Sebastian Weinberg wrote:
I suspected as much, when you mentioned that they all lived under
one roof in the Kunou mansion. And Kodachi seemed to have
acquired a few mannerisms in part 2, that are normally attributed
to Nabiki. :) I like this. A sane Kodachi and a tender-hearted
Nabiki - whatta team.
Nabiki has always been my favorite character, and Kodachi catapulted
herself up there after "The Dying of the Rose". So I do feel an
affinity for both of them. :)
: "This is the information on file with the Canadian Police. I
: would suggest spending the three and a half hours we'll be in
: the air tudying those reports.
Gee, I wonder how she got them. :)
Actually, the American police officer provided them, something that's
brought up later in the discussion with the Inspector.
: Nouma cleared his throat. "Did, uh, anything unusual happen to
: either of you last night?"
Ah, *very* good. I was afraid he would not mention it, thus
playing into the hands of the mysterious entity behind all this.
That happens *all the time* in movies and I never understood how
the protagonist could do something this stupid. Thanks, Richard.
:) My favorite piece of movie logic is, "We're alone in a house with a
psychotic killer. Let's split up!"
Hmm, but why did whatever possessed her return to the cave? If it
was just after some kind of energy to drain from the people there,
it could have dropped her right after sucking dry the last one.
Instead, it returned to the cave and apparently left her there.
Why, for that matter would it need a physical body at all, to
hunt and drain others? Too little information to hazard a guess,
at the moment.
[scratches head] Whatever.
<sigh> I could explain this, but then I'd have to kill you. :) No,
seriously, I hope that this gets straightened a little in the next
chapter.
: He clamped his mouth shut. He could have gone on for long
: minutes, throwing in a sonnet or two he had learned from
: Uncle Tatewaki.
Heh, I thought he wanted her?
Hey, if spouting sonnets got Kuno a wife like Nabiki, sign me up for
Shakespeare classes! :)
: manage. "I, too, cannot wait to see what the future holds in
: store for us, Khu Lon."
Heh. This, of course, would suffer if Nouma wasn't too proficient
in Mandarin.
Well, I tried to make the sentence relatively simple, something I could
have said after my one year of Spanish in high school.
In fact, I thought right from the start that whoever that
mysterious entity is *wanted* Ranma to turn up there. Something
about its first speech to its prey sparked that. Now that I've
read chapter 3, I feel like this was uncomfortably close to the
truth.
Close, but not quite. :)
: Ukyo laughed as Nouma allowed the ribbon to pull him down the aisle.
That's a really nice touch. That's what I love about your
writing.
Well, thanks. This is another one of my favorite bits so far.
: at hand. "Before we begin, I have to tell you about something
: that happened to me last night."
Hmmm? What would that be?
<smack> The voice, dummy!
: again, Nouma drew satisfaction from destroying her
: preconceptions about him.
Yep, never let an opportunity pass to remind people of the fact
that everything they know is wrong.
It's one of my favorite pasttimes. :)
All this just covers the *technical* aspects. If they're dealing
with magic, they should be aware that there are ways to do things
that have nothing to do with technics. This feels like a band of
explorers into the Cthulhu mythos, who still believe that
everything is rational and can be explained scientifically. These
people should know better than that.
Well, Nabiki represents the technical side, Ranma the "magical" side,
and Nouma is right in the middle.
: Nouma grimaced; he was losing ground here. She was becoming
: angrier, now that all of her suspicions had been confirmed.
: Nevertheless, he tried to see it through. "To paraphrase
: the esteemed Mr. Holmes, when you eliminate the highly
: probable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the
: truth.
Huh? Sorry, I don't get this at all. Why would you eliminate the
highly probable?
Wow, I can't believe you haven't come across this saying before,
Sebastian. It *is* a quote from Sherlock Holmes (aka Arthur Conan
Doyle).
You eliminate the highly probable because you find evidence that
contraverts it. Like, you're fairly sure the butler did it, except he
lost the use of his right hand during the war, so he couldn't have
lifted the body into the hayloft (or something like that).
Holmes' (and Doyle's) point is that once you find evidence that
eliminates the highly probable suspects, than whatever is left over,
however unlikely it may have seemed at the beginning, is the truth. It
*was* the 90-year-old great-grandmother, whom you discover was a
professional weightlifter in the circus and has kept in remarkable
physical shape.
Nouma's point here is that the murders can't be explained
scientifically, so the unlikely explanation of magic becomes more and
more viable.
You know, I just realized what bothers me the most about this kind
of magic. It's not the fact that people die of it - because more
people die of more horrible things each day - but the fact that
the characters are helpless against it, with no way to guard
themselves. If you read the old stories - fairy tales, sagas and
legends - then you'll notice that people are normally not harmed
by magic, unless they somehow brought it upon themselves. Perhaps
the dabbled in things not meant for humans to meddle with;
Perhaps they were lax in their spiritual/religious duties;
Perhaps the neglected to perform one of thos hundreds of little
rituals that were common "for good luck" - or against bad magic.
Higer powers just... reaching out and snatching helpless, lesser
human beings were unthinkable. The devil couldn't come into your
house unless you bid him enter; Vampires couldn't harm you,
unless you were so reckless as not to hang garlic around your
window and wear a cruzifix. The fair folk couldn't snatch your
baby child from the crib, unless, while the house was constructed,
someone was so foolish as to step through a wall that was not yet
built (that creates a fairy door, doncha know?); In short, if
magic affected your life, you must have done something to cause it
or let it happen.
Think of all the magical mishaps, curses and possessions in _Ranma
1/2_. I'm sure most of them adhere to these rules. Whatever
causes the problem in this fic, doesn't - and that's what makes me
feel so uncomfortable.
Well, the evil magic can't let you in unless you give it an opening. In
this case, the Inspector's anger allowed the evil to slip into her mind
and begin building the anger to an unreasoning hatred.
This will be spelled out a bit in the next chapter.
Sebastian
-Richard
sterman@sprynet.com
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