On Mon, Nov 23, 1998 at 06:05:37PM -0700, Grayson Towler wrote:
nerves a bit. Ranma does have the capacity to be a jerk - he also has the capacity
to be a hero. Over the whole of the story, I hope to have a balanced portrayal.
This chapter evidently concentrated on his "jerk" side more than it maybe should
have.
Well, Takahashi herself has done this as well. Take, for example,
Ranma's fight with Mousse in Vol. 27. If a single positive quality of
Ranma's is shown in this story arc, I certainly can't see it.
But, most people do have contradictory aspects to their personalities.
Remember Kasumi's statement about Akane early in the series? "She's a nice
girl, it's just that she's a violent maniac." And, as contradictory as it
seems, this statement is true.
Now is this the author's bias, or good storytelling?
Good storytelling, of course!
Hey! Smiley when you say things like that! :)
Is the author ranting,
or showing off Ukyou's susceptibility to that common Nerima ailment,
delusions of romance? After all, this *is* Ukyou's thoughts, so they're
going to be biased anyway. It's wierd, but this is what keeps me reading
this. A sorta morbid curiousity I suppose.
It's supposed to be the latter. Taken as a whole, I hope "Relentless" doesn't
seem too slanted towards any one character. After all, if you look at the last
chapter, Ukyou did a pretty lousy and selfish thing to Ryouga. She's no
saint, but her internal dialogue is likely to favor her own impressions.
One interesting thing I find about this story is the extent to which
the events are filtered through the eyes of the characters. In places,
it makes it difficult to tell exactly what is going on. This isn't a
criticism -- I think this ambiguity adds something extra to the story,
The incident with the bees is a prime example. Just how many of the
bees were knocked down by Ranma, and how many were munged by Ukyou's
spatula? I'm sure you'd get vastly different answers from Ranma and
Ryouga, and I highly doubt that Ukyou would care much one way or the
other. Somehow, I don't think you'd get the correct answer from any
of them.
But I actually like this ambiguity. The situation is far from clear for
any of the characters; it's an interesting way of reproducing it for the
reader. Don't clarify things, please! :)