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So I watched the anime not too long ago, and it was the single most important
rule in the game to not die, otherwise one would die in real life.

However, _I never encountered an episode where they showed players die in real
life._

I had my share of skepticism, but hey, we all get the story. Die in the game,
die in real life. Cool problem which made story interesting.

Then I had conversations with friends about the anime and I was in for a
surprise. _They all firmly believe nobody actually died_. Their basis for this
argument was the episode near the end where it was mentioned that all players
were logged out. They were convinced that it meant all players that were left,
_and all players who died in-game_.

This, plus the fact that I never saw a person having their brains fried with a
nerve gear made me think otherwise for a bit. If they really did die, they
could have just died from malnutrition or the extreme stress of thinking it's
the real deal. As to why no one woke up ahead, they could have been held in
some limbo after in-game death until Kirito defeated the game.

But after doing some research, everyone else does say players died in real
life - but have no proof. They all just said they will die because it was said
that they would.

Can anyone point me to an episode (or manga chapter) that depicted someone had
their brains fried with the nerve gear? or proof that someone actually died
from being fried with a nerve gear (like a cemetery visit scene, certificate
of death etc.).


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2016-07-18T10:48:01.640
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sword-art-online
Is there any proof that players really die in real life after dying in SAO?


**tl;dr: Players did indeed die from having their brains fried. Otherwise, it
would be odd for Kirito to never be told and to make statements suggesting
that he doesn't know.**

# A general meta-observation

Firstly, I should note that it would be very odd story-telling if we (and
Kirito) were deceived about players having their brains fried and _never_ were
told that this was actually a lie, given how the "real death" factor was so
intrinsic to the set-up of SAO. It's normal for stories to have plotholes or
to leave some things unexplained; this, however, is more an issue of some sort
of [Occam's Razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor) for stories.

# Observations from SAO

Halfway through the first episode, Akihiko states that there is no logout
option, and that removing the NerveGear will result in death. He then pulls up
a bunch of news articles and footage about the deaths that have already
occurred. However, perhaps Akihiko is just bluffing and making fake news
articles.

If Akihiko were lying, then it wouldn't make sense for the players to be
trapped so long, as suggested by [David
Mulder](https://anime.stackexchange.com/users/4682/david-mulder); people
outside could just remove players' headsets. Perhaps people outside wanted to
play safe after the announcement (despite the reduced credibility, since the
213 who supposedly died would still be alive) or heard a different version
(e.g. "After this announcement, everyone who tries to exit the game
environment will be killed."). However, this can only be the case if they had
cause to believe that NerveGear was capable of killing people.

Moreover, as suggested by
[Killua](https://anime.stackexchange.com/users/274/killua), these scenarios
would seem inconsistent with Akihiko's conversation with Kirito after SAO is
cleared:

> Akihiko: Just a moment ago, the remaining 6,147 players were logged out.
>
> Kirito: What about the ones who died? What about the 4,000 who died?
>
> Akihiko: Their minds will never return. In every world, once you die, you're
> gone.

By this point in time, Akihiko sounds relatively forthright, and it would be
really strange for him to omit information at this point if Kirito is going to
find out the truth once he logs out anyway. However, it's still possible these
people instead all died "from malnutrition or the extreme stress of thinking
it's the real deal". (This still leaves the 213 who presumably would not have
actually died at the beginning. Again, it would be very odd story-telling if
they didn't actually die and we never knew.)

It's thus worthwhile to look at Kirito's interactions after he leaves SAO.

# Post-SAO, in-universe evidence

In the first episode of [the second
season](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sword_Art_Online_episodes)
(about 13 minutes in), Kirito questions the government official who approaches
him if he was sure that the players of Gun Gale Online have _really_ been
dying of heart attacks after being shot in virtual reality-like circumstances.
He wonders if the GGO cases are similar to what happened in SAO:

> Kirito: You're sure it was heart failure, right?
>
> Kikuoka: What do you mean?
>
> Kirito: [ _flashback to an image of the NerveGear headset_ ] There wasn't
> any brain damage?

This suggests that players could indeed die from brain damage after being
killed (or having had their headsets removed) in SAO. (Kikuoka even later
mentions NerveGear's ability to destroy one's brain via its microwaves.)

Moreover, it probably was the case that players _did_ die from this mechanism.
If not, it would be odd for Kirito to not be aware of the fact, or for Kikuoka
to not correct him (e.g. "Sure, NerveGear is physically capable of destroying
brains, but that's not what happened in SAO."), when this scene takes place
more than a year after SAO was cleared. (SAO is cleared in November; the GGO
arc starts in December of the next year.)

After all, Kikuoka would presumably be aware of such cases as a government
official involved with the SAO case. Similarly, Kirito was involved in the
investigation---by the GGO arc he has told Kikuoka everything he knew about
the SAO incident---so it would be expected that he would know of such
specifics a year after the case.


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