>From:        Gregory Wayne Matteson, matteson@ccnet.com
>
>        I was thinking about my most recent remarks, about the tenderness
>Tenchi showed toward ZeroRyoko, and I realized there is a bigger problem
>with Tenchi there. He didn't figure out that she wasn't the real Ryoko till
>he was told. Aeka noticed. If he thinks he needs a submissive, vulnerable
>Ryoko, he needs to hang it up: No, she needs to hang it up and go away. Why?
>Because a submissive, vulnerable Ryoko who didn't embarass him by rubbing
>and groping him in public would be a mere shadow.(hey, she can't be fired
>for sexual harrassment, she doesn't work.B-) 

There's a big difference between "submissive" and "vulnerable". Probably 
comes out of my own biases. :) I don't like "submissive," because I think 
that a relationship needs to be balanced to stay healthy. Each partner 
has to be willing to give a little, open up and *be* vulnerable, or else 
the other partner will be interacting with just a shell -- never the real 
person inside. That's no basis for a good relationship. The only times 
Ryoko has really opened up and let people see an honest glimpse of her 
feelings, without getting defensive or performing her "in your face" act, 
have been during the fight with Kagato and as ZeroRyoko. 

>If 1300 years of slavery and
>700 years pinned in a hole by Funaho didn't crush her, Tenchi won't. Twice,
>when she had every reason to believe she was thinking her last thought, it
>was of Tenchi. This is a woman willing to die for Tenchi, but never to
>surrender.

Then she's probably going to win a pyrrhic victory, at best. No smiley 
here. Love *isn't* a battle, and if one person loses so will the other. 
If she isn't willing to open up, to actually talk with Tenchi and share 
her feelings, thoughts, and dreams honestly, she might keep her own 
"personal" integrity (whatever that means), but she's not likely to build 
any lasting relationship with Tenchi. It's like what they always say 
about fights between a couple -- an apology might feel like surrender, 
but if winning that battle loses the relationship, then who won and who 
lost?

>        Now I do have a question about this. I tend to think that there are
>few details of the OVAs that are not thought out by the creative team, but
>could it be that this is a faux pas produced by "male chauvanism" on the
>part of the artists?

It's hard to tell, since you don't have any basis for comparison -- you 
don't have Tenchi (or any other male character) seriously in love and 
trying to win the affections of a woman in Tenchi Muyo. About all I can 
say is that Tenchi has always reacted most favorably to members of the 
pack when they've opened up -- Ayeka in the scene in the shed, or Washu 
when she talks about her baby.



Travis Butler
(The Professor, formerly of Myth and Magick!, Lawrence, KS;
 tbutler@tfs.net, now from the Wandering Powerbook;
 <http://www.tfs.net/personal/tbutler/>;
 Mac page <http://www.tfs.net/business/tbutler/>)

..Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.