The following contains views on specific characters that some people may
not agree with.  If you are one of them please refrain from spamming the
list and e-mail me directly at ajwoo@ucdavis.edu

Has anyone else noticed that fanfiction authors tend to write characters
into who they'd like them to be rather than who they "really" are?
Admittedly there are aspects that are up for interpretation, but in
certain cases the characterizations are completely unsupported.  I'm not
refering to any specific fanfic or author, this is general to most of
the fanfiction community.  Nor is this always a bad thing, there are
plenty of good fics where some of the characterizations come from far
left field.  I only mention this because many authors do it unconciously
(I caught myself doing it just yesterday).

Before you dismiss this thought completely, think about it for a
minute.  We all see certain characters in a certain light.  When reading
about those characters we tend to notice when the author deviates from
our view of those characters and when writing about them, their every
action usually conforms to our belief as to how they should act.  Some
authors, who shall remain nameless, see Tendo Akane as a psychotic
maniac who will hit Ranma at the slightest provocation.  Kuonji Ukyou as
a self-sacrificing angel willing to give up Ranma as soon as he says he
loves someone else (no, this is not a reference to Zen).  Kuno Tatewaki
as an honorbound modern day samurai.  Aino Minako as a complete airhead
who can't think any better than she can cook.  Mizuno Ami as a genious
with nothing more to her personality than her intelligence.  The list
goes on and on.

These characterizations can be good or bad, depending on the direction
of the fic--but they are all rather simplistic.  A character is either
good or bad, smart or stupid, etc.  Nothing in between.  Why is this?
Well, part of it is they way they are characterized in the series, and
part of it is the author.  Note that many of these characterizations
take a certain part of the character's personality and expands it so
that it dominates his/her actions.  this shows a tendency for people to
characterize characters with one word, even though those characters are
often far more complex.  Avoiding simplistic characterizations is
essential for certain story types.  Epic's, for example, tend to require
complex characters as do fics based on emotional drama.  An added
benifit is that complex characters are often more interesting than
simple ones.

AJ