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Some villains in the anime Sword Art Online are influenced by the sorcerer archetype, drawn from legends of fairyland, medieval tales of hostile magicians, and the ancient figure of the shaman. The concentration of sorcerers in SAO makes it fertile ground for tracing the archetype in both Western and Japanese sources before turning to how SAO uses those influences in its world‐building and in the development of its own brand of sorcerer.
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Todd Moffett (2024) studied this question.
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