It is kind of weird that other, much lower quality series manage it better. Like the openly slop isekai A Wild Last Boss Appeared! whose author has openly said something to the effect of “yeah it’s dumb and full of plot holes because I forget lots of stuff while writing it, but let’s just imagine it’s the result of an unreliable narrator so it seems smart lol” handles its ontologically evil devils better, both making them literally magic constructs driven by what is functionally an AI program, like if a fireball spell was given the intelligence to organize an arson plot to better accomplish its purpose, and even they have existential crises and try to find a way to break away from their doomed purpose as attack spells when they realize this.
Even SAO managed it better in the second half of Alicization, with the “ontologically evil” races of its artificial world trying to reject the role the simulations shitbag creators foisted upon them and pursue a peace settlement to end the eternal war they’ve been forced to take part in, before the actually ontologically evil characters (American PMCs) show up, murder the leaders pursuing peace, and force the rank and file into a doomed war for nothing. And just in case anyone’s thinking “wait, that’s from SAO? That actually sounds like a pretty good story which is not what I expect to hear about SAO” well, yeah Alicization was actually sort of good in terms of story and themes, it’s just, well, it’s still SAO and still full of weird gross bullshit, more so than any earlier season in fact. It’s the most “ok, the author admittedly does have some good ideas and has gotten experienced enough to execute them decently, but he still just cannot be normal and avoid filling the story with the other kind of SA” SAO has ever been.
It is kind of weird that other, much lower quality series manage it better. Like the openly slop isekai A Wild Last Boss Appeared! whose author has openly said something to the effect of “yeah it’s dumb and full of plot holes because I forget lots of stuff while writing it, but let’s just imagine it’s the result of an unreliable narrator so it seems smart lol” handles its ontologically evil devils better, both making them literally magic constructs driven by what is functionally an AI program, like if a fireball spell was given the intelligence to organize an arson plot to better accomplish its purpose, and even they have existential crises and try to find a way to break away from their doomed purpose as attack spells when they realize this.
Even SAO managed it better in the second half of Alicization, with the “ontologically evil” races of its artificial world trying to reject the role the simulations shitbag creators foisted upon them and pursue a peace settlement to end the eternal war they’ve been forced to take part in, before the actually ontologically evil characters (American PMCs) show up, murder the leaders pursuing peace, and force the rank and file into a doomed war for nothing. And just in case anyone’s thinking “wait, that’s from SAO? That actually sounds like a pretty good story which is not what I expect to hear about SAO” well, yeah Alicization was actually sort of good in terms of story and themes, it’s just, well, it’s still SAO and still full of weird gross bullshit, more so than any earlier season in fact. It’s the most “ok, the author admittedly does have some good ideas and has gotten experienced enough to execute them decently, but he still just cannot be normal and avoid filling the story with the other kind of SA” SAO has ever been.