[FFML] [Ranma] Hearts and Minds, Part 10 of 10 [2/2]

[Michael Clark]

> >>Biaozi tried to talk but could barely even breathe. Her chest felt as
> >>though it were being squeezed by an invisible hand. *It can't end like
> >>this,* she thought. *It can't--*
> >
> >So Biaozi keels over because Mousse conveniently has an urn of hot
> >water?  Shampoo's effort to use her own spirit to stop Biaozi doesn't
> >have any ultimate effect?
> 
> 
> Gosunkugi left the urn in the previous scene, because of Lan's hint.
> Whether Shan's spirit had any effect is left to the reader to
> decide. Ranma was often something of a water magnet during the
> original series, whereby he would often get splashed with cold (or
> sometimes hot) water due to some rather unlikely coincidences. HaM
> explains this as being due to the influence of the curse spirit. So
> Shamps may have pulled off something similar here. She doesn't know
> whether that happened, and neither do we.

I see.  Well, it sounds like ambiguity is what you were hoping for; I'd
say you succeeded.  Nothing really hinges on that ambiguity, though, so
it surprised me that it was there it all.
> 
> 
> >The aftermath of the battle with Herb, Ryoga, Kasumi, etc. is given
> >solely through the word of one of the Americans.  An interesting choice.
> >It gets across the "enemy's" viewpoint on what happened to Kasumi
> >clearly, but I feel like it's emotionally disconnected from the shock of
> >what's happened.  There is no time for grief.  There is just regret.
> 
> 
> My intent in writing this was to leave unsaid reactions that
> everybody expects anyway, and concentrate on ones that might not be
> so obvious, such as Ryoga's guilt over not having confessed to being
> P-chan. Maybe I went too far in this direction. I don't want to
> minimize the impact that Kasumi's loss has on our heroes.

I can definitely appreciate the logic behind that position.  And one of
the people most affected--Akane--does end up trying something as a
result of Kasumi's death.

Nevertheless, I do feel that there's a suddenness between the scenes
that is somewhat jarring.  Maybe it's not the emotional content per se
but just the quick shift in time and place.
> 
> 
> >Kodachi holds off from attacking Ranma's children, reasoning that
> >seeking vengeance isn't part of who she is and wants to be--it signifies
> >weakness and a desire to avoid future conflict.  This strikes me as a
> >new dimension to her character, one not present canonically.  Is there
> >anything you would point to as evidence that supports this line of
> >reasoning as being consistent with her character?
> 
> 
> Kodachi would say (and I tend to agree) that it isn't weakness, but
> strength. She's ending her involvement in this conflict simply
> because at this point there's nothing left to gain from engaging in
> it.
> 
> As for examples from canon, at the end of her first story the
> Pig-Tailed Girl defeats her. Yet she doesn't go hunt down the PTG,
> nor does she hunt down Akane for whom the PTG was competing as a
> surrogate and who she could easily find. Basically all of Kodachi's
> other appearances go the same way. She fights when she has something
> to gain by beating a current opponent (or thinks she does, as in the
> first Hinako story), not to punish a former one.

I see.  I appreciate you elaborating on this point; it seems like an
inference based on a lack of evidence to the contrary, but I do find it
persuasive.
> 
> >Some general comments about the story as a whole:
> >
> >The story is structually sound.  I've commented on the short, almost
> >rapidfire way you go from scene to scene.  I think overall this gives
> >the story a unique ability to cover many characters continuously and
> >quickly.
> >
> >In the final chapter we at last get an idea of what Herb is trying to do
> >and how and why the Americans have aided him.  Again, I remark that the
> >nature of Herb's motivations doesn't really contribute to the greater
> >thematic conflict because it is unknown and thus nearly irrelevant for
> >most of the story.
> >
> >I felt the first few chapters might've been a little slow, in that it
> >took a long time for Ranma and friends to arrive at the Amazon village.
> >These chapters spent a good deal of time depicting the interactions
> >between those characters while the war was ongoing. Once that the group
> >arrived, however, things picked up nicely.
> 
> 
> Yeah, I don't know if that could be helped. I needed to spend some
> time showing life for the Amazons under occupation and that required
> slowing down our heroes as they came to the rescue.
> 
And that makes sense.  Perhaps more activity on Biaozi/Herb's part to
slow down, stop, or harass Ranma and co. on their way to China would've
evened out the action between the two settings.  But it's hard for me to
say that when that would require more action that leaves everything else
more or less intact.  It is a bit of a pickle.
> 
> >The characterization has some strong moments, but I feel that they're
> >mostly confined to small realizations.  Ranma comes in, questions
> >himself when Kodachi beats him, undergoes a crisis of strength when Lili
> >leaves him, and then decides to take Lili back, so to speak.  This
> >decision, I think, is somewhat understated.  It's done for largely
> >pragmatic reasons (certainly not through any explicit reconciliation
> >with Lili).
> 
> 
> Well, explicit reconciliation would be difficult since they can't
> even talk to one another without a mediator such as Kasumi or Kaede.
> But for Ranma this is a start, not a finish. Were I to go on with
> this it could develop more but that probably won't happen since
> there doesn't seem to be much interest in this series anymore.

Right, I definitely got the vibe that, for these characters, everything
had merely come to a middle, so to speak.
> 
> 
> >I also want to highlight Kasumi and Genma's deaths, which strike me as
> >merely happening without adequate foreshadowing.  I think it would've
> >been very interesting for Kasumi to have known *from the start* that she
> >could go and make a difference in China, but at the cost of her life.
> >Instead, she only finds this out near the very end of the piece, and as
> >such, the issue of her dealing with this knowledge and making a decision
> >for herself takes up only a tiny bit of narrative time.
> 
> 
> In my view, Kasumi's decision wasn't whether to go along with what
> happened -- her mother and other spirits deliberately left her with
> no choice as to that -- but in how she reacted to the inevitability.
> She could have gone out kicking and screaming, or at least
> complaining. Instead she embraced the destiny that was given to her
> and never looked back.

I'm not suggesting that Kasumi's choice is out of character. Rather, I'm
saying that the whole plot point doesn't get the attention it deserves.
It doesn't have the weight it could.  There's no real conflict involved
with this matter.  Kasumi makes her decision, and that's all there is to
it.  Maybe it's just too much old-school science fiction swimming around
in my head, but I looked at this plot, and I said, "Okay, someone's
going to find out that this is Kasumi's fate and try to stop it.  They
probably won't succeed, but they will *try*."

Even short of that, though, I think there was a missed opportunity to
probe at either Kasumi's character or someone else's.  Kasumi makes the
choice we all expect her to make, so it doesn't tell us anything new
about her.  Her death affects people.  Her choice to willingly go to
that death in service of the greater good, in obedience of what the
spirits tell her--does that affect anyone?  Does that tell us anything
new or insightful about her?  Or anyone else?
> 
> 
> >What does it mean to develop a character?  Is it enough that they're
> >merely different as a result of enduring the story?  No, I don't think
> >so.  There must be a *choice* to do and be something different.  Kodachi
> >is, perhaps, the closest to making that choice, when she realizes that
> >she's not acting the way she wants herself to be.  I thought this was a
> >very interesting development, but I didn't feel that it was an
> >undercurrent throughout the story--that is, I felt it should've been
> >more prevalent in her thinking prior to this point.
> 
> 
> I'm not sure how that could've worked. In the beginning of the story
> she's confident in her ability to act with impunity and only
> Kasumi's noticing of her aura (or rather her pets' auras) changes
> that. In the middle of the story she's thought to be dead so
> obviously we don't get to follow her thoughts then. Ultimately she
> doesn't realize the mistake she's made (from her own point of view)
> until her final scene. I do see the issue but I'm not sure what if
> anything could be done about it.

Right.  And I know with a long creative development history, it can be
difficult to ensure that the narrative thread you end up with is one
that persists through the story and is the same thing that you started
with.

If I were somehow magically in the position to talk to Kodachi near the
beginning of the story, I would probably ask her, "What are you trying
to do?"  And Kodachi would probably brush me off, insisting that she
knows exactly what she's doing.  But at least the seed of doubt would be
there, and it could grow and grow until that realization at the end,
which I thought was done well on its own but just needed some support
from the rest of the story.
> 
> 
> >Let me say a bit more about theme, then, to conclude.  I could identify
> >that each character had a well-defined character arc:  Ranma with his
> >strength and with losing Lili; Ryoga and his curse; Kodachi's revenge;
> >Ukyo's sham relationship; Biaozi's quest for recognition and leadership;
> >and so on.  Many of the characters had personal struggles and overcame
> >them (or succumbed to them) in the story.  I can tell you made it a
> >point to develop a *lot* of characters here, to give them all attention
> >as best you could.
> >
> >But I fear you may have split your attention too much, at the cost of a
> >cohesive whole.  No character's struggle really reflects or informs us
> >about the others'.  They don't struggle with the same sorts of things.
> >I could look at Kodachi and Biaozi and Herb and say this is a story
> >about the lengths people will go to to get what they want or to repay
> >previous slights.  I could look at Ranma, Ryoga, and Ukyo and make an
> >observation about people too prideful to admit their own weaknesses and
> >failings.  I could look at Kasumi and Genma and contrast them as people
> >doomed to die in this adventure.
> >
> >But what do I get when I look at them all together?  Not much.  All of
> >it simply *is*, and I get no greater message from their struggles.
> 
> 
> Your point is taken. No doubt I could have written a more cohesive
> story if I dropped a lot of the stuff not directly related to the
> main plotline or at least dropped things that couldn't be tied
> together thematically. The price would've been that some characters
> would've gotten the short end of the stick. Were I doing an original
> work this probably wouldn't bother me too much, but this being my
> major opus as a Ranma writer (and maybe as a writer in general --
> I'm not getting any younger) I felt almost obligated to try to do
> right by all of the major characters as much as I could.
> 

Sure, I definitely felt that impression and pressure from you throughout
the story.  I faced a similar choice and chose differently, but I admire
your ambition in trying to give each and every character a story to have
and hold. I can tell it was a tough road to hoe.
> 
> >I will say that you closed the story on a good note.  Ranma and Akane
> >still have lives to live and adventures to go through, even if those
> >adventures are not part of this story.  I thought that was a good vibe
> >to end on.
> >
> >
> >While I know I've been critical of some aspects of this story, I have
> >enjoyed the privilege of commenting upon it over these past few months.
> 
> 
> I wish more people on the list would see it that way. :)  But I
> greatly appreciate the thoughtful feedback you've provided on this
> series. While I haven't always ended up agreeing with you, your
> comments have never failed to be thought-provoking and I'm grateful
> to you for providing them.
> 
I'm really quite glad to hear that.  Half the time I'm not sure if I
actually know what I'm talking about, so knowing that my remarks have
stimulated *some* useful thoughts is a relief to say the least.

All the best,
Michael Clark