D. Vicus Said:
>Conserning the last comments about Ryoko willing to die for Tenchi but never
>surrender has a small flaw in this reasioning.  If you listen to the Tenchi
Muyo
>Chrismas album there is a song by Ryoko in that she wants to be tied up and
>dominated by you know who.  This can be seen as possibly that the only person
>she will surrender to is her love (and only that) but it is a surrender.  And
>as may been seen in the past (the mentioned song and tape 2) it can be seen
that
>perhaps Ryoko would definitly like to be dominated (in possible an SM variety)
>and beathen (possiblely literally) by Tenchi. (No I am not Henti - this is just
>a theory).

Sorry I'm slow to respond, and yes I saw the other responses. Please don't
take the strength of my reply as a flame, yours is a reasonable conclusion:
however...
        If we take these story characters as static cutouts, sure: but if
you think, as I do, that these characters are meant to model real
personalities, remember that Ryoko is reasonably sane for what she has been
through. It would be understandable if she were to substitute the loved
Tenchi for the loathed Kagato in her inner fantasies. Pardon the recursive
nature of this, but let's not confuse fantasy with life, for Ryoko's sake.
She never really submitted to Kagato, he had to handle her like a caged
tiger. A broken Ryoko would have been worthless as a fighter, and in the
long run she would rebel at such treatment even from Tenchi(not that he
would do it!).
        For any kind of normal woman, or even one with the least shred of
sanity, an SM slave fantasy is in exactly the same class with a rape
fantasy. It should probably never be spoken or written because there is
always some twisted male out there that will delude himself that a woman
might really want to be treated in such a manner.
         Hope I don't get on some hentai hate list for that. S&M people, no
matter how hard they try to pretend, always know that they are playing; real
slavery is ugly, at least Ryoko got to see her oppressor die.

                                Greg M


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