>>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-) 

>Travis Butler replied:

>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.
>(Snip)
Part of my own excesses, pardon requested, I certainly think there is
considerable room for improvement in Ryoko's personality and behavior: And
we have already seen a lot of improvement, though she sometimes regresses to
almost a wild child condition, (e.g., the beginning of OVA 7). Of course,
she would have to heal considerably, and control her public behavior, to
have any kind of intimate relationships, understood.

>>        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?

In retrospect, my question was almost self-answering, since my own
unconscious pointed to the shadow aspect of a vulnerable Ryoko. The creative
team was at least thinking about this when they made ZeroRyoko the way they did.
        I did note D. Vicus's stand-alone cautionary response. Reality
check; yes, I did cover myself with the comment above about the creative
team's attention to detail. In general, you get a lot of introspective stuff
from me, and I usually try to edit it out a little. This stuff, just like
the stuff about Washu snaring Ryoko, probably involves my own ghosts to deal
with.
        On the other hand, the original question was, what was left to find
out about in Tenchi? I think that Masaki Tenchi-sama has pleanty left to
learn, left for the artists to explore, about Tenchi's own problems. After
all, he's not  a non-entity, is he? Another area left to explore would be
some of the fascinating unstated motivations of Sasami, who still has no
real understanding of her overwhelming relationship with Tsunami. (Yes, I do
think about other characters besides Ryoko, B-), but I feel far less brave
and qualified about publicly exploring the feelings of a little girl than a
big one)

                                Greg M.

*A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
statesmen and philosophers and divines. -Emerson*