FOG3 wrote:So says Mr. Shampoo-really-means-it, no-really. Do we need to bring up the laundry list of just who she's done the "Kiss of Death" to and how not only are they all still alive, but most of the time she doesn't even seriously attempt to use lethal force. Your standard appears to be not existant, sir. I don't include intentional bias error aka double standards as a standard, I'm afraid.
Well she didn't really blows everything you have on the others out of the water, and reduces it to kindling. What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander, friend. You dug the grave by bring up inferior attempts by the others, so sleep in it.
Huh? How on earth is it a double standard?
Here, let's use a less inflamatory example. In the Golden Pair story arc, Ranma makes
multiple death threats against Mikado--and yet I don't cosider him to have actually meant a word of it. Why? Because A) he arguably gets the chance but doesn't take it, and B) it just doesn't fit well with the rest of his character for him to be really serious. If Ranma could
really be pushed to murder that easily, then what about Herb? He tries to take away Ranma's masculinity permanently, and yet Ranma
saves him in the end.
Same with Akane--if she's enough of a psychopath that
that kind of minor, indirect insult was
really enough to send her into a homicidal rage, then why isn't she going after Ranma with lethal instruments
all the time, as he hits her with identical, or far
worse insults? Why doesn't she kill him when she has the battle dogi? It just doesn't
fit as a seriously intended death threat--even in the context of that plot-verse--any more than
Ranma's own death threats do.
Compare that to Shampoo. We
see her swing her bonbori at Nabiki's head from behind, only to have Ranma snatch her away at the last second. That's not a "threat" to begin with! We see her plotting to kill Akane in the confusion of the Taro battle. And we're never (that I recall) given any counter-evidence that shows any disinclination to do so if she thinks she could get away with it (e.g. ehe has someone/something else to blame it on so that Ranma wouldn't realize who had done it).
If Shampoo ever did have a scene where she
did pass on an opportunity like that, then that
would be evidence for a different interpretation, or more likely for character growth--much like her counterpart Mousse, who starts out as being pretty clearly out to kill Ranma, but seems to soften a bit as time goes by. It's just that I can't think of any scene like that for her, offhand.
(Just to clarify: even the way she is, I don't
dislike Shampoo particularly. I'm fully willing to give her a lot of slapstick leeway for most of the stuff she pulls, and to her credit, lethal force isn't always her first resort, even if she's willing to resort to it in the end. It's just when people scale her--or anyone else--down for a more serious fic, but don't scale Akane down as well that I get annoyed. It's the loss of
proportionality between them that I mind.)
FOG3 wrote:And? A bow isn't setup to fend off anyone, unlike say a shinai, or quarterstaff. It can only be used in a lethal mode of operation. Not to mention a notched arrow is a threat, notched and drawn is well beyond a mere threat. It stands.
Yes, a shinai... or a mallet, or a bat, or a weight, or a frying pan. All of which, from the picture, she apparently
attempted to use to fend him off and was disarmed of
before the scene we see.
Thus it provides no evidence whatsoever for the contention that if "someone had her training a 1911 on him with safety off, finger on trigger most of the fic on stupid stuff he might theoretically do, it'd be in character." Obviously, the situation here is
not theoretical, nor is there any indication that it was her first resort of all the things she'd tried.
Perhaps this sums my intent up best: Shampoo and company are willing to use attacks that would likely kill (if it weren't a slapstick situation, of course) as a last resort to get the man they're after. Akane, on the other hand, is willing to use attacks that would likely kill (also if it weren't a slapstick situation) as a last resort against being sexually assaulted. Both
are in a fairly slapstick situation, so neither are monsters. And yet, even in a slapstick situation, there is a difference of proportion between them.
FOG3 wrote:Victim mentality, Mary Sue analogue logic is what you're flashing. Most would sum that up in one word, Bitch. Hence what she is potrayed as in fanon.
I have, as requested, given some of the core character traits that recognizeably describe Akane. Whether she is a "Mary Sue" or not depends on how the
author of a given fic frames her flawed traits with respect to the conflict of the story. If the
reasons for her flaws are presented as sufficient justification for her to wallow in them, then yes, she probably would be a Mary Sue. That approach is not required by anything I have stated.
If, instead, those flaws are presented as, in fact, flawed aspects of her character, held in tension with her noble characteristics, then the charge is turned completely on its head. To have flaws is necessary in a good character. The absence of flaws will result in a Mary Sue just as surely as their excusal will.