No let's.
Kayaba and Sugou imprison people in a virtual world against their will for the sake of fulfilling some dream. And it was definitely against their will. Nobody knew that when entering SAO, they couldn't leave again. How is Kayaba any less evil than Sugou, when he ensnared people into this digital world of his and forced them to stay? That's precisely what Sugou did, too, and Sugou did it to fewer people to boot.
Kayaba's dream was to create an entirely new world. In his own way, which I'll admit you could consider twisted, he only wanted the best for the people inside his world. He wanted to create a world in which people could live their lives to the full. Sugou, meanwhile, could not have given less of a shit about the people he ensnared in his world. He did not treat them as humans. He reduced them to essentially lab rats, robbed of all freedom, and forced pain upon them at his leisure. He planned to violate their humanity further still by
directly manipulating their thoughts and feelings as he saw fit. In fact, since he claims his experiments are coming along nicely, he probably succeeded in doing this to a number of people.
Kayaba then proceeded to leave people, elderly and children not excluded, in a world that was full of very real dangers which could very definitely kill them for the sake of his ambition. This ambition is not explained in the animated series in any definite way. To further point out the hypocrisy of this action, Kayaba makes himself invincible. The game is not fair if you set yourself up as an invincible God and rule over it. And he did just that. Kayaba made himself invincible, and then rose to a position of power over his prisoners.
I never claimed that the game was fair in the sense of equality between the normal players and Kayaba himself. Obviously that's not feasible as long as Kayaba is in control of the system, and it's not something that he particularly wanted either. But the game is fair in the sense that all players are given equal, reasonable opportunity to survive and equal, reasonable opportunity to make a life for themselves. Nobody is forced to face any more danger than they themselves choose to seek.
Simply surviving in this game is not a difficult task if you make it your goal. On the most basic level, all it requires is staying within the bounds of the first town. Once the unfortunate sleep-PK loophole is discovered, simply staying within a town may not be 100% safe, but with a little care and effort anyone should be able to defeat the most basic-level monsters outside the town and thus obtain enough currency to rent a room at a hotel, where they are again completely safe. (And honestly, if you're poor enough to not be able to afford a hotel, I can't see why anyone would want to PK you anyway. Nothing to steal = no advantage to the PKer.)
He lead them into these dungeons full of dangers with the promise of freedom, and many of them died. And as he did this, he planned, all along, to one day turn on them, and slaughter them at the final level in order to make the story in his little game more amusing to himself.
As I recall, he didn't plan to slaughter anyone; his plan was always to announce himself as the final boss and then
be defeated by a worthy hero. He knew all too well that this world of his couldn't last forever, and he intended to die with it. Yes, he led the players into dangerous situations, because that was how the game worked. The existence of danger is what makes life feel
real - that's why he implemented the whole death system in the first place. And of course, all the players he actively led into danger were players who
chose to pursue that dangerous path of their own accord. If anything, he helped to keep them safer than they would otherwise have been.
He treated these people as beneath him the entire course of the game. He lied to them, lead them to their deaths, and intended to kill many more before the end for his own jollies.
He never lied to them except about his own identity. He was open and honest with information, often providing players with good advice. He never revelled in or enjoyed players' deaths or suffering, but only saw it as a necessary evil in the creation of something great.
Sugou, at the very least, had wanted some monetary gain from it. Although at the end we see that Sugou, like Kayaba, wanted to be a God through this digital world. Both men also treated Asuna as if she were their property. Kayaba through his nonsense of the guild, and Sugou through the more personal abuse.
I think there's a fundamental difference here, though. Kayaba's desire was never to be a God; it was to create the world itself. Presiding over it was just a natural outcome of the fact that he was the one to create it, and even then he rarely used that authority for his own gain, preferring to put himself on the same level as the players for the most part, and only using his admin abilities when the greater plan was threatened in some way. Sugou, meanwhile, didn't care about the world itself at all. The world was just a tool to him, to be used to wield power over others and achieve material gains.
In other words, Kayaba became a God so he could create a world, while Sugou created a world so he could become a God.
And really, I don't think the two men "treating Asuna as if she were their property" is in any way comparable. Kayaba appreciated Asuna for her skills and treated her as a valued subordinate. He wanted to keep her close because powerful players like her would be necessary to complete the game, and his goal was to create a guild that would be capable of doing that. Even so, I don't think he would have objected so strongly to Asuna's intention to leave if it weren't for the fact that it represented an opportunity to bring
Kirito under his wing. As the one who had earned the dual-wield skill, Kirito was set to become his "chosen hero", so he must have wanted Kirito in his guild at any cost.
Sugou, on the other hand...well, I don't even think it needs explaining. He kept Asuna to himself out of personal lust and personal power fantasies. He used her as an outlet for his own sadistic tendencies. Disgusting.
But what, really, differs between Kayaba's treatment of the population of Aincrad and Sugou's of Asuna? Asuna was stuck in a cage, from which she could not escape, just like the SAO players could not log out. Both Asuna and the SAO players are teased with the promise of an escape that they cannot attain with ease. Asuna the control pad on the door, and SAO the 100th floor. Just as Sugou loved to come into the cage and "play" with his imprisoned, Kayaba entered Aincrad and played with his prisoners in SAO. Just as the populace of SAO suffered harm at the hands of Kayaba's world, people dying in droves in the drive to escape which HE encouraged actively, Asuna's body was molested by Sugou. Just as Kayaba tortured the populace of SAO and used them for his own amusement, Sugou experimented on the minds of the 300, for his own gain.
The difference comes down to the fact that the SAO players were allowed the opportunity to
live full and satisfying lives, with human interaction and freedom and a whole world to explore, whereas Asuna was allowed to do nothing but sit in an empty cell and occasionally suffer for Sugou's amusement. Sugou never had any intention of letting Asuna through that locked door, while Kayaba actively aided the players in reaching the 100th floor. Sugou's "playing" with Asuna was entirely for his own twisted enjoyment and nothing but torture for her, whilst Kayaba's interaction with the SAO players was for the players' own benefit as much as Kayaba's. Sugou's molestation of Asuna was entirely at his own whim and she was offered no opportunity to resist, whereas the SAO players' deaths were something Kayaba himself strove to prevent at every turn, and the players were offered every opportunity to prepare, learn to protect themselves, and even choose not to face the danger if they so desired. Sugou's experimentation on the 300 was entirely one-sided and inhumane in every imaginable way, whereas Kayaba's "torture" of the SAO populace can hardly be called that.
The only difference between Sugou and Kayaba is that Kayaba did what Sugou did on a hilariously larger scale.
And in a vastly more humane, better thought-through and respectful way, with an infinitely more admirable goal in mind. I'm pretty sure "creating a new and beautiful world" beats "controlling the minds of others" any day.
And yet there goes Kirito, praising Kayaba. And most amusingly, what he praised most in Kayaba and scolded Sugou for was "running away." Which is ironic, because Kayaba did nothing BUT run. He never stood punishment for his crimes, never willingly confronted his victims, and when SAO crumbled he committed suicide/fled to a digital world. Sugou, on the other hand, having lost in ALO, went to the real world and challenged Kirito again.
I don't think what Kayaba did and what Sugou did qualify as "running away" in the same sense. When Kayaba came up with his scheme, he knew full well that it would make him a hated and irredeemable man, and he accepted this with open arms, publicly announcing his actions and intentions to both the world at large and everyone within his game. He hid away from the world only because it was necessary in order to keep his world running smoothly. You say he "never willingly confronted his victims", but he spoke directly to them at the very beginning of his scheme, and if everything had gone according to plan, he would have announced his true nature to them and had them personally defeat him. And since he knew that he could not expect forgiveness for what he had done, he was fully prepared to pay the ultimate price of his own life at the end of it all. The process of transferring his own consciousness into a digital form was one final experiment; he had no way of knowing it would succeed, and attempted it more in the hope of continuing his ambitions of forging new and unprecedented frontiers than because he wanted to go on living.
Sugou, on the other hand, was never prepared to face the consequences of what he had done. He hid himself away, telling nobody but his closest co-conspirators of what he was trying to achieve, and maintaining the guise of a respectable man in his day-to-day life. I see no indication that he
ever intended to own up to the world at large about any of the things he was doing. And when he was found out, his first instinct was to silence the leak using any means necessary, and his second to flee the country to somewhere he could continue to live a privileged life and not be judged for his actions.
In conclusion, I don't think Kayaba Akihiko is/was a good man. I don't think he was justified in killing so many people. But I do believe that in doing so, he intentionally and successfully achieved something amazing that enriched the world, that he fully accepted the weight of his own sins, and that he can be afforded a certain amount of respect for that.
Meanwhile I believe that Sugou Nobuyuki is/was a despicable man who actively pursued the suffering of others and strove to subject people to a fate worse than death for no greater ambition than his own personal gain. He pursued ambitions that, far from enriching the world, would most likely make it a far more terrible place. And he didn't even do a good job of it. There is nothing in his actions that affords anything even resembling respect.
EDIT: Aaaaaaand...
CorvoSol
Banned
(Today, 06:19 AM)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
