I must say that I am surprised at the extent debate over this piece has
reached, especially given that that it is a excellent work of fiction. Then
again, I've been through the same thing Mr. Leifker is enduring at the
moment. All said and done, one might well argue that I was more deserving of
this level of criticism when I posted the first part of Comes the Cold
Dragon, than Mr. Leifker is for No Dominion. In truth, neither of us had
this treatment coming for what we wrote and I certainly hope that Mr.
Leifker is not getting the same sort of private e-mail as I received.
When I read No Dominion, I began wondering what some of the C&C might look
like so I took the trouble to read some of it and was not at all surprised
at what I found. I had been here before. Watching someone else suffer it has
been little better than enduring it myself. Plainly put, the hue and cry
over this story is childish and muddleheaded. Let us examine what appears to
be the offending passage in No Dominion:
"This had been closer than she'd cared for. They'd tried to keep the
wedding from certain people, most notably the Kunous and the Nekohanten;
unfortunately, Shampoo had received word of the ceremony, and had sought to
interrupt the festivities by taking her head. As for how close Shampoo had
come... she'd rather not think of that.
She looked up to Ranma, who held her at his side. His eyes faced forward;
they burned with an anger more appropriate to her than to him. During the
fight, she'd seen a side of him that terrified her, as he'd come dangerously
close to killing Shampoo in his rage. It had been a near thing, on all
sides."
Other than the confusing over-use of pronouns in the first paragraph, I see
nothing wrong with this. Shampoo is not doing anything out of character
here. Ranma, is slightly out of character, but one might safely argue that
portraying a Ranma Saotome who has made up his mind about his future is OOC.
The outfall of Ranma's having made such a decision, however, is perfectly
logical as it is written here. It is especially logical given that this is
being written from Akane Tendo's POV. Shampoo has done nothing
extraordinarily different from what she has done in the manga. The major
differences are in the behaviors of Ranma and Akane, not Shampoo. If anyone
wants to complain about OOC, it is Ranma who is most out of character in
this piece.
It strikes me as very odd that Ranma is cast in the role of villain with a
fair amount of regularity, but no one seems to get angry over it. Nabiki is
very often cast in the role of uber-villain with a fair amount of regularity
but no one seems to be terribly upset about it. Ukyou is often cast in
darker colors than she is painted with in the manga, but one seldom sees
this level of acrimony over it. Genma gets bashed with little or no mercy on
this forum and about the only participant to raise even mild objections is
Mr. Kleppe, and I must admit, I have found myself on his side of that issue
on aesthetic grounds more than once, but even so, no one gets this upset
over the Genma bashing that goes on. It appears that only Shampoo and Nodoka
are the beneficiaries of this sort of rabid championship. I find it baffling
in the extreme.
Character bashing is bad when it has a very negative impact on the story. It
is only logical to expect that different people will favor different
characters over others. No two people will ever have the exact same tastes.
For instance, I positively despise the so-called "dark" genre, but even I
must admit that Ill Met by Starlight is a tour de force. The writing in that
story is first rate, rivaling the likes of even Fyodor Dostoevsky. Properly
offered C&C concerns itself with the quality of the WRITING. The WRITING in
No Dominion is of the first water for this forum.
'Nuff said,
Don Granberry.
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