I really dislike spending my time commenting on a fic that hasn't been
written, and more than likely will never be written. But there's
something seriously wrong with the premise here. (And I'm going to avoid
discussing any specific fiancees, so as not to make this into any more
of a character debate than it already is.)

Well, more than one thing. The story assumes Nodoka has total control
over who Ranma marries while Genma has no say at all. Also, it uses "Who
loves Ranma" as the key question whereas it seems to me that "Whom does
Ranma love" should be more key.

But putting those considerations aside....

The "love tests" here are flawed. They're not measuring how much each
fiancee *loves* Ranma, but rather how much each one *values* him. How
much each one *wants* him. I mean, people frequently give up one thing
in order to gain another thing. Someone might give up much-liked
restaurant food for several months in order to save up for a new car.
The ability to do this doesn't show any great love for the new car --
not in the sense we're looking for here, I think.

So your test might show that Fiancee X really, really wants Ranma, so
much that she's willing to sacrifice something really important to her.
But does she want him because she wants to make him happy, because she
wants to show him off to her friends, or because she thinks he'll be
good in bed? Seems to me that whether there's any love involved depends
rather heavily on *why* she wants him.

So what would be a good test? What I'd try would be to go to each
fiancee and tell her that she can marry Ranma. Ranma hates the idea, I
would say, but he's being forced to go along with it, and he's willing
to put aside his unhappiness and be a loyal husband to someone he
doesn't love in order to satisfy family honor.

The one who refuses to marry Ranma under these circumstances would be
the one who really loves him. (Of course, it probably wouldn't work,
because the fiancees would figure out what the real point of the test
was and adjust their responses accordingly.)


Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics.html