Noy Telinú wrote:Hey, where's CP? I want to see THAT reaction to this...
Huh? What? Wait, am I supposed to do a, "HULK SMASH," or something? Where's that blasted script...
Well, I'm not exactly sure what you're expecting from me, if I'm the CP of mention. Still, if we're talking about Genma's Daughter, I can understand how many readers will not look beyond the pretty package. Really, it's unlikely anyone but canon Nazis would outright hate it, and even then if for no other reason than for something as superficial as the context (such as simply pointing to the fact that a gag comedy that rarely takes things seriously isn't an angsty drama).
I can understand why Goldsmith wrote what she did, but like many authors may not have understood how fundamentally things are changed when the presented scenario is taken out of its natural context; or, perhaps, she knew but didn't care -- but that is neither here nor there. The thing is, many of the characters in Ranma 1/2 can only be who they are because they are in a gag comedy, and without it they are forced to be shaped into someone they're not.
However, that's not the only problem with the Ranma being portrayed in Genma's Daughter. A common problem with stories that amp up the seriousness and drama factor forget to take into account that the characters didn't develop and/or live out the original story in such an environment, and things can only go more wrong for a character's integrity the later in the series the fan-fic takes place. For Ranma, if he could be summed up as an element, this meant transmuting him from a lively flame that stubbornly fed on what fuel it could find to stay alight to the still and shallow waters of a puddle.
If there's ever one fundamental characteristic of Ranma that should never be stripped away from him, it's his tenacity in the face of adversity. At times he may despair and feel lost, but always is he keeping his mind and senses open for something with which to renew his fight. We've already seen this in action when his strength was taken from him, which is arguably the most important thing to him. Even after multiple failures, to the point where his one and only hope seemed lost, rather than resign himself to a lifetime of weakness he began his search for a cure to his condition anew.
Now, one can argue just how much importance Ranma places in the sex of his body, but we also have examples where he wasn't fundamentally demoralized when he was stuck as a girl. In fact, in the case of the events surrounding Herb, Ranma found it more important to try and return to Akane alive as a girl than to die for his birth sex. In the case of his lost strength, one should be reminded that he couldn't bear living with Akane like that, much less with the thought of her accompanying him.
I've read a lot of transgender fiction over the years, and from experience (including personal) I can tell you that Goldsmith made a lot of typical errors in logic. Such writers, even those who are transgender themselves, make a lot of assumptions based on social stigma, stereotypes, personal beliefs and what they fantasize about. One of the most typical assumptions is how a male -- particularly one who places a lot of value in his manhood -- reacts to becoming female (whether they were originally born that way or not).
As that relates to transgender fiction, such assumptions are usually forgivable, as such behavior tends to be attributed to the character before they're changed. The problem with Ranma is that he already has an established history, and examples of how he might react to being stuck as a girl or born as one, but Goldsmith doesn't seem to acknowledge them
at all. However, even then, I can understand what kind of reasoning inspired it, even if all of it is based on assumption.
Despite all of this, I think Goldsmith's biggest mistake was in trying to rationalize Akane's and Ranma's romantic attraction as actually being sisterly feelings based on barely-remembered (if remembered at all; I forget) experiences, which is just all sorts of intelligence insulting. Worse than that, however, was how little the majority of his experiences as a man, and then those as a part-time girl, essentially played no role in deciding what he would do with himself and his future as a girl, as if they were worthless/irrelevant. Even in terms of his environment, where he's a martial artist surrounded by so many female martial artists who are far from being examples of traditional girls in terms of behavior and physical ability, it just doesn't make any sense.
I have nothing against Ranma being or becoming more feminine and girlie, but as with all readers who need to be convinced that something is believable, I find this to be another example of pink slime: an attempt to make something of substance, but why would you want to consume something so contrived in the first place?