Y'know, seeing all this response to my responses to 'Bitter End'...

... I'm surprised at how much I'm seeing the attitude, 'Akane? A homicidal
abusive shrew who eats small children for breakfast before making Ranma the
scapegoat for her smallest annoyance? I can believe it!'

I don't believe that we were ever saying that, correct me if I'm wrong.
However, there was a lot of things everyone could've done to prevent this
tragedy. She did make some very major fuck-ups:

1) Blaming everything on Ranma: She never did acknowledge the possibility,
even in her calm moments, that Ranma might always be completely frank. Even
when she was demonstratably wrong and appologized, when another disruption
occured, she would still blame it on Ranma instead of giving him the
benefit of the doubt, at least as long as it takes to explain. Some things
are blameless.

2) Never dealt with her anger: When she was just flying off the handle, I
might understand. But actually _BLANKING_OUT_ while raging? I don't know
what she was thinking, but to me this would be a glowing neon red sign
saying: "SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOU!"

3) Never doing anything about the ultimate causes: Her cooking is terrible,
and she knows it! Granted, she could've done without the insults, and Ranma
deserves a reprimand, but the smart thing to do would be to do something
about her cooking. Akane KNOWS her cooking stinks. She's tasted some of her
creations herself, and even asked Kasumi to learn how to cook. The solution
would be to learn how to cook before serving anything she made to Ranma
again. Her track record's awful and she knows she screws up making the
simplest things, so if she wasn't sure that the stuff was good (by tasting
it), serving it to Ranma is just BEGGING for trouble. Instead, she expects
Ranma to complement something that she's not sure is even good and most
likely isn't! Stupid.

4) Cannot communicate: Even when she does listen, Akane doesn't listen very
well to Ranma. When he's halfway through the explaination, Akane jumps to
conculsions. She then twists every word he says to conform to that
conclusion which she's already reached. She also has absolutely no trust in
Ranma, but every trust in everyone who contradicts him. Take the Instant
Nanniichuan fiasco. Shampoo told Ranma to give her "one more kiss",
implying that Ranma had already kissed her (assuming that Vis translated it
with any accuracy :). Akane asked "Did you kiss her?" Ranma told her, "I
didn't kiss her." (It took him a while to respond, as he was dodging signs
at the time.) Akane had already concluded that Shampoo and Ranma kissed, so
Shampoo kissed him. She never considered that possibly Shampoo was LYING!
Her mind is made up, there was kissing, and since Shampoo didn't kiss him,
he must've kissed her. BOOOM!

5) No trust in Ranma: Akane assumes that Ranma is the enemy sent from hell
to make her life miserable. She also assumes that he's a pathological liar,
irredeemable phillanderer, a pervert, a flighty lover, playboy and likes
women with big breasts. (It's not an uncommon assumption, actually... :)
She assumes that Ranma will do the worst thing possible when out of her
sight (and in her sight) with just a little evidence to confirm it, and it
takes a lot of clear evidence to the contrary to convince her otherwise.
Kodachi's photo is a good example. Dispite the fact that, even in cartoon,
the Ranma kissing Kodachi photo is an obvious fake, she takes Kodachi, a
known cheater and crazy, at her word. Yet, even with the unaltered
negative, Ranma couldn't convince Akane that it was a fake. It took
eavesdropping on Kodachi and Ranma and hear the truth out of Kodachi's own
mouth before acknowledging that Ranma was telling the truth, just like the
umteen previous times. Ranma has more than proved his love for her; if he
didn't love her, he would've eloped with Ukyou (the only relatively normal
one of the group; preferable to a loony and a cat) LOOOOOONG ago! Yet he
sticks to her dispite three other fiancees, two other suitors for Akane's
hand, enough damage to kill the entire human race several times over, a
great deal of that damage coming from HER, protects her with his life,
tries to keep her out of the way from harm (though he could've done it with
more tact), and all the crazy shit over the past 38 volumes. That's
DEVOTION. Akane doesn't seem to recognize this fact, as every time he even
goes near his fiancees (to Ucchan because she IS a friend; to others only
because of personal gain), she assumes he's going behind her back. Akane no
BAKA!

6) Stubborn as a mule: Although both are extremely thick-headed (can you
say coconut?), Ranma was at least willing to go get some help (after some
pushing by Ukyou). When Ranma clandestinely asked Akane to accompany him to
a councelor (to get her diagnosed for rage disorder), Akane called him
weak. Maybe this was going a bit too far, but Akane certainly wasn't
willing to go outside for help. After all, she knew how to fix the
relationship: beat Ranma until he behaved. There's a time to solve
something on your own, and a time to gather a posse. Not all problems can
be solved alone, and domestic violence is one of them.

Akane is _not_ a homicidal abusive shrew who eats small children for
breakfast before making Ranma the scapegoat for her smallest annoyance.

She is, however, a bozo!

Just like everyone else in the series! ^_-

                           ---------------------
##   ## ##   ## #######  ##   ##  AKA Tom Jefferys, Time Lord for Hire
##   ##  #   #   ##   ## ### ###    "Have TARDIS; Will Travel."
## # ##   ###    #####   ## # ##  Weilder of ANVIL and SPAM!
### ###    #     ##  ##  ##   ##  <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>
##   ##   ###   ###   ## ##   ##    <JEFFERYSTR@rascal.guilford.edu>

Darwin was wrong: Man is still an ape!