What's your favorite headcanon?

[Rodin]

I think a big part of what worked in the Aincrad arc is also a big part of what failed for the rest of the show, or at least as far as I was able to make myself watch. The first arc spends a lot of its time playing with Chosen One / Mary Sue archetypes and ruthlessly shredding them. Kirito isn't actually special. He had some advance knowledge, lucked out against the first boss, and it set up a cascade that kept pushing him towards this incredibly dumb confrontation that Kayaba was obsessed with. Kayaba had this whole script for how he thought the world should work, and he wanted Kirito to be his big Mary Sue hero, but the truth was that seeing people die and being isolated was really harmful to Kirito's psyche so he kept not doing it.

And then in the end, it all falls apart on Kayaba because people aren't predictable, Kirito triggers the confrontation early, Asuna messes the whole thing up and Kirito manages to win despite it being technically impossible because Kayaba's game was a mess interacting with people's brains directly.

Only then, every other arc forgets that Kirito is not actually a superhuman badass. The other arcs turn him into the Super-Person that the first arc is doubting the very idea of, Kayaba's dumb dream gets re-framed as being somehow noble or worthwhile instead of murderous and impossible, and the harem elements get dialed up to 11 while the ladies lose all their agency. It was very frustrating to me.

I actually hadn't thought of a lot of that, but that's brilliant analysis.

One thing I quite liked about SAO: Alternative is that the show makes very clear in the first couple episodes that Llenn isn't anywhere near as superhuman in real life - she specced her character cleverly to match her abilities. She can't hit the broad side of a barn, and even at close range she has to use the aim-assist the game provides. So, she sticks all her points into Dex to become incredibly fast and relies on ambush tactics to get the drop on other players. She makes up for her terrible aim by using a bullet hose SMG at point-blank range. And when it comes to actual military strategy she's hopeless, relying on M to analyze tactical situations.