[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Echizen777

Honestly, a comparison between Kirito and Tatsuya is just forced, you can do it for many protagonist with slight similarities.

People are comparing both just because they are from 2 popular novels. If I ask for a comparison between Tatsuya and Batman, you will find a lot too.

It's as if you want to number the reasons people find him cool.

Yeah, I didn't initiate the comparison. I'm just saying: they're both wish-fulfillment fantasies, rather than fleshed out characters with real problems which don't have easy solutions and whose mistakes don't have real consequences. (Heck, that statement may be unfair to Kirito. He lost the Black Cats, and there's no fixing that. Oh, well, I was never one to crap on SAO anyway.)

Originally Posted by Quol

...Tatsuya's wish was never that. His wish would be more along the lines of "I wish that i can protect Miyuki." Maybe another goal that he can have is "I wish to create a world where mages have a use other than weapons." It was never to be awesome or popular.

If your talking about the author's wish then i can somewhat agree. But this entire series is based around the idea of not judging things with normal standards the quote "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." fits this quite well. Basically all characters here have some kinda wonder ability.

Indeed, I was talking about the author. And maybe the readers. The wishes of the character don't enter into it.

Originally Posted by XFire

I agree with most of it, though I think both characters have more than enough development and problems to keep them from "wish-fulfillment" status.

However, Miyuki doesn't really count as subservient. She certainly tends to act that way around Tatsuya, but she does it deliberately to balance out the fact that he's completely subservient to her, and not entirely by choice. We see enough of her true character when ever she gets pissed or caught up in a contest.

That still makes her subservient 99% of the time. In deed if not in thought, and it's really the former that counts.

Heck, what you'd call a mascarade is itself a sign of subservience. She doesn't have to wait on him. She doesn't have to "pretend" to serve him. She does because she wants to.

Honoka and Pixie (who are basically the same character) are indeed like this. However, it isn't presented in a fetishy way, but instead as a kind of problem that neither side can help. Tatsuya can't return her feelings, which has been explained as gently as possible (My opinion of Tats sky-rocketed after that). But Honoka is just as incapable of stopping her own feelings, which were apparently created as a result of an experiment similar to the Miya used on Tats.

Yeah, but as I said... it's not really about what the characters want.

Originally Posted by Rava

Thanks, Anh Minh.

I find that an odd conclusion, considering that someone with that kind of a wish would have to be pretty masochistic to want to successfully endure Tatsuya's lethal version of Training from Hell to get there,

And that's why people write such characters instead of going to the gym. I don't really see the manner in which he got to be the way he is as important to the issue of whether he's "wish fulfillment" or not.

I'll also note that if training from hell was enough to turn you into a badass, Special Forces would be Normal Forces.

and that he has to hide as much of his awesomeness as possible because it carries secret baggage.

Which just makes him cooler. Like a superhero with a secret identity. Heck, the author straight up went "he's totally Batman without the ears, guys" in vol 12. That was pretty flagrant.