On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, Richard Lawson wrote:
On Monday, November 17, 1997 3:57 PM, Ranma Al'Thor wrote:
On Sun, 16 Nov 1997, Richard Lawson wrote:
Well, that's it. This story is not like a Davies or a Biles... er, I
mean
it's not like a story written by Davies or Biles... but heck, like I
said,
I had a lot of fun with it. ^_^
Not so different as you might think :)
Doesn't hold a candle to "Dance of Shiva". :)
Probably didn't take 8 months to write either, nor did you spell several
names in a million ways like me :)
She finished up and looked at him. Years had melted from her. Now she
looked no older than sixteen. Yet it was still her, still the woman
who
Interesting.
(One way to make sense of that shot with them all standing on the cliff
over the city and none of them have aged except Serenity.)
That's exactly the scene that compelled me to write it this way. It just
didn't make sense that the Sailors all looked sixteen despite the passage
of many years.
They got lazy, I think. The animators, that is :)
How's your drawing coming along, John? Got anything you can scan in?
Well, I recently did a crop of WOT pictures:
http://www.tass.org/~rhea/Special2/Art
Mostly mug shots and the WOT world symbol (The snake in the infinity sign
around the wheel with the spear behind it)
In a manga art style.
That's not the problem I have with this story, it's the idea of
"Conservation of Evil" which bothers me. In a universe in which such was
true, all human striving to improve the world would be futile, for if you
solved one problem, you would only, and always create another one. It
also conflates natural evil (Earthquakes, fires, floods) and human/moral
evil. If you did have progress in fighting natural evil (which clearly
has occurred in at least some respects in our century), then you would
have to lose ground somewhere else.
If evil is TRULY conserved, then every advance you make has to occur at
someone else's expense. By helping someone, you would have to hurt
someone else.
Ultimately, this story is a tragedy. Serenity saves her soul at the
expense of humanity. If evil is truly conserved, then all human striving
is futile. No matter what our heroes and heroines did, they could not
win, for any victory would have to be balanced by defeat in something
else.
Or am I misunderstanding your point?
Hmm. How to put this.
It's not so much that there must always be as much evil as good. Those
philosophies have always bothered me, too. It's that Serena's method of
dealing with evil - by making sure no one ever feels pain, ever - is not
the right way of diminishing evil. Part of it is my belief in the
fundamental right of everyone to *choose*. We must be allowed to choose
evil, if we want. Serena was depriving people of that choice, and I
believe that's wrong. Of course, we can always hope to create a world
where no one will ever choose to do evil, where being good is the only
reasonable thing to do. But creating a world where the choice is removed -
that's evil in and of itself. That's kind of the point "Brave New World"
and "1984" were making.
Nod. I didn't get that from the story, though. (I'll also note that the
argument above you use is often used in Christian theodicies, but that's
another story :)) The whole way Ranma led up to Serena absorbing the evil
into herself seemed to imply that Evil couldn't be destroyed, but only
absorbed or redirected.
Side note:
My own vision of Crystal Tokyo is that of a society in which the problem
of physical evil has been solved, but not that of moral evil. Moral evil
is less of a problem, because some needs and wants that drive people to
immoral actions are more easily met in moral ways. Eventually, I'll get
around to writing Black Moon Rising, which will actually set this vision
out. All I have to do is finish my 20000 other projects...:)
Heh. Well, when you get to it, I'd find that a *very* interesting vision
to read about. When you get the other 1,999 projects out of the way. :)
The other major issue I'll be dealing with is the question of why Serena
and company didn't find the Black Moon Family and squash them before the
attack on Crystal Tokyo occurred. They know this attack is coming, and
yet, it isn't headed off in advance.
John Walter Biles : MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
rhea@tass.org http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/
The Moon Hill Gymnasium was crowded with students, most from Moon
Hill, but some from other schools. The special committee to pick the
theme for the first spring dance had argued for weeks over a theme. Many
ideas had been suggested: Love--American Style, Spring Sock Hop, Can't
Stop Doing the Monkey, The Black Plague, Enchantment under the Sea, Zinc
Oxide and You, Space Viking Vixen Women from Venus, The Progressive Era,
and The First Spring Dance. After extensive argument, the sole remaining
conscious committee member had selected the theme "Our Gym Covered in
Crepe Paper."
--Sailor Moon Z #7