Gary Kleppe wrote:
Matthew Campbell <mgcampb@clemson.edu> wrote:
Now, Ranma and Akane are going to married. Shampoo hears about it. By
all that she thinks she knows, these two do _not_ want to get married.
Their parents must be forcing them. Even if she didn't love Ranma, even
if she didn't love him at all...... Ranma saved her from the ghost cat.
She owes him a debt, and now it's time to repay that debt. She'll stop
the wedding, the wedding that Ranma has repeatedly told her that he
_does_ not want.
This isn't directly related to the argument here, but... Bob, Matthew...
have either of you actually *read* the ghost cat story? The only thing
Ranma did to "save" Shampoo is to beat up Genma when the cat possessed
him. Looks to me like a convenient excuse to pound dear old Dad. Nor did
it seem to me that Shamps was in any real danger; the cat seemed pretty
incompetent.
I cheerfully admit I have not. I only picked it up because Bob used it
as an example of Shampoo "oweing" Ranma. So I used it in the counter
example to show that Shampoo thought she was really repaying that debt.
If the example's bad, I withdraw it.
As for Shamps and Ukyo doing Ranma a favor by bombing the wedding --
personally, I don't buy that for a second. There would've been better
ways for them to get Ranma away from the Tendos if indeed they thought
he had wanted to get away. I do agree, though, that the Ranma and Akane
Possibly they could have. As I said though, Ranma and Akane only
brought it upon themselves by perpetuating and encouraging such behavior
through their deception.
I'm assuming Ukyou and Shampoo believed Ranma and Akane's deception in
this universe. In the regular series, it's different, but when we're
told characters are being lied to, and those characters then act as if
they believe that lie.... then I assume they believe the lie. It's the
simpler explanation.
And anyway, let's not get bogged down with specfic examples and
counter-examples. I'm just saying Ranma and Akane's pattern of behavior
strikes me as suspiciously villainous in character. Doesn't mean
everyone else is behaving like saints.
(Hey Bob, at least I got people talking about the fic, eh?)