In a message dated 6/22/02 7:51:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
gary@garykleppe.org writes:

s clutching at a pole for support and openly
 >> weeping. Abe recognized him at once.
 > 
 > In fact, his tears were quickly washing the blood and grime from the
 > street...
  
 Hmm, like I said, I dislike that particular convention. It's more the
 television version of Soun, but still pretty close to Takahashi's original
 version of him. Don't expect me to use him in that way.

    I can go for that.  Soun's "flood the block" waterworks were always for 
comic relief, even in the manga.  I'd say Mr. Granberry is going for a 
generally more serious tone in this fic than the manga *or* anime usually 
aimed for.  In addition to that, I'd hazard a guess that the situation is 
driving (or dragging) Soun out of the apathy he's often portrayed in -- it's 
just so damned *huge* that it's overpowered his usual responses (being needed 
by people who are *obviously* worse off than you yourself are can do that to 
a person).  
    I'd also surmise that we're seeing a resurgence of behavior patterns from 
Soun's younger, more energetic days -- I can't see that the Yakuza would have 
a standing agreement with him unless he'd demonstrated in the past that 
getting on his bad side would be...unprofitable.  Likewise, the calculated, 
cold-blooded way that he dropped one of the 'zamurai' speaks to a version of 
Soun more accustomed to lethal violence than we see in canon -- during his 
past dealings with them, he must have learned some hard lessons about what it 
takes to impress some kinds of people with your willingness to match --or 
exceed-- their escalation of violence.  His more controlled reaction also 
makes for an interesting contrast with Ranma's -- Soun, despite being the 
lesser Martial Artist, is --like the soldiers-- better equipped to handle the 
aftereffects of having killed (several) people...evidence that he's been down 
this road before.  
    I rather like seeing Soun like this.  Looking forward to seeing how he 
keeps going...

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