO)

Voiced by: Takuya Kirimoto (Japanese), Tony Oliver (English), Arturo Mercado Jr. (Latin American Spanish)

Eugene (ALO)

Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (Japanese), Joshua Tomar (English), Humberto Solórzano (Latin American Spanish)

Mortimer

Kagemune

Gtacs

Introduced in Extra Edition and Rainbow Bridge

Kraken the Abyss Lord

Leviathan the Sea Lord

Hraesvelg the Sky Lord

Introduced in Calibur

Urðr (ALO)

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (Japanese), Karen Strassman (English), Reyna López (Latin American Spanish)

Thor / Freyja (ALO)

Voiced by: Yuko Minaguchi (Freyja, Japanese), Mela Lee (Freyja, English), Romina Marroquín Payró (Freyja, Latin American Spanish); Tesshō Genda (Thor, Japanese), Richard Epcar (Thor, English), Eduardo Fonseca (Thor, Latin American Spanish)

Voiced by: Shozo Iizuka (Japanese), John Snyder (English), Eduardo Fonseca (Latin American Spanish)

Introduced in Mother's Rosario and Sisters' Prayer

The Sleeping Knights

Shi-eun Ahn / Siune (ALO)

Voiced by: Yu Shimamura (Japanese), Erika Harlacher (English), Alejandria de los Santos (Latin American Spanish)

Jun (ALO)

Voiced by: Daiki Yamashita (Japanese), Max Mittelman (English), Carlos Siller (Latin American Spanish)

Tecchi (ALO)

Voiced by: Nobuyuki Kobushi (Japanese), Chris Cason (English), Miguel de León (Latin American Spanish)

Talken (ALO)

Voiced by: Atsushi Tamaru (Japanese), Zach Aguilar (English), Elliot Leguizamo (Latin American Spanish)

Nori (ALO)

Voiced by: Asami Tano (Japanese), Erica Lindbeck (English), Elizabeth Infante (Latin American Spanish)

Aiko Konno / Ran (ALO, AE)

Merida (ALO, AE)

Kiyofumi Yanagi / Clovis (AE)

Boss Clearing Guild

Introduced in Alicization

Introduced in Girls Ops

Hiyori Kashiwazaka / Kuro (ALO) / Lux (SAO, ALO)

Voiced by: Chinatsu Akasaki

Ashley

Garnet

The Batty Bats

Meimi Tsurusaki / Gwen (ALO)

Elves and Shoemakers

Granze

Adie

NPCs

Emely

The Einherjar

Einherjar Kirito

Other:

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