On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Matthew Campbell wrote:

Ranma Al'Thor wrote:

Well, some of it is in the previous chapters.  (I showed Akane and Ukyou
getting cursed in Chapter 2 in Flashbacks), and eventually, I should have
a flashback to explain more clearly why Ranma originally came to the WOT
world and ended up in the Tower, and what happened when they came looking
for him (And further explaining the incident that split Akane)

Ahhh, non-linear storytelling.  It still seems unnecessarily confusing 
to me, but.......  <shrug>

I wanted to get to the part of the story that interested me :0
If I'd gone in an entirely linear manner, the story would just now be
getting about to where it started, and probably would have put everyone to
sleep :)


 > 

After all, why should _everybody_ respond the same way to something like
that, really?

Well, I'd like to hope I didn't show them all having EXACTLY the same
reaction to their situation.

Well it gets into very interesting territory.  Sexuality is determined 
by genetics, sure, but _when_ is it determined by genetics?  Are the 
genes affecting the brain's production of hormones at all times, or do 
they create a "program" in the brain to determine that sort of thing 
during puberty?  If something is determined by genetics at one point, 

My own tendency is to think that love is mental and our physical
attraction to people is physical/genetic.  Thus, our bodies can make us
feel physical desire for someone, but that doesn't guarantee we'll ever
fall in love.  At the same time, we can care very deeply about someone for
whom we feel no physical desire at all.  

Indeed, we might love someone more who we don't have any desire for at all
than someone we do find physically desirable.  

But I do think it's an ongoing genetic influence, rather than a pattern
set at puberty.  

 > does that mean it's genetics at all points?  Not to mention that 

here it's all magic in the first place.

Hai. :)
 

find sucha  purpose to sustain them, but the two of them who actually know
anything about it have been fed lots of horror stories of how you wither
away :)

Like I said, I'm not so sure it is part of the universe.  How much of 
what happens to those former channelers is from loss of the Source, and 
how much from being ostracized from all their friends and family?

Yes, but I don't think the family of a burnt out female channeler would
ostracize her.  In fact, they'd probably be MORE likely to accept her
back, since she's no longer a scary Aes Sedai.  Ostracized by friends,
yes.  I don't think their family would ostracize the burnt out females.  

I guess my main point is that the automatic death sentence is 
"conventional wisdom".  In the novels, how many times has conventional 
wisdom turned out to be a load of horse apples?

Heh.  True :)
 

By the end, all three of them will be back to their normal cursed state.
Physically, anyway :)

Now if you had only brought Genma along.  He could have been stuck in 
panda form for eight months, only to develop an intense obsession with 
lady pandas.  He deserves worse.

Heh.  I don't think Genma has any lust.  We've never seen him even look at
a woman, except for one flashback in the Anime. 
 
John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/


      Clever Nabiki sighed.  Magic wouldn't do the trick, either.  The
next day, she tried putting poison in the ogres' food, but everyone just
ended up thinking Princess Tomboy had tried to cook it.
"The Tale of Clever Nabiki", by Hans Christian Anderson