On Sunday 10 November 2002 08:06 pm, Vincent Seifert wrote:
I merged your 3 messages. Was posting the story in parts more convenient
for you as a C&Cer?
Actually, yes; it enabled me to finish small bites and get them posted.
And once I posted the first, then of course I had to follow through and
finish them all. I have occasionally started a comprehensive C&C
of some long post, gotten interrupted, and never finished; your
small parts ensured that didn't happen this time.
Well, you were the one who warned me about that after the full audacity
of my plans became apparent, good grief, a year and a half ago... and I
took the advice to heart. Thanks.
You're welcome! :)
Again, second time through this is more interesting. Is
Kasumi deciding that Akane doesn't want the engagement?
Or doesn't deserve it?
Could be either, couldn't it?
Heh. Indeed it could. I have a bit more appreciation, I
think, for your craft vis-a-vis Kasumi after reading your
response and Anand's.
"What I really want to know, though, is why Kasumi would marry
Ranma."
Having all your characters ask this question works to underline
that we don't really quite know, at the end of this, though we
do get hints. Are you planning to ever answer this question
fully? (If not, suggest you dispense with a few of the echoes
of this question in this story.)
Not anytime soon (note that Akane is still in the dark about that 7
years later in AMAW, and Ranma, while he knows Kasumi better, isn't sure
either), maybe not ever. *I* very carefully don't know exactly why
Kasumi married Ranma.
That might have been a very good decision on your part, actually.
However, the "echoes" serve two purposes: you may note that each of them
may say more about the character suggesting the answer than it does about
Kasumi herself, and they also enumerate possible motivations that should
all be consistent with the evidence. I need them to be there for
structural reasons; they're not just a motif.
I can see the structure now that you point it out; I have used similar
strategies myself. I didn't realize while reading that that was what you
were doing, which is good, I think.
My earlier comment was motivated in part by comments J. Michael
Straczynski (sp?) made about his own technique: that he points to
unresolved questions that he WILL resolve, in the future, by having
characters ask these questions of each other. This draws attention
to the questions themselves, while you want to draw attention to
the various characters' answers. So I guess my suggestion remains
the same, but a bit more focusedd, perhaps: to see if you can have
the characters offer their various answers while placing a bit less
emphasis on the questions themselves.
Although Anand seemed to like it as is, so maybe you'd be best
off soliciting a few more opinions.
The actuality is that, in several stories, Ryouga shows clear
expectation that Ranma will help him conceal matters. It
is quite plausible that Ryouga would misremember this,
however.
Sure, he's exaggerating. In fact, Ranma seems to seesaw back and forth
between threatening Ryoga's secret and protecting it, depending on his
mood of the moment, all through the manga, and I expect that would
continue.
Yes, I've noticed that. Takahashi is very inconsistent from story to
story in Ranma's motives re: P-Chan. Sometimes he's conspiring
with Ryouga to hide the truth; sometimes he's dropping hints left
and right.
And his cursed form has black hair. :)
Heh.
Interesting definition of "better wife" here... (Not that Nodoka
would apply it to herself, of course.)
Well, we don't really know that, do we? Does Nodoka never express any
concern on-page in the manga over what Genma may have been up to while
he was away because she's totally sure of his fidelity, or is there some
other reason? Could it be that even if he did stray, it wouldn't bother
her enough to make a fuss about it, and in any case she wouldn't ask?
That's a good point. It is canonical that Nodoka expresses
essentially zero (maybe even negative) concern about Genma during
the period when Ranma's hiding his curse. Clearly it wouldn't bother
her particularly.
My point was a trifle more abstract: with Genma around, and presuming
that he's providing some support, does she care?
But, in writing this, I remembered something else that struck me
in re-reading AMAW: the question of Ranma's contribution to the
support of his family in Nerima. He's shown bringing back trinkets
which Kasumi may or may not be able to sell for significant money;
he's not teaching classes in the dojo (Akane is). So we don't
really know if Ranma is an insignificant contributer to the family
finances or an significant one. If the former, then the comparison
between Kasumi and Nodoka can be made directly.
I plead guilty and throw myself on the mercy of the readership...
Heh.
I'm stuck here. Akane HAS to be boneheaded enough to do things that will
cause Ranma to believe she really doesn't want him, and then not do
anything to correct the error, long enough to get him married to Kasumi,
or the story won't end up at AMAW. This tightrope act is in danger of
falling off the wire in a dozen places as it is!
True, considered canonically. But I seldom worry about the
discrepancies while reading "The Bitter End" or "Genma's Daughter".
I think what you're trying to do (persuade readers to leave their
disbelief at the door) IS achievable.
No, not really. Nabiki pretty much drops out of the storyline after
this. The main reason for having Nabiki here is to get in what she says
below, and thereby suggest that possible motivation to readers who
might not have thought of it themselves:
Right. So Nabiki needs to be part of this conversation. Suggest,
however, leaving it ambiguous whether she believes that "marriage
is about love".
Would it work better if the first part was an act (Nabiki preparing to
shake Kasumi down for a payment) and Kasumi takes the act at face value,
but her response deflates Nabiki's scam? I have a little trouble with
that, since Kasumi certainly has access to more money than Akane or
Ranma, but Nabiki is never seen trying to scam her in the manga...
Or maybe tweaking Nabiki's motivations or internal reactions would suffice?
Yes, I think all it needs it tweaks to Nabiki's motivations. I wouldn't
go the shake-down route, though. It might be better if her motivation
was simple amusement again: she assumes the "marriage = love"
position to try to shake Kasumi out of pure mischief, or she wants
to know Kasumi's motivations, to go create mischief with Ranma
and/or Akane. Maybe sell the info to Ranma? Or to Ukyou et al?
(After all, Nabiki does not yet know that all the usual customers
are either gone or leaving.)
"Sa, uh, Tendo Ranma," he managed in conclusion.
As the text stands, we're to suppose that Ranma is taking "Tendo"
by virtue of Kasumi heading the new family register, since no
previous adoption has been mentioned. The problem, of sorts,
is that this is regarded as the unmanly path in Japan, and it
in implausible that Nodoka would tolerate it. She'd insist on the
adoption the day before, and Ranma heading the family
register. A minor nit, I assure you, but also one easily
fixed.
Um... maybe not so easily, since I planned it that way. (If you check,
you will find that nowhere in AMAW or Heart of the Phoenix are Ranma,
Kasumi, or their, er, her children referred to as "Saotome".)
As I see it, Nodoka settled the manliness issue back in manga v36, and
since then has been certain of Ranma's exemplary manliness (rather more
exemplary than he actually was, in fact), with only a few brief bobbles
due to wacky hijinks. The usual reason for the unusual event of the
groom joining the bride's family rather than vice-versa has less to do
with manliness than economic circumstances (which could be considered to
apply here) and, in particular, a well-to-do family with no sons
(ditto), so I don't think Nodoka would object to it on those grounds.
The real issue is that Ranma is eldest and only son, and the real
question is why Nodoka would permit the "loss" of said son... and there
is a reason, but this isn't the proper time to go into it; it'll come up
in a future story, so I beg your indulgence until then.
(Also, I'd like to leave open the possibility of a precedent: it isn't
certain that "Saotome" was originally Genma's family name and Nodoka
married into it, nor that "Tendo" was Soun's, is it?)
As for the bureaucratics of the matter, I imagine it was handled
off-page on the morning of the wedding by transferring Ranma from the
Saotome register to the Tendo just before submitting the marriage forms,
deeding the property, and filing Ranma's change of residence. In
unseemly haste, to be sure...
(It occurs to me to wonder why the possibility of Ranma becoming a Tendo
that opened chapter 9 of Taming of the Horse didn't provoke any dissent
then, though. Maybe because it didn't actually happen. :)
Obviously I wasn't clear in my comment. I wasn't complaining that
the married couple takes the name "Tendo"; I was complaining about
which of the two possible routes to that end the text seems to be
suggesting (which is why I said it's a nit).
The option where Kasumi heads the new family register, so the family
name is Tendo, has only been available since after WWII. It is this
option which supposedly has an "unmanly" aspect, since the family
register lists the wife as family head. (The family name of the newly
created family must be the pre-marriage family name of the listed
head-of-family.)
The much older option, dating back centuries, is that Ranma becomes
an adopted Tendo before the wedding (possibly just before). [This
is what's going on in Shoujo Kakumei Utena where Akio has been
adopted as an Ohtori preparatory to his marriage to whats-her-name.
Akio's legal surname is Ohtori, but he's not married yet.] This option
does NOT have the "unmanly" aspect pertaining to it, since the
husband is listed as family head in the new family register. (Both
husband and wife have the same pre-marriage family name in this
case; at least, they do immediately prior to the wedding.)
I had occasion at one point to look up stats on this. The proportion
of marriages where the wife's name is taken at the marriage itself
is quite low, as you say (3%?). But there are still apparently 20,000 or
so adoptions each year in Japan which appear to have no purpose
other than to "adjust" the man's family name prior to the marriage.
So your Happi doesn't qualify as the go-between? He'd have
been at the wedding itself if he did.
No, that was Kasumi and Pantyhose-Taro he was the go-between for, in
another fic far, far away. :) Here, Happosai was off stealing panties or
something; he had nothing to do with the planning or preparations.
I didn't think the go-between actually had to DO anything; just being
the means by which the two families got together was sufficient.
Presumably, as the means by which Genma and Soun met and formed
their pact, he might be conceived to qualify.
This, of course, is another trivial nit.
They returned in a few minutes; now Kasumi was dressed in a
magnificent outer kimono, resplendent with brocade and embroidery
in symbols of good fortune.
Ah, the oiro-naoshi, where the bride changes into the uchikake.
Yes, but I'm trying to be good about the Japanese even if I don't think
it's gratuitous. :)
But you could have inserted some good jokes if Wedding Peach
were better known to your reader base; the three characters actually
shout out "oiro-naoshi" when changing from their wedding dresses
into their real fighting costumes.
I always said I wouldn't take up the P-chan issue unless I had something
reasonably new to say about it... glad it worked.
You certainly did have something new to say.
Thanks. I cannot for the life of me recall where I got the
eating-the-rice-grain as intimate gesture from; does it ring any bells
for you?
Perhaps a very vague one, but I have no idea either.
This, OTOH, in my opinion shouldn't tbe needed. If you've
done your job right up to now, the reader understands all this.
(I take this to be mostly authorial voice, as this Ranma doesn't
seem this articulate, but it may not be clear in your own mind.)
Right, it's me articulating what Ranma can't. This is what I call a
calibration issue; in my experience, some readers need this, some don't,
and some know it but want to read it anyway. Often I guess wrong.
And often you can't get enough feedback to know for sure.
I think I tend to err on the side of ambiguity, myself; certainly I get
more readers asking me what happened than I get complaining about
the way I spell things out too clearly.
Heh. This is another partial explanation for Kasumi's actions, and
it's telling about Nabiki, too: she's been out of high school for a
year, away at college, and she's still relying on Kasumi to do her
laundry?
Not "away"; she's been living at home because she's going to a college
close enough for it to be practical and she's too cheap to move out. One
of my prereaders said I needed to mention this somewhere; looks like he
was right and I was wrong...
I'm not sure it changes the gist, really; she's living at home, going to
college, and relying on laundry help from her older sister who wasn't
ABLE to go to college, despite test scores which would have allowed
it. Obviously she never offered to help Kasumi with the laundry.
shopkeepers and passersby called and waved to Kasumi, and she
carefully introduced Ranma as her husband to everyone she
exchanged words with.
Another of the reasons why Kasumi said "yes"...
Which one: a handsome husband, an increase in status from daughter to
wife, or someone to fend off the attentions of the Evil Dr. Tofu
brigade? :)
;) That WUE Dr. Tofu won't be able to get at Kasumi now that
she's got Ranma guarding her!
Well, what I meant was the second: she now HAS a husband.
She's 22; perhaps half her high-school classmates are married
(well, some significant percent, anyway). She has achieved
another milestone in the game of life.
Some congratulated him on his good
fortune, though, and a couple of guys sounded envious.
Well, Kasumi _is_ most Japanese men's ideal wife (which is
why more and more Japanese women are saying they're not
interested in marriage).
Yes... but on the other hand, if someone *wants* to do that with her (or
his!) life, I think it should be respected. Especially if it's done with
competence.
Sure. Fewer guys, I suspect, would be congratulating Ranma
on a marriage to Nabiki. Japanese guys, anyway.
Isn't it? Makes you wonder if maybe Kasumi in AMAW knows what's
going on with Ranma and Akane, perhaps?
If anything, I kind of assumed she did. There was, for instance, no
slightest hint that Kasumi is suggesting to the 26-year-old Akane
that she ought to be out looking for a husband herself. What she
DOES express is a desire to ensure that Ranma returns to her and
her home, and Akane as mistress simply adds to the attraction Kasumi's
home holds for Ranma.
Still no Nabiki, though ;)
Hey, she was only a fiancee for about a week. :)
Seriously, do you think I should work her in somehow? If so, what would
be the point: what would it say about her, and about Ranma? My immediate
reaction is "ick", and I think Ranma's immediate (and enduring) reaction
would be "Not a chance!"
Well, no. The thought only arose because Kasumi is included.
Personally, I count only Akane, Ukyou, Shampoo, and (for some
purposes) Kodachi as fiancees, but I've noticed that some writers
tend to include Nabs and Kasumi and often omit Kodachi.
So I guess I was wondering whether (in your mind at the time you
wrote AMAW) Kasumi got Ranma because you thought of her
as one of the fiancees, or because she was simply the best
mechanism available for having the other four get Ranma.
But I agree; adding Nabs seems pointless (especially since
there is no lack of Nabiki gets Ranma fics out there, both
fairly good and pretty bad).
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