Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 15:31:31 +0200
   From: bastian@enterprise.mathematik.uni-essen.de (Sebastian Weinberg)

   Hi Harold Ancell,

Greetings.

    In message <199605110208.WAA15598@access5.digex.net> you said:

   : Haven't had time for my re-read yet, but...:
   :
   :    Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 20:08:35 -0500 (CDT)
   :    From: "Ranma al'Thor <ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>"
   :
   :    [ ... ]
   :
   :    I rather disagree with the basic premise of this story (I still don't
   :    think they should have succeeded in raping Ranma...not joe ordinary
   :    thugs), but given that premise, the rest of the story flows very well.
   :
   : I don't know about you, but I'm willing to give any author one
   : somewhat implausable thing in a story to get it going.

   Err, *actually* a female of Ranma's figure beating five big thugs
   would be more implausible.  The thing here is not plausibility but
   consistency.

   We all have accepted Ranma as being this superhuman martial arts
   master who doesn't loose.  It is one of the basic premises of the
   series and just as implausible as the other one (Him turning into
   a girl, of course. :)  And now he suddenly gets beaten by a
   handful of untrained guys.  While this is probably nearer to
   reality it is *farther* from the series' background.

Ummm, I'm saying that this detail, that you've properly labeled as an
inconsistancy, is "implausable" in the Ranma universe.  But I'm
willing to spot the author this to get the story going, and he has
promised to address it later (obviously we aren't going to find out
any details from Ranma at the moment).

Look, without anything more than what we've heard from Ranma at the
beginning we *have* to accept; we can reasonably wonder about it, but
the premise of the story requires our understanding to wait.  You
don't want this to be like the DIC (Americanized) version of Sailor
Moon, where 9/10 of the story is spoiled in the prologue to the first
episode.  We owe the author some patience, I'd say, and I doubt our
trust will be betrayed.

   :    I'm not sure how well the Akane gets ki powers/Recovery of Ranma story
   :    lines work together either...
   :
   : Well, I think.
   :
   : Akane has a new role, of protecting Ranma, and a severe demand
   : requires severe means.  (I wonder if any of his enemies will be
   : looking him up....  Plus at some point she may need to turn the four
   : perps into their constituent ions, and this allows the author to do it
   : without the Sturm und Drang of a big fight.  They deserve to be
   : stepped on like cockroachs, nothing more).

   Hmmm, I wonder if Andrew will take this easy way out.  While
   revenge on the criminals would certainly be more satisfying for
   all of us who read this, I think it would be a lot more
   challenging (and keeping in with the way the story develops) if
   the cast had to deal with the fact that most rapists are never
   caught and the victims are left to themselves to deal with that.

I suppose so, however this issue isn't even on the radar screen of the
story (nor can it be, since Ranma isn't talking about it), and it's
not necessary and might even be a distraction (which is why I'd like
to see it have the about the same weight in the story as stepping on a
cockroach---see, oh, the end of H. Beam Piper's _Space Viking_ for an
example).

   On the other hand, I certainly won't complain if we get to see
   those criminals being strangled by their own guts.  }:)

Indeed....  But I'm not sure this has anything to do with the point of
the story; we'll see if/when Ranma starts to come out of his regression.

(Now, that's an interesting idea; what if Ranma never comes out of it?
(Or effectively never, i.e. starts maturing emotionally from the
current state but doesn't unlock the box this is stuffed into for
years.)  We'd find out just how much Akane really loves "him".)

BTW, the regression aspect of this is spot on; I once had a friend
who'd sometimes do this under extreme (mostly self-generated) stress.

					- Harold