Subject: [FFML] Comments on recent entries in "The Bet" series
From: Reid Carson
Date: 9/8/1998, 12:45 PM
To: ffml@fanfic.com

    On the whole, I've found the arc of story beginnings collectively known
as "The Bet" to be rather interesting individually (if prone to a good deal of
Akane-bashing) and certainly much preferable to simply saying, e.g., "Hey, what
if Ranma had gotten some therapy to deal with the Nekoken?"

    I have noticed one thing that bothers me though. Although the premise is
that one change is made to a particular timeline, often many other things,
seemingly unrelated to the original change, are different as well. It seems as
if too often the author has a particular outcome in mind and is trying to
force the story in that direction.

    Take "Changing Plans", for instance. Urd has made Ranma take Akane's
comment to heart, with the result that he has cooled on her (I'm not sure
it would have had that much effect, but let that slide). Why would Nabiki
try to locate Ranma's mother in this timeline, since she never bothered
to in "reality" - as far as anyone, including Ranma, knew, he didn't even
have one. Why would Nodoka give up so easily on Ranma's engagement to one
of the Tendos, and what about her problem with his curse? Where the heck is
Genma in all this?

    And what time frame does all this occur in? Shampoo showed up right after
the skating match, so why would she end up threatening Ranma's mother if he
was still at the Tendos? If he's not at the Tendos, wouldn't Ryoga have gone
after him, instead of hanging around to get involved with Akane?

    Why would Ranma end up meeting Makoto? Frankly, I have a hard time seeing
Ranma deciding to put on a mask to fight youma - why wouldn't he just take
them on the way he fights anyone else? And then dragging Gold Digger into it...

    The whole thing seems pretty arbitrary to me, and not at all the natural
result of Urd's change.

    In "Purple haired Mountain Majesty," why bother with the bit about the
spring of "Drowned Big Bad Wolf," since it had no effect anyway - just use
an empty spring? Shampoo here doesn't seem much like the Amazon who was
fully prepared to kill Ranma after their first fight in "reality." Why would
a number of Amazons decide to join Shampoo on her trip, since they didn't
do it in "reality", on either of her journeys to Nerima? In the only case
of "Amazon marriage" that we know of in the canonical timeline, the groom
objected very strongly. Why would any of the Japanese "married" here be
any more amenable? I can't see Akane taking well to being "glomped" by
some unknown boy, for example, as was described. And though some have argued
that Ranma is in some sense married to Shampoo, since the fight took place in
the Amazon village, certainly the rest have no validity in Japanese law. I
can't imagine many Japanese men thrilled at the prospect of becoming an Amazon
male, especially since the Amazons seem to have followed Shampoo's lead and
not bothered to have told their prospective mates what was going on beforehand.
And of course, there's no chance the Japanese would deport Japanese citizens,
merely because illegal aliens claimed to be "married" to them, against their
will. Again, the whole setup seems quite contrived.

    A number of the stories do flow more naturally than this. I thought
"Crippled," for instance, held together better, though I'm a bit dubious
about Akane's reaction. There are a couple of problems even here, though.
Would the hospital really release Ranma so blithely, with no one there
to pick him up? He is a minor, after all. How could Ranma ask the hospital
to contact his mother, when he doesn't even know about her? Do we assume
he's become a homeless person now? How exactly is he going to survive? How did
Shampoo find out her "airen" was in the hospital? I don't imagine the Tendos
would tell her. Once again, a few elements seem contrived so as to put Ranma
in the worst situation possible, but this nevertheless remains one of the more
interesting entries.

Reid Carson
rcarson@mnsinc.com