At 07:56 PM 11/18/98 EST, Alan Harnum wrote:

Well, Matt, so far, these stories have been simply great.  Not
your typical Ranma fanfiction by any means.  As you've said in your
'infamous' preludes, the reasoning behind some characterization
is frighteningly plausible.

You know, I was going to wait a little bit before I started calling
them 'infamous,' another Soul of Ice preface or two, but then I
said "to heck with it," and decided they could be infamous now...
^_^

Perhaps it's a bit presumptuous to call a product of your own work 
'infamous', but, well... they deserve it.  ^_-

Well, *someone* had to call 'em that, an' I thought that I better do
it, just to make sure.... ^_^

<Wandering lumberjack uses his saw on some text here>

think, the great danger of becoming too much of any one thing;
the need, as I have always seen it, is one of balance, not of
polarization.

A philosophy I've always been a proponent of-- the main thrust of
the preface, in fact. Like Aristotle taught, the mind has links to
the body.

Or, as has become more and more evident in recent times, the mind and 
the body are one and the same, and not separated by some great divide.

It was something the ancient Greeks believed, but had fallen out of
favour. The Victorian era and the Puritans especially denied this,
wanting to deny the flesh as corrupt (incidentally the Victorian
era was also known for its high rates of prostitution).

<More hacking and sawing away>

however, cuts straight to the bone with this theme, shortly and
sharply.  In 'Thesis', Ranma becomes 'perfect' from the

That would be because of length. Waters Under Earth is much longer,
so you can explore more subjects, indeed, it is necessary for you
to. Also, my Soul of Ice is a pretty didactic work, with not that
many voices, only following Ranma around. The narrative choice,
don't you know. Waters Under Earth encompasses more voices, more
points of view-- much more polyphonic a text, able to deal with more
issues. Well, it's my theory, at least.... ^_^

I like it.  I'll probably steal it sometime.  ^_-

Further proof for one of my pet theories-- the one wherein I speculate
that everyone wants to become just like me (and why wouldn't you? I
don't blame anyone for wanting to be more like me). ^_^

perspective of some philosophies; he is free of all human
compunctions of love, guilt, fear, morality, ethics or otherwise.
And perfect as he may be, he is also a monster of sorts; in his
quest for the purity of soul, perhaps he has lost his own along
the way.

That's why Ranma admits that he's technically human-- in a physical
sense he still is, but there's nothing else which is human about
Ranma. He is outside of us and outside of human concerns or needs.
A monster then because of his absolute perfection and terrible
oneness of spirit.

Shades of the previous debate about Might and Right, I see.

Gee, I never really thought about that.... Hmmmm, my entry to
that challenge that I made? :)


Matthew "Maybeso" Lewis is:
InDefinitelyso on IRC
See him on FFIRC [bachman.newberry.edu fanfic]
Sojiro_Seta on Kawaiimuck
	maybeso@ican.net
Playing the fool in a foolish world
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Sheen watched his flight. "I forgot to mention the most
important thing," he murmured. "If there's one thing a mind
can't avoid, it is its automatic aversion to evil. The
moment he lets it into himself, he places his feet on the
road to demolition."
 		    -excerpt from A Billion Days of Earth
			by Doris Piserchia
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