On Thu, 1 Jan 1998 my "good" twin, Hunter Kid, writes:

<I think the dream would not have been shown unless it had some
significance - in this case, that Ranma was desperate enough to defeat
Ryoga that he would attack him in his sleep to do so.  Meaning that in
wake-up land, given the chance, he would.>

     Not necessarily true...  Dreams are situations where a person may
sho his/her deepest desires, but that is all they are...  Ranma may have
the desire to do so, but he may or may not act upon those thoughts...

     But I do understand your point...  I just don't think that Ranma
would go as far as to do something like that...  that main thing is that
he _didn't_ act upon his fantasies...

<Ranma *can* explain the curse; he's never tried, so you can't say it
wouldn't work.  I think, that if Ranma sat down with Kunou and told him
that, "I have this Chinese curse that makes me turn into a girl blah blah
blah," Kunou would finally get a clue. >

     What about in Viz Part 6, Vol 1?  The baest way to explain it is to
actually show the curse to the person...  One second Kunou is holding
osage no onna, the next he's holding Ranma...  he still doesn't get the
clue?  Taken that the choice of words Ranma and Nabiki had used in that
scene were not very good, considering this is Kunou, who thinks in terms
of poetry.

     But if you look at it, Kunou never really gives Ranma a chance to
explain anything.  In just about all the refernces I've seen concerning
interaction between Ranma and Kunou, Kunou seems to instinctively either
try to hug (as osage no onna) or attack (when "normal") Ranma.  Ranma
always counters with a foot to Kunou's face...  It seems that Ranma and
the others had just given up on trying to convince Kunou of Ranma's curse
after the first few tries...

<Kunou doesn't believe Ranma simply because the truth, in this case, is
as bizarre as Kunou's fantasy - and, looking at it from Kunou's POV, I
can kind of see why his version of the truth seems more believable.  (And
'ha' to everyone who said I refused to look at things from various 
characters' POVs! ;) >

     I never said that...  But why do you say Kunou is right...  Ranma
has "changed" in front of Kunou more than once or twice, in full view no
less, and still Kunou remains oblivious to Ranma's curse, but then again
Akane remains oblivious to Ryouga's curse, but then again, everyone seems
to hide that fact from Akane...

<However, if Ranma (or someone that Ranma asked to do it for him, maybe,
say, Akane or Nabiki) were to explain it to him, I think he would
understand.>

     Not a good idea...  Akane is likely to do the same thing to Kunou
that Ranma does on a "daily basis".  And if Nabiki tells him, he's liable
to think that it's some kind of scam on him...  Remeber, this is _Kunou_
were talking about...  We're not exactly sure what goes on in that mind
of his...  then again we're not sure of what goes on in _all_ of the
characters' minds...

<  Also, if Ranma's halfway intelligent, he'd have ways to back up his
story, like asking Shampoo and Ryoga to demonstrate their curses before
Kunou...>

     If Ranma was halfway intelligent, he _wouldn't_ do this...  What
makes you think that if he doesn't believe in Ranma's curse that he'd
actually believe the other ones?  I don't really see him (Kunou)
believing in _any_ of the curses...

<I meant, though, that the majority of them seem to be Ranma's fault, and
that *all* of them are his fault if you look at in the light that he
hasn't explained himself to Kunou yet, and if he did, Kunou would get off
his back.>

    Kunou would still be on Ranma's back for beingAkane's "iinazuke"
(sp?), not to mention being teased by him for having the curse...  (all
the characters do it at one or more points in the story)...

<<nod>  Please note that all I am saying is not that Ranma didn't have
good intentions, but simply that he treated Akane as if she were his.  At
least, that is how it appeared to me.>

     I believe his _intentions_ were good...  He was trying to prevent
Akane from being kissed by Mikado.

<I didn't say he was scum.  I said he was possessive.  I didn't even say
that in this case, that possessiveness was *bad* - but it's there, and I
was asked for examples where Ranma treated Akane as if she were his
property.  Well, there you go.>

     That you did, but sometimes you have to add in what _you_ think of
the situation... to avoid confusion, if you know what I mean...

<Mess with him?  Would *I* do that? ;)>

     Yes, you would... ^,~

<If you want.  However, you agree with the first one, then?>

     In one word...  yes, but I don't think of it as such a bad thing... 
Ukyou was the _oly_ person that he could really go to in this ep... 
Goddess forbid he would ever Akane such a thing???  ^_^
<That it was; however, it was a very cruel joke, and an example of
treating Ryoga like trash.  (For laughs - that makes it even worse. :P)>

     If you look at Ranma and Ryouga's "relationship" it has been a chain
of jokes on each other, one after the other, played mostly by Ranma, but
Ryouga does get a couple good ones in there...

<Make mose?  I dunno.  How do you make mose? ;)>

    Gomen...  I meant  _moves_... ^,~  How would you feel if some guy
tried to make _moves_ on your girl?

<Seriously, though, Ranma's actions *do* make sense to me.  However, he
was still treating Ryoga like trash, which is what the question was.>

     True, but if you can't blame him for such actions, why even "argue"
using them?

<Because Ryoga was trying to get Ranma up, and didn't intend to simply
beat the crap out of Ranma while he was asleep.  Note, even with the
'fists through the pillows' stuff, that he didn't seriously attack Ranma
until they were outside; no umbrella blows or kicks, which *would* have
hit the sleeping Ranma.>

     But the action and _intent_ were there...  If Ranma hadn't tossed in
his sleep, the attacks would have connected.   Ryouga still threw punches
at Ranma's head while he was asleep.  That is considered attacking, in my
book

<The reason why I condemn Ranma for beating up Kunou is because he
*could* explain his curse to him.  (Again, covered this more fully above
in the reply to Wayne.)>

     I read your reply to Wayne, above, and replied to it, as well... ^_^

     Ranma could *try* to explain his curse to Kunou, but IMHO think
Kunou would either 1) get confused, or 2) just not accept the fact that
Ranma and his "osage no onna" are one and the same person...

     I touched above that the best way to explain one or all of the
curses is to demonstrate it and show the curse to the person you're
trying to "convince"...  Ranma has done this many times, some not by
choice, and still... Kunou remains oblivious... 

     Just something I thought of...  Why is it that every other character
in Ranma 1/2 besides Kunou, has figured out about Ranma Saotome's curse
without Ranma having to say a word about it?  Just a stupid little
question I wanted to ask ya...  ^_^

     Y'know, I'm getting kinda tired of this discussion...  there are so
many points to touch on and we'd still be "debating" on this issue...  I
know all I have to do to end this discussion is stop talking about it,
but like you, HK, I am not one to back away from a discussion easily...
^_^

     I hope you're in agreement that we should just leave this here and
continue on withour ML lives... ^_^

-----i am... ... ..."hiroshin"-ken  (hiroshin-ken@juno.com)

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