The third episode of Sword Art Online is often considered a Christmas Episode because of it's last segment.
But what I like about it is it's depiction of Survivor's Guilt. Survivor's Guilt is a fundamentally irrational phenomena where someone who survives something others did not feels guilty simply for surviving and latching onto anything to rationalize it.
But too often stories in fiction meant to address this do give the character in question a reasonable reason to blame themselves, usually nothing that would make them truly legally, ethically or morally culpable, but still some decision they made that if they decided differently could have made a difference. Because modern standards for good writing are obsessed with things like "consequences" and "Cause and Effect" and trying to avoid getting a plot hole ding from CinemaSins.
What I like about this episode of SAO is that Kirto truly has no rational reason to blame himself, the thing he latches onto is the whole not telling them how high leveled he actually was, but what lead to their death was their acting rashly and overconfidently, knowing how OP Kirto actually was would have had the opposite effect.
But as expected the SAO haters trying to give it the RLM treatment constantly do treat this as a pothole when it's in fact exactly what makes it a good depiction of Survivor's Guilt. Yeah it does also serve the purpose of giving Kirto more reason to be a Brooding Loner while not undermining that he's the best at playing this game, but so what.
SAO was never about IF Kirito is a good Gamer or not, it's about how this experience was Traumatizing regardless.
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