Joshua wrote:

It's a little ironic that fanfic authors have chosen almost universally to
portray Gosunkugi as a promising magician-in-training when he has less
personal experience with real magic than do many of the other Ranma 1/2
characters.

    Yeah well, fanfic writers do tend to like the losers of the crowd...you
know, underdogs and all that. And Gosunkugi is most definatley a loser.

I can understand the attraction of an underdog, but why must this appeal
always translate into the re-casting of Gosunkugi into some kind of refugee
from fantasy roleplaying games?  It seems to me that Takahashi hard-wired into
this character plenty of possibilities for fanfictional reinterpretation, such
as his stalking of Akane or the different ways he manages to attack Ranma
without the benefit of martial skills.  He doesn't have to cast spells to be
interesting, does he?

Taleswapper