Sword Art Online Comparisons between the Light Novel and the Anime

[MasterOfMoogles]

I don't mind having the threads split since that just gives us the opportunity to talk about more stuff.

Edit: As bad as Scared Blacksmith? Really? That show was pretty terrible (except for Guard! Protect! Belive! spelling mistake which was hilarious). My anime group watched that and thought it was bad. The same group is now watching SAO (also having not read the novels) and aside from the complaints about the episodic-ness and rushed pace, they like it a lot.

In the anime, the best you can think of him is as someone with a hero-complex, because he doesn't act very heroic when there is no chance of his own death at Floors 25-50, and probably has Aspergers. The kind of person who runs away from his problems in real life (forcing his sister into martial arts so he gets to do what he likes), but constantly going back to lower levels to show off how strong and cool he is to the weaker players, ultimately getting them killed when he lies about it.

Running around with a chance of dying is not heroic, it is just stupid. I don't think anyone would disagree Kirito is socially awkward. Can you really blame him for running away from his abusive grandfather forcing him to do something he didn't want to do?

From the novels we know Kirito was at the lower levels collecting materials to upgrade his weapons, and he ran into the Black Cats and saved their lives. Obviously you're not shown that in the anime, but to say he was at the lower floors to show off is weird. You're making up stuff that suits your opinion here.
He joins the guild because he is lonely after soloing for 5-6 months, and he is afraid to tell them the truth fearing that they would hate him. Unfortunately, that leads to their demise as he doesn't give them information that could potentially have saved their lives, and he hates himself for it.