Iron Man 2

Well, summer's back, boys and girls, and there promises to be plenty of summer movies to see and break down here. The first (and I realize I'm a couple weeks behind with this one) is Iron Man 2.

Once again I must reference tvtropes, in particular their concept of "fridge logic", or the subtle questions and inconsistencies that you don't notice at first but suddenly dawn on you as you make your way to the fridge for another beer, so to speak. Fridge logic isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are some things that, if brought up, would seriously reduce dramatic tension and thus should be glossed over---this is especially true if dealing with them just doesn't do much toward making the situation any more plausible or realistic.

But there are some things that should be brought up---and, indeed, the concept of fridge logic can, at times, border into the more general plot hole territory. I think Iron Man 2 has altogether too much of both.

Overall, this is an enjoyable movie. I'd say it lacks a little of the punch of the first film, but it doesn't suck. It's just...not that compelling, truthfully. Motivation is there, but both villains just want to find some way to screw over or kill Stark---everything beyond that is reduced to afterthought (even when, in Hammer's case, he has a lot to think about after that---making money off selling weaponized armors to the military). And while not every villain need a goal of conquering the world or advancing an agenda, a vision in their eyes of right and wrong, the profound lack of that makes these villains awfully simple. There's not a whole lot going on for them.

The broader issue, however, is that the plot just doesn't have a lot of tightness to it. It's comprehensible, to be sure, but some things about it simply don't make sense. Why should Howard Stark outright hide the secret to a non-poisonous arc reactor in a riddle? It seems like a convenient puzzle that adds dramatic tension without really having any justification (even though several could be easily provided---hiding it from Anton, etc.). Why is the palladium subplot even there? To give Stark some reason to make a fool of himself? My biggest problem is that, while it enables the villains' plans, it's something that's still woefully unconnected and is resolved oh-so-conveniently. Vanko basically seems to have no other plan than to kill Stark, and while that's fine, the idea that "the god bleeds" as he claims just doesn't seem to take hold. It's not other people who see Stark as weak so much as Stark himself imploding---which, dying as he was, he was doing anyway. In short, Vanko's prediction just doesn't seem to hold with any strength, and Hammer's behavior is merely opportunistic. The SHIELD agent Natasha also seems to be goading Stark into imploding, which doesn't really add up either (unless, of course, knowing she's herself part of the supers business in the future, that's part of who she is, but say what she did in her report at the end just kind of seemed off).

I will say that I liked a good bit about the film: Hammer seemed quite hilarious yet still had a good edge on him, and the birthday party scene with a drunk Stark casually blasting things with his beams was, to me at least, extremely chilling. You can tell Potts and Rhodes are very, very afraid that Stark will just blast a person and splatter their guts over the walls, and with good reason. But that felt like the only moment of genuine emotion in the film, and that's...unfortunate.

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Identity 3.6 - "The Last Right"

"The Last Right" (Chapter Three, Act Six) on Fanfiction.net

That concludes everything I'd had written prior to starting this ambitious project of an installment a week. I actually have mixed feelings about that entire subject now. Currently, I'm about 1/3-1/2 of the way through chapter four, act five (out of six), and I'd honestly prefer not to post any part of chapter four without having finished it, but that doesn't seem likely right now. As always, I'm going to have to evaluate this as we go and, if necessary, insert break weeks to stay basically on track. I'm hoping, however, that when I do that it's only one week at a time and it's spread out enough to not be too much of a schedule slip, but maintaining a steady pace is very important to me, as part of the way this story is presented to people.

Anyway, as per usual, commentary on "The Last Right" below.

The opening scene of this act is something I'd had in my mind for a long time, and it took a good bit of thought to translate it to something cohesive and proper. I kept a significant distance from the Amazons' storytime by the fire, instead focusing on Shampoo's thoughts on Akane and her interaction with Ukyo. There's something there that demands to be said: Ukyo keeps painting herself as a moral person. Some people might find this grating. Shampoo even calls her out on it, and Shampoo is right to do so, in my mind. Ukyo's "I'm above murdering Akane" act is a complex rationalization. It's an expression of her own fear: that she won't be able to win Ranma without doing that, that she'll have to risk making herself a monster in his eyes. It's as much a fear of how he'll look upon her as it is an actual question of morality. It comes off weak because she knows what she wants and isn't sure she can resist. Or wants to.

But let's talk about Shampoo. Shampoo's someone I still have trouble characterizing from time to time. I've always felt that she'd never ever give up on Ranma, under any circumstances, but I think it makes sense for her to look at others and think they're giving up and wonder if it's really futile, if she should give up. But these are temporary dilemmas at best, and in the end, Shampoo's answer is the same: to keep after him, to do whatever it takes to win him or save him, as she does here.

One of the late changes I made to this act was a tweaking to Cologne's confrontation with the Council. I think her argument is much stronger now, painting Bindi as actively conspiring to condemn Shampoo out of spite. Whether this is the truth of the matter is another story, but it's sufficiently damning to wreck Bindi. Bindi, too, is a ruthless person, one who will do anything to enforce her vision of what's good for the tribe. What makes her annoying, again, is that often times she's right, but she goes too far protecting her agenda here, and Cologne gladly takes advantage.

Their confrontation is the first time Cologne states openly that Ceruse is her granddaughter, Shampoo's aunt on her mother's side. It's been everything short of outright stated over the course of the chapter, and it's a critically important element of Cologne's motivation. All along, Surma and Shampoo have been saying how Cologne is doing this for Ranma not out of loyalty to him but loyalty to Ceruse---this incident now brings back those memories and all too strongly seems like an echoing of those dark times. Ceruse is an important character outside of her influence on Cologne's motives, however. I said in the act one commentary how Cologne's speech at the beginning of the chapter would have many important details. What else do we know about Ceruse? She married a Sorcerer, yes---his name is Yi.

Didn't they have a baby somewhere?

Or did they?

But let me not tease too much. I'm going to back up (can you tell I'm just kind of winging these commentaries?) and talk about the morning meeting at the bonfire, where Cologne narrates for Commander Marula. Marula I named pretty much on the spot, thinking she'd be important for chapter four. My current thinking, however, is that I won't involve her there, but there's a female Amazon part that is very, very important in chapter four. Right now, I'm thinking Marula might become a sort of counterweight to Shampoo, but we'll have to see. It's not very often I introduce an element without intending it to go somewhere, but I liked this possibility enough to let it dangle until I know where and how I want to pick it up.

Finally, let me talk about the last scene. Originally, I meant for the beginning of chapter four, the Amazon rescue attempt, to close this chapter with the cataclysm I talked about, but in the end, this felt like a much more natural break point. It makes the next chapter feel...a little bit rushed, but with the benefit of making this one feel like it ends right. Trying to start a whole new thing right at the end ultimately would've felt far too odd.

The conversation between Ryoga and Akane is meant to do a couple things: reinforce Akane's newfound openness and establish that Ryoga's still quite in love with her. After all, it's for Akane that Ryoga's made this trek, not Ranma. The bit about Akari I planted their to remind, at the very least, that she still exists.

Maybe the sweet pun was a bit too much. I went back and forth on that one.

You might notice at the end that Kohl accidentally lets a subtle hint slip that he knows Ranma and that Ranma's inside the Sorcerers' holding of Jusenkyo. I felt this was really necessary: right now, the Amazons don't really know he's in there. Heck, as I mentioned earlier, I hadn't even intended for him to be there at first (although we're firmly there now). The Amazons really needed something to go on, and from a reader's perspective, it seems natural that someone like Akane would jump that conclusion even when there's not enough evidence (and that Kohl would be downright puzzled to think that Ranma and these people are related).

I should make a note on age. Cologne doesn't actually say when or how far back the Sorcerer War was, but she does say she quit the Council twenty years ago---indeed, this is when the war took place, when Ceruse was lost, and so on. Note that Kohl is not old enough to have fought in this war (or even to remember it). Hence, it's natural he doesn't recognize the Amazons. He's never seen them before. And, for that matter, they're not his concern.

Anyway, soon enough the war against the Sorcerers begins, and it's really quite striking how much of these first three chapters (to me, at least) have been ramp up when the next four are pretty packed with action. As I've said before, I find writing action tough; I prefer writing about plots and machinations and making the battles clear-cut and quick extensions of those plans (at least, I think I do). So we'll see what happens or if I can do it well.

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Rape in fanfiction, warnings, one-shots, and the author-reader dialogue

While playing with Google Reader today, I came across an interesting post from fanficrants, a community on livejournal that I've followed from time to time (I think, of course, I was introduced to it by tvtropes, but I can't be sure now). I actually read it a lot less now than I used to, but maybe this Google Reader thing will let me keep with stuff more easily. We'll have to see. I like fanficrants, though; it gives you a good idea of what really turns off chronic readers of fanfiction, from bad formatting to just bad writing. It's not the end-all be-all of what a writer should or shouldn't do, but it gives a pretty amusing perspective.

Anyway, the post I'm talking about comes from a writer who has survived a sexual assault, a writer who plans, in the future, to deal with a rape of one of the characters in their story. And readers, being readers, had correctly guessed from vague hints and warnings that this might be the case. Some of this author's readers tried, through various means, to dissuade the author from pursuing this plot point.

The topic of rape and trauma in fiction is one that fascinates me. So often, we as authors want our characters to grow, and trauma--whether physical or emotional--is a valid means to instigate that growth. In fanfiction, this is frequently underdeveloped however: bad writers, I think, try to make this growth happen too quickly, without fully exploring consequences, without (as tvtropes would say) doing the research. Even a writer who does try to do research may end up coming off totally flat because, well, these issues are woefully complex.

How fast one can approach this topic also depends on the story one's writing. One-shots have to do things in a small amount of space. In truth, I think one-shots are a very different animal from all other kinds of fanfiction: they're like prepackaged morsels to be tasted and digested until one moves on to the next box. That's not to say they're not worth doing or unsatisfying, but because they're so very standalone, so very standardized, the way people look at one-shots is in almost assembly-line manner. Every one-shot must come appropriately labeled with pairings, warnings, ratings, etc, like the nutrition label on a pack of crackers. Anything a reader doesn't like on the label prompts them to move on and leave the package unopened.

Longer works of fanfiction are very different. While some, like one-shots, depend almost entirely on a single, simple premise and can still be easily categorized, others are not. I myself have struggled viciously with simple things like genre categorization, with labeling Identity as being a Ranma/Akane story (which...it is) when the number of characters with room for growth and significant POV time is much much broader than that. And that's a weakness of my story--people want things to fit in categories they understand.

But in general, I think there's a subset of fanfiction readers right now who are very discriminating in what they spend their time reading--and with good reason, for most fanfiction is crappy, after all. And after seeing rape be used as a cheap plot device without the seriousness and attention it deserves, readers are rightly wary, I think, when an author starts giving signals in a longer work that that's coming. Nobody wants to see a story ruined because a plot device was critically mishandled, as rapes often are.

That said, I think the author of that ffrants post had a significant point: not all survivors handle their trauma the same way. And for my part, I say this: a story you've enjoyed for years gives the author the leeway, I think, to do something dramatic, to do something drastic. And while the reader has reason to be concerned, I don't approve of readers actually trying to dissuade an author from pursuing their plot as they see it. Discussion is one thing, but I'm certain there are stories where rape (and any other serious traumatic event you can think of) has been well-handled, in a way that's appropriate to the tone of the story and to the personalities of the characters involved. Give the author a chance to do it well. Complain after the fact if you want, if you feel it was poorly done, but to preemptively do so? Unless the author already has extended an ear to your opinions, unless you're a beta or someone else trusted to give sound, critical opinion, I think readers should sit back and let the story be. Stories are not meant to be mutable to a reader's will (well, choose your adventure aside). They're meant to be cohesive and express an author's vision, however much one may agree or disagree with it.

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"If you thought your cruise wasn't entirely perfect, then that would be a 1 to a 3..."

So I'm back from southeast Alaska, and I dare say the entire experience was...pretty cool. We ate too much at the deck 14 buffet. We rushed dinner to get to the shipboard shows. We really only had three days in Alaska proper, with two days each way to get there and back from Seattle. But the weather was fantastic: it only really rained on the first day, in Ketchikan. And while I suffered greatly for the lack of free internet. It was worth it.

In terms of writing progress, I outlined in rough detail the final three chapters of book one of Identity. While I'd hoped to make some headway in fixing book two (which I feel needs a good bit of work; book three I'm relatively happy with right now), this is good stuff. The next three chapters now have that much more material feeling that you get when you actually know what's going to happen in gritty details, as opposed to having just a vague idea of what you want to happen. That's how I've been doing things, anyway, and it's nice to know there aren't too many serious problems to the plot.

But let me talk about Alaska for a minute. Traveling to Alaska, we encountered a good deal of stuff relating to the native tribes, particularly the Tlingit. With the Tlingit, you're dealing with totem poles. A lot of totem poles, actually; we met with a carver who's been doing this stuff for decades. We're talking about a years'-long carving process with prices in the range of thousands of dollars per linear foot (and 20+ foot poles). We're talking about remote, isolated areas of the world where access is expensive and limited--Juneau, for example, has no roads in or out of town. In Skagway, we're talking about a town that is two miles long and four blocks wide and basically depends on tourism to survive, with mountain passes that killed pack animals and men by the hundreds on their way to Klondike gold.

This, folks, is what we call fodder for stories. The Tlingit themselves are a case in storytelling. It's a big part of some of their totems (some totems tell stories; others are like family crests or seals, and others still are actually made to ridicule a family who's yet to repay a debt or throw a party to make up for the other family throwing them a party, etc.). The gold rush and how it created Skagway is another story. Stories are all around us, I feel, and just coming off this trip, I've had the first idea for an original (non-fanfic) story in a couple years (I call the story Caroline, for now). That's good stuff.

This is one of the reasons I encourage people to travel when they can, when it's within their means. There are things about the world that you don't question, but outside the confines of our everyday lives, there are tons of little things out there worth talking about, thinking about, and writing about. The intricate clan and family structure of the Tlingit, for example, and their oral tradition of stories. The tale of newspapermen holed up in a tent city outside Skagway, fabricating columns about a gold rush they couldn't witness because the way was too dangerous. The way the glacier outside Juneau has carved out a place for the city over the last few thousand years and may yet take it away again.

Discovery Channel likes to say the world is awesome. I'm not sure if I agree; in a lot of ways, the world simply is what it is. But it's certainly complex, and it has a richness that, at times, is easy to forget.

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Structure, Structure, Structure

There's actually been a surprising amount of internet access on this vacation. Free wi-fi on the plane (thanks AirTran). Free wi-fi at the hotel (thanks Holiday Inn). Makes me wish I'd brought my laptop, so I can actually work instead of just outlining, but that's also part tradition. I've actually written most of my outlines for stories while on vacations. And then torn them up, but I digress.

While waiting to leave the hotel and check in at the cruise ship (on which, dollars to doughnuts, there will be no free wi-fi, and if there is, I will be extremely irritated that I didn't bring the laptop), I figured I'd write up a quick post about story structure.

A lot of the way I structure stories comes from Babylon 5 which, ironically, J. Michael Stracynski (creator of that show) called a "novel for television," more or less. I actually admire the television format quite a bit for telling arc-based stories. Arcs develop slowly and with great buildup. In Babylon 5 there might be week-to-week, episodic plots, but the arc would always be there until it finally kicked into high gear and really took over the story, integrating elements that one might've thought would just disappear. In my mind, it's a really powerful methodology. All too often, I think writers try to make things happen too quickly and don't give time for characters to organically grow. This slower pace feels more natural, however. It feels like the characters are truly the sum of their experiences.

When I was writing Echoes, I was coming at it from the approach that I'd had with my last original works, which are called Nicholas Torrence and Shepard Clay. I won't talk about plot there, but structurally, I'd done each of those as chapters with 10-15 scenes. The chapters were almost all invariably eight thousand words, which I kind of took as a red flag. Indeed, starting with Echoes, I realized I wanted some smaller subdivision of action. It was from there I started doing numbered acts, and with Identity, I've really put a lot more importance on these structural units. While the chapter in Identity is still extremely vital, the acts have much more standalone footing here than they did in Echoes, I think. And I think this is also a big reason why they're larger than their Echoes counterparts, even though I still generally aim for 4-6 acts per chapter.

I will say that this structure is not a one-thing-fits-all stories structure. For what I do--right now, that's stories with several different POV characters and multiple plotlines--it's a structure that makes sense to me. I'll note that Nicholas Torrence and Shepard Clay were not those kinds of stories (they're both first person POV). "Before and After" isn't that kind of story either; while I'm writing it like I write acts in Identity, it doesn't have that mid-level structure.

I don't think a writer will necessarily know the structure of his story even at the outlining stage. You may have an idea, but often the story demands to be told in a certain way and pacing. It's a process of discovery, and you have to figure out what gives you room for your characters to grow and for plot to unfold at the place and time that you like.

And now that I'm back from vacation, no, there was no free wi-fi on the ship. It was 75 cents a minute, and I used it very, very sparingly.

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Identity 3.5 - "Occupation"

"Occupation" on Fanfiction.net

As I noted in the chapter itself, I'm going on vacation all next week (actually leaving Saturday and coming back the following Sunday), so I'll be unable to post the next installment next Friday. Every summer or so we take a vacation, and I like to use the time to take care of outlining future chapters and stuff along those lines, so this should be good. How much time I'll have to do that on a cruise around Alaska, though...well, we shall see.

Commentary below.

Like I said in last week's commentary, I'd originally planned for this act to come right after "The Amazon Charter," but I'm happy with moving it here. The timing for events makes a lot more sense this way, I think.

This installment marks the first in which Kohl is the point-of-view character, and it's really the beginning of his storyline in terms of growth and exploration. I think, as a whole, fandom tends to be more forgiving of villain original characters rather than heroes, if only for the simple reason that heroes tend to drift into Mary Sue territory, where villains are expected to be powerful. But Kohl, even though he was a villain in chapter two, has as much to try to figure out and discover as any of the rest of the cast do. He's not on Ranma's side, but he has his own motives, independent of Sindoor, and he's trying to understand how to achieve them.

Every character has some level of internal conflict. With Shampoo, it's the conflict between what two things she wants: Ranma and a place at home, among her people. With Ukyo, between some spark of morality that tells her she's a good person and her need for Ranma. With Akane, the choice between being strong and independent and relying on Ranma when she can't be, the dissonance between being a model wife (as she sees it) and being herself. Ranma has this last conflict too (except he wants to be a model husband), but he also enjoys, at times, what his girl body can let him do while wanting to be a man. He has great power, the kind of power he's always wanted to be a good martial artist, but he's also increasingly afraid of that power. All these characters have conflicts, and Kohl's no exception. A conflict between loyalty to Sindoor and loyalty to Tilaka, between duty to the tribe and duty as a person. Some of that will develop more over the coming chapters.

There's a lot being foreshadowed or portended here (is that a word?). Kohl's use of vision dust (I might have stolen the name from WoW) to commune with Sindoor will be important in chapter four and for the majority of book two. Ranma's increasing adeptness at Sorcerer magic is also an important plot point.

That's not to say I didn't struggle with some aspects of this chapter. One thing I quickly realized was that bringing Ranma to Jusenkyo begged the question why he wouldn't cure himself. Having Kohl deliberately obstruct that seemed to make sense; I just added the element with the channelers actually screwing with him to make it seem more plausible.

That's right; as a matter of fact, I didn't originally plan for Ranma to be present for any of this act or chapter four, but I thought making him part of these events would make the story more interesting as a whole. It required that I jump some hoops---hoops that I'll elaborate on in commentary for chapter four. It's not bad for an author to jump hoops per se, but it takes a good bit of effort to hide them. In the end, I'm not sure I'll wholly save myself for making this choice. That's part of the challenge of writing, though.

You might remember in "The Nine and the Three" the Guide mentions his phone wouldn't work. Originally, the bit about Ranma, Kohl, and the phone preceded that, obviously, but in reverse it still works pretty well (and seems actually less random). It also explains why the Guide couldn't call back to Nerima and simply say "hey, Ranma's been kidnapped." It's a little weak, but it's not too too bad.

A point on the new geography of Jusenkyo after the battle with Saffron. I always interpreted the Phoenix and Dragon Taps as being inside...something...in the first few chapters of vol. 38, but Ranma cuts the Phoenix Tap, it's pretty clear that from shortly after that forward, the taps are outside (I think, though I'm not certain, it's because Saffron breaks through the mountain wall, exposing the taps). It became convenient for me to refer to this remnant as a crater; Ranma's clearly outside when he brings Akane down into the cursed water.

One thing I intended to be significant was that Ranma refers to Akane as his friend in this chapter when talking to Kohl and that he craftily covers up what really happened to Akane. In fact, he doesn't really want to talk about Akane and how she died at all. I think it's natural for Ranma to consider that whole incident a very sore spot, something that makes him intensely uncomfortable because he'd really rather not think about her dying again. Going back to internal conflict, I don't think he likes how she has so much of an effect on him---at least, not when it makes him so anxious. But anyway, when in other times, Ranma would refer to her as a fiancee, to someone like Kohl, someone he doesn't want to have to explain the whole mess to, the word friend will do. And it's appropriate. I think Ranma really values her as a friend, though neither of them really know it, and it's the dissonance between trying to be friends and trying to be lovers that, I think, has the potential to be a major source of friction.

Let me go back to Kohl for a minute. One thing I was hoping not to do was info-dump too much about the Sorcerers and how they work. While it's fairly clear in this chapter that Kohl and Tilaka did something forbidden and that that caused the last Sieve to fail, I did stop short of saying why that is or why the Sorcerers (or at least, the Sorcerer Guard) live double lives the way they do. And that's okay, because I don't really want that coming out until later.

Anyway, a big point of the chapter was to make the Amazons somehow aware of what's going on inside the Sorcerer's Maze that surrounds Jusenkyo. Now they have enough to suspect and come back to the Amazon village, which will propel the final events of this chapter and setup the next nicely.

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Pages and fora

I transferred some content from an old post I made to a static page on Ranma 1/2, which can be seen at the top. Another page there is a page on Identity. I'm not quite as sure what I'm going to do with that yet. Right now it's just chapter summaries (which I always struggle with--how much do you spoil, how much do you save...). Me, I'm the kind of person who generally wants to know a lot about something before I read it or watch it. I'd like this page to be that to someone who's on the fence about trying the story or wants to know where it's going, but for now, I'm leaving it as is.

On my crawl through the Ranma fora on FFN, I realized that the number had incremented by one, from 93 to 94. And so, I flipped to the end of the listing (since, you know, they're in order from most posts to least) and discovered A Hypothesis of Psyche, stated, in part, to explore and discuss character interpretations. This is really cool, in my book, as I think these sorts of discussions need to be held and reheld every so often, so that new people can discover the characters and people already well-established in fandom can see what new interpretations are like. And knowing how FFN's forum sorting works, I figured I'd make a post and help out the owner of the forum, as well as see if something interesting might come of it (which I think it has).

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Identity 3.4 - The Nine and the Three

The Nine and the Three on Fanfiction.net

As per usual, commentary below.

The first thing I should mention is that originally, I planned for this to be act five. "Occupation," the next act, was going to go here and provide some buffer time between "The Amazon Charter" and the final act, "The Last Right." But I felt for a while that any way I did it, I'd have an uncomfortable break. Ultimately, though, I'm hoping the events of "Occupation" better segue into the final act, and that Shampoo's plight is more powerful when "Charter" and "The Nine" are put together (and when they're separated from "Last Right," so we can feel Shampoo's sense of loss drawn out, in the back of our minds, over the course of "Occupation"). I think it works, anyway.

I promised I'd say more about the Council, so let me elaborate on my thought process with them. The Council fills a number of important roles in the story. First, it's the voice of Amazon authority, of which Cologne really isn't a part. What Cologne wants is truly at-odds with what's in the best interests of the Amazons. That's right: Bindi and Thanaka aren't just being dicks for the sake of it (I hope). In fact, it's really important to me that their arguments be logical and, ultimately, correct, or at least partly so. After all, we know that the Sorcerers don't even care what the Amazons are doing. It's not on their radar. Getting tangled with them is just a freak sort of accident. That's dramatic irony for you, and while we want Shampoo and Cologne to prevail, to put the Amazons' resources behind their cause and save Ranma, there's an unavoidable truth: people are going to get hurt (and die) for something that didn't really involve them. And knowing that is going to weigh heavily on how we perceive the Amazons for the rest of the story.

On a more personal level, the Council represents Shampoo's sense of honor and duty, outside (but not entirely distinct from) her quest to make Ranma her husband. If Shampoo can't fix that part of her honor, the least she can do is serve, and fervently so.

R. T. Stephens made a great point in his review: a tribe like the Amazons wouldn't necessarily need a council at all. That many authors give them one anyway is what you might call a particularly common fandom trope or perhaps even a piece of fanon. Ironically, I set out to subvert fanon by not making Cologne an Elder on the Council...but, well, that's not that simple either. In truth, there's a bigger issue (literally) with the size of tribes and villages. How many people are in the tribe? A few hundred? A few thousand? Tens of thousands? Any one of these sizes could conceivably fit in the definition of a village, but we have to imagine it's closer to the low end. Probably two thousand at absolute maximum, which is not really enough to require complex forms of government (sociology people, come correct me). Maybe they would be governed by family matriarchs and that's it. Who knows. The numbers issue really troubles me for a lot of reasons, though. It's hard to have a lot of battles if you stand a risk of wiping out the village population doing it. That goes for the Sorcerers, too, who for reasons yet to be revealed, must be much, much smaller in numbers than the Amazons. Way smaller. Order of magnitude smaller.

Folks might wonder why I made the Council be 12 people with 9 voting and silent but 3 speakers who don't vote. Originally, I wanted to avoid a simple triumvirate, but at the same time, more than about 3 people to deal with would quickly get confusing and too hard to keep track of. As it is, you just have Cologne, Shampoo, Bindi, Thanaka, and Surma. And I like it that way. They each have their sharply distinct personalities. They're well-defined.

The dynamics of the Council evolved over the course of writing, though. Originally, I wanted Bindi to be the warmonger with Thanaka striving for peace, but I soon realized that that wouldn't really be as powerful an obstacle to Cologne as turning it around, making Bindi a combative person but dedicated to a diplomatic solution. Thanka, being bombastic and populist, yet also fairly dignified (aside from his spats with Bindi). I actually went back into "Amazon Charter" at one point, ready to fix the dialogue that implied Bindi wanted war and vice versa, only to realize I'd never said anything of the kind--the dialogue was that vague as to what exactly each of them wanted. Ultimately I left it that way, though, because really, the only important thing was that Bindi was not someone Cologne liked.

I struggled a lot with this chapter in terms of logic and motives, though. In this act, I backed off the Last Right quite a bit, knowing that I wanted it to be the last thing Shampoo tried, having been pushed to it, but it made the pacing and buildup...well, in my mind, a little awkward. The same goes for Surma; when you think about what she does, I'm not sure it makes sense enough. Her explanation at the end of the act was entirely devoted to combating this, yet still I'm not sure. I always wanted Surma to ride the middle, to be impartial even when Cologne wanted her to take Shampoo's side. But, in the end, I could never quite get around why Surma would go to Cologne and not say that the Guide had come early. It made a great twist, I think, at the time, but the reasoning for Surma to keep it secret, even with the threat of censure...I'm not sure. Maybe that's what they call Fridge Logic. I try to avoid it as much as possible. I try to make people's motives and reasoning make sense, even if you disagree with it as being right.

One thing I kind of ignored was Shampoo's relationship with her father. In any other story, this could be a big deal, but having already dealt with Ukyo, I didn't want to basically repeat that story. Ukyo's father also had a lot more room to be interesting, for we really didn't know what happened to him after Ukyo's introductory arc. Shampoo's father, though, is just kind of there.

But I really like the scene that opens this act, even if after reshuffling the repeat of Cologne's words is kind of redundant. I went back into "Charter" and added the bandage there when I first wrote it here. It's just that cool, in my mind, to have Shampoo still wearing it, to remind her of what Ranma did. And I like a lot when Shampoo goes out and tries to school the two little girls, only to get told the same thing that she was telling them. In that way, Shampoo and Cologne are really a lot more similar than they appear. They're stubborn. Cologne's just wise enough, at her age, to deal with it.

Anyway, it should be fun when we get to the final act and see how Shampoo copes with her dishonor.

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