arromdee@inetnow.net wrote:

On Sat, 8 Aug 1998, Richard Lawson wrote:

Lawson's portrayal just fortified this bizarre interpretation,
and over the years, the Kodachi as mad women has become canon. Her true
character is that of a wicked women, a parody of a machiavellian court
maiden; she's as sane as she is underhanded, which is to say, very.

Try reading the source material before making such a claim.
In one manga story, she paralyzes Kuno, binds him, then feeds him to her pet
alligator.  Nothing very machiavellian in that; she wanted Kuno out of the
way and thought that would be the best way to do it.
Now, of course RT was just doing it for a laugh (we later see that Kuno
managed to escape, although we are never told how he did).  But it *is*
consistent with a Kodachi who is not altogether there.  And this is just one
of many examples I could quote.

Yet, Ryouga believed he was attacking Ranma with an attack that would blow
him into little teeny pieces (he didn't know it only worked on rocks).  Most
people don't consider this as evidence that Ryouga is a would-be killer or
that he isn't sane.

This example is rather inconsistent with Ryoga's character. What Richard was
pointing out that Kodachi consistently shows behavior like this that's how a lot
of people assume she's mentally deranged. Besides Ryoga was trying to kill Ranma
in a duel. There's a difference between drugging, gagging and feeding someone to
an aligator then there is to killing someone in combat. The CM portrayel of
Kodachi is IC because there is no definite definite interpretation.

 The same goes for hitting people over the head with
hammers, which a lot of characters do.  Sure, Kunou escaped the alligator by
luck, but every time someone gets knocked out by a hammer and awakens without
brain damage, that's also luck.

This isn't really a valid example as the hammers are just a sight gag. It's not
meant to be serious. You don't see people whip out hammers in the middle of a real
fight do you?

The only real difference is that causing brain damage isn't visual, and being
chewed up is, so it's a lot more obvious that something unlikely is happening
in the second case.