In .hack, Aura's actions throughout the various storylines seem rather random and odd: at first, she runs The World and well, although she does weird thing like, oh, Legend of the Twilight. Then in the GU/Roots storyline she gives up her position as the keystone of The World and everything falls apart, only coming back reluctantly (and even then she basically does absolutely nothing) when the real world is endangered. What's the logic behind these actions? This: Aura is growing up. In the early series, she was still a child, wanting to fulfill people's expectations of her. That's why she settled into her role as The World's "god" so readily, and also explains Legend of the Twilight: she was bored, and wanted a fun distraction from everyday stuff to entertain herself. By the time GU rolls around, she's entered the "rebellious teenager" stage, resenting her apparent purpose and saying "screw this". That's why she abandoned The World, despite the hefty consequences. I doesn't yet know what exactly she does in Link, but suspects the theme will continue. -Dark Hunter
While your theory is sound it has a huge hole. Aura is an adult by the time Twilight Braclet hits. Zefie is her daugter and Mistrial compares Aura to herslf in that they are both mothers.
Correct, but the theory refers more to her emotional and mental development. Her being a mother has no bearing on that because, as an AI, she was technically capable of reproducing the instant she was "born". (I don't know how an AI being a mother works anyway... doesn't that just mean she wrote Zefie's code?) Having a child is not necessarily an indication of being an adult.
However, it could simply be that R2 retconned Aura.
How is a FUTURE development a reton?
When confronted in the final battle with Drain Heart, the final tier of the Data Drain ability, Kite explicitly recognizes it which implies that he canonically grinded enough to be able to use the ability himself. And then dodges all of them where every single other character was disabled. It actually makes sense, because who else would know how to survive and counter such a power than the one that's been using it and having to understand all of its abilities and limitations to get this far in the first place?
Elk also manages to withstand Drain Heart for a short period of time, compared to everyone else being instantly knocked out. Makes sense; he was basically arm-in-arm with a Phase in Mia for a very long time, and likely had some sort of residual built-up resistance as a result or Mia's remnants of coding on him as a future Phase user gave him a bit of protection.
The black rose is a symbol for anarchy, "The World" is falling apart, the moderators are losing control and BlackRose (and Kite) is right there at the center of it all.
People were disappointed that Haseo couldn't do the wedding event with Natsume. But it actually makes perfect sense. Haseo barely knows her. She joins at the end of the game and it's Haseo's first ever encounter with her. Shino, Tabby, Alkaid, and Bordeaux also join at the end, but he knows the first two from Roots and the latter two from the earlier volumes. He had plenty of time to get to know them even if he hasn't seen them in a while. Natsume is basically a stranger to him.
The HD remaster, Lost Recode, does add the option to marry all possible party members, so while this may be true story-wise, it would seem it was really just Natsume probably being a last minute addition to the line-up and possibly not having enough time to make her scene.
People may think the way characters treat The World takes things to ridiculous levels of Serious Business, but the key thing to keep in mind is that it's a MMO game. For the people who don't know about the life threatening soul stealing dangers that exist, they're just getting into character and having adventures. This is escapism for most people, so naturally they'd be immersed while online.
There's also the fact that it's a virtual reality game as well. Even with standard controllers for input, the immersion into one's character blurs the mental lines between reality and fiction; why wouldn't you get invested when it feels less like your character made of pixels lost a day's progress from a PK, and more like you got PKed? Characters react with genuine terror and fear when attacked, because their players are practically engrossed into things at the moment. This crosses right into Fridge Horror as well when people react rather.. realistically to some of their deaths in the G.U. games, if you don't just think everyone that gets cut down is a Large Ham.
Fridge Horror: In the flesh-type dungeons of the original .Hack games, a form of Grunty food called the "Bloody Egg" can be harvested. It sounds as though it's in actual pain when it shouts it's name out. (All Grunty Foodstuffs do this whenever your'e close enough) And it also looks bloody as well as having an expression of sheer agony. Also, note the skeletons hanging from chains and torture equipment sitting around the dungeon's floors. If one were to muse on how these Bloody Eggs were made, well.....The clues speak for themselves.
And to make things a little worse, all of these eggs are alive (as alive as a computer program within a game can be).....And you're feeding them to your little Grunties so that you can raise them into adults and trade for their treasure; Just to fill your own pocketbook.Think about that.
Take a listen to when Kite first uses Data Drain in the Quadrillogy. Notice how he sounds like he's in a lot of pain? Given how interwoven the game and the player are, he probably IS. And now imagine him going through that every time he uses Data Drain on Data Bugs and the Eight Phases. And when using the Gate Hacking animation, you can see Kite flinch somewhat as it goes on. Meaning the Bracelet is a Dangerous Forbidden Technique to begin with as it's literally taking its toll on him, even without going into high corruption.
With the larger revelations far later in the series like the entire debacle involving the eco-terrorist group "Mama", early in-universe theories on the net and the World's servers about the ALTIMIT OS having some monopolistic conspiracy behind it aren't far off the mark. The founders of it are all operatives of Mama, and on top of Emma being a Mama leader that intentionally caused the birth of Aura for their plans, everything in the series has either been because of them and consolidating the internet into their palms or the consequences of their actions.
