rsalva1@UMBC2.UMBC.EDU wrote:

<snip>

!nothing honorable about it.  His mother did not even know 
!his curse and therefore did not have a reason to force to commit sepukku.

        Near the end of Giri, Ranma explicitly states:

"Now that my family is once more together, I can no longer put off my duty. I
am Ranma Saotome, son of Genma Saotome. 16 years ago, I was pledged in 
marriage by my father to Akane Tendo, daughter of Soun Tendo, and heir to the 
Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. However, I lacked the courage to fulfil
my obligation and thus brought shame and dishonor to my family's name by 
willingly trying to ruin my engagement. In my cowardice, I have actively
encouraged other women to pursue me. I also, to my great shame, must admit

to having

done and said a great many things to cause friction between my bethroted

and myself.

Because of my irresponsible actions my father's promise has been broken. It

is because

of this act of cowardice that I take my life today, to wash away the stain
of my dishonor with my blood. I thank you for being witness to this act of
repentance." 

        I don't think anybody knows what is going on here except Ranma &
maybe Kunou.  Nodoka is not forcing Ranma to do anything...he's doing this
of his own free will.  I find it interesting in "Giri" that Ranma commits
seppuku
mainly because of his "cowardice" in failing to fulfill his father's promise to 
Mr. Tendou (the engagement to Akane).  

        The bit about Genma's promise to Nodoka (about Ranma being "manly")
seems to be an afterthought:

Ranma once again bows low. As he reaches for a white tray, he pauses, and
turns to his 
mother. 
"Mother, do you still have that contract father and I signed, before we left?"

Nodoka Saotome seems confused for a moment, then pulls an old folded piece of
paper from an inside pocket and, with tremblinghands, hands it to her son.

Ranma unfolds the paper, reads it, and sighs.
"It seems that I have ruined more of my father's promises."

        Hmm...Ranma is most concerned with his failure at fulfilling his
father's
promises.  That is probably the reason he did it.

        Well, I noticed a bit of debate about this 'fic...mostly having to
do with
Ranma acting OOC.  I don't particularly care about this aspect <shrug>...and
after my ISP (or Eudora) screwed up my mail and I had to go through about
sixty messages scrunched up into 14 e-mails...and then having to extract
them, either from the FFML archive or manually with cut&paste...I *really* 
don't care.

        So all I have to say is:  I liked it.  It's sad and beautiful.

Venkarel
(who is wondering if Ranma is in male or female form when he
wore the kimono)