Subject: Re: [FFML] [info request][r1/2]about Principal Kuno...
From: Drakkus
Date: 12/17/1997, 5:02 PM
To: fanfic@fanfic.com

At 02:19 PM 12/17/97 -0600, you wrote:

Basically, if you're going to write Kunou, there's nothing wrong with
giving him Shakespearian lines to declaim.  But if you're going to go
deeper into him than just making him an incidental character, it might be
worth hunting down a translation of some classical Japanese works.  It'll
be a lot more effort, but it might just make the character more
interesting.

Not if he's attempting to interact with a Western character. Shakespeare is
believable, considering the number of languages his work has been translated
into and the following he has.

I'm personally inclined to believe that Kuno has got a very broad literary
base, and is more than likely to have either read translations of the better
Western poets, like Browning, or to have puzzled his way through the English
versions with Oxford by his side. Remember that Kuno is always, ALWAYS
trying to attain the nobility his ancestors supposedly had, that he's almost
a living anachronism. One common habit that many nobles in every culture had
was education as an indulgence, especially exotic education in foreign
languages and cultures. 

Besides, Kuno truly seems to love poetry, and he would no more turn down an
opportunity to read a great English poet than I would turn down an
opportunity to listen to a great Japanese one. I wouldn't be able to read it
because I don't know the language, but I could certainly listen to the music
of the words.

There's no reason to regard the original manga/anime with the religious awe
that several of the members of this mailing list do. Ranma is not such a
wonderful series, if one looks at it critically. It has popular appeal
because it's funny and sad and the characters are interesting; but
Takahashi's plots are pretty ludicrous at times, the whole thing is riddled
with inconsistencies, and the humor is slapstick and cartoonish. I'd say
that most of the better Ranma fanfics are of immeasurably higher literary
quality than the original series. 

Fic authors should use the original universe as a conceptual base and that's
it. Breaking the canon should be permissible, even encouraged, because the
canon is pretty stupid, once you get right down to it.

-Drakkus Blasphemy, Greater Daemon of Eris Discordia
drakkus@labyrinth.net
-><-