On Wed, 23 Dec 1998 kleppe@execpc.com wrote:

Overall, I'm enjoying this series. The writing is good, and the
characters are for the most part very well handled. 

Thanks!  *blush*

I have one big complaint, though, and that's Kasumi. The all-wise solver
of everyone's problems that she seems to be portrayed as here is
*really* hard to take. Even if you believe in the "smart" Kasumi, she'd
be more subtle than this for the sake of keeping up the pretense.

I was afraid someone would mention this.  I'm keenly aware that, no matter
how "motherly" Kasumi has been forced to be, she's still only 20 or so at
the time of ToTH, and in some ways inexperienced even compared to Akane; I
tried to address this in the prologue. I tried to compensate for the role
I needed her to play by having her make some incomplete or even inaccurate
assessments; she's right that Shampoo wasn't trying to kill Akane, for
example, but wrong about why. 

However, it seems to me that a lot of what's going on between Akane and
Ranma is so painfully obvious (to everyone except A&R, and maybe Soun and
Genma; we'll leave Kuno Tatewaki as far out of it as he is) that Kasumi
doesn't need to be "smart" to observe it, and merely needs to be willing
to talk Akane to about it, and I think it is reasonable (or at least
defensible) for her to do so once asked. 

My take on Kasumi is that she is neither a subtle, devious manipulator,
nor oblivious.  I think she's a young woman who is trying very hard to
keep up appearances, make her family happy, and honor her mother's memory
by doing her mother's job as best she can.  I also think that she has
interests, activities, and abilities that don't appear in the manga... 
because she'd just about have to, to keep her sanity. 

My understanding of FFML rules is that we should not dispute points of
character interpretation on the FFML, but that we are allowed to discuss
whether writing in a fanfic correctly reflects the writer's
interpretation... is this correct?  If so, anyone who wishes to discuss my
take on Kasumi is invited to do so in Email, and I'd be very happy to see
the writing in ToTH dissected on the list.

Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics

Thanks for writing.  Comments like this are what I was hoping to get when
I posted ToTH to the FFML. 

Vince Seifert    Network Analyst     seifertv@csus.edu
http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/  updated 1998Jun04
CSUS hired me to build their network, not to give away the homeworld.