On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Alske El'Din wrote:

A

Actually, the question is..... [drum roll]

Is Shampoo a bimbo?

Your answer to this question may determine whether you're part of the
raving band of otakus who replace the villagers from scene 5.  Thanks for
reading and your reply!

Hmmm... Well everything in the anime seems to say yes... but there are
times when she displays intellegence that seems to be a bit more than her
Japanese will let her.

	A bimbo? I don't think so.. she HAS intellegence. It's merely that
she allows the Amazon traditions to do her thinking for her. When faced
with a problem, she seems to almost instinctively check Amazon tradition
and lore for the answer _first_. If she can't find it there, THEN she
starts thinking. Intellectual laziness, as it were. But then, almost any
heavily traditionalistic society could be accused of this. You never
really see the bright youngsters in such a society stretched to their
mental limits because they are encouraged to avoid that path. It's the
elders of the society who are expected to show brilliance. 

	Possibly because youth and intellegence have a nasty tendency to
upset such firmly fixed traditional societies. And people fear such
upsets. Look at the japanese attempt to prevent the penetration of 18th
and 19th century technology. And our own european attempt to keep first
crossbows, then guns, out of the hands of the common folk for fear of
upsetting the established order.

	Once you're an elder (like Cologne), you have a vested interest in
keeping the current society going. You've 'sold out to the man' as the
flower power children of my youth used to put it.  So there's no reason to
fear the intellegence of an elder.. you're a pretty safe risk. Society
'knows' that you won't 'rock the boat', so to speak. 

The anime's and manga I have read haven't really focused on her
personality... but I think she is more desirable as an intelligent woman...
you decide

	Desirable? Perhaps. But not to me. A matriarchal society scares
the shorts off of me. *grin* For that matter, ANY strongly traditional
society does. Too limiting for my tastes. 

	I suppose I'm an anarchist at heart.

	Heh.

	Just a little fanfic philosophy from the ol' philosopher..

	Ed Becerra

	"Dreamers may die, but the Dream is eternal..."