Quote:He can certainly be poisoned by other ubermensch and their ubermensch-poisons (Pink and Link are just as, if not more superior to real human herbalists and botanists, including ones with the technology to do genetic engineering, as Ranma is superior to a real martial artist). However, as Aaron pointed out, alcohol does not have nearly the same effect on him as on a normal person. Alcohol, incidentally, is a poison.
We've seen Ranma get drugged, by Kodachi, among others; he can certainly be poisoned.
As for killing a few hundred bystanders within your own capital in a scatter-shot attempt to kill a single person, repeated many many times for many, many single people? You're pretty much guaranteeing the government's going to fall anyway in a democratic society, and even if you assume a despotic regime can crack down on the inevitable uprisings, it's going to cripple them to try to kill their own citizenry at 100-to-1 losses when the 1 may not even die and where other 1s are waging incredibly nasty guerilla warfare in return.
You're correct in that it's unlikely to come up on its own, if only because history has likely led to the current situation where government authorities trust martial artists... at least in China and Japan. Other places in the world might be very different.
Quote:Extenuating circumstances include "I want to shove myself into this personal confrontation because there's something I want". Jadeite threatened to kill every single martial artist in Nerima.
True, but not at random. There are extenuating circumstances, typically personal involvement. A line can be drawn that puts canonical Ranma interference on one side and stopping Jadeite on the other.
I won't deny it takes a little handwaving to draw this line, but it's not a show stopper.
I'm afraid it IS a showstopper. It is unbelievable that Ranma wouldn't get involved. It is flat-out ludicrous that not a single one of the likely hundreds or even thousands of martial arts death machines in Tokyo were willing to get involved in somebody else's fight after being directly threatened. If a fic says Ranma went home and went to bed and didn't think twice about it, I'm afraid my reaction is that its characterisation of Ranma is untenable and I will stop reading.
Quote:Aside from what Aaron already said, here's the simple problem: the Orochi isn't a god in the original legend that all three series draw it from. Moreover, if a minor one-off monster like the Orochi is supposed to be three mutually incompatible beings of such power who have had such impacts on the world over centuries of history, what exactly is one of the IMPORTANT things from mythology going to be like?
A god can have a monster as one of its avatars, or even another god. Nor do the avatars have to be aware of each other. Thus, in some versions of Hinduism, all the gods are avatars of one god, and yet are still independent personalities, with separate minds.
They're transcendent beings, beyond human comprehension; manifesting three mutually inconsistent avatars is a triviality for them.
What's Amaterasu, if an overgrown snake is that impressive and important? What's Vishnu?
Oh, not that you can't run with that. But it shows off EXACTLY the problem here: simple solutions are dropping large rocks in a pond, and the ripples go places you almost certainly never were planning to go in the first place.
Quote:Umm... I'm afraid you're wrong. The last ice age ended 10,000 years ago and modern humans were around long before that.
Crossovers can quietly amend canon, when convenient. The current ice age began a few million years ago, when there were already proto-humans around. Putting Arkanphel's origin then won't affect any of the present day events.
And no, I don't think crossovers should "quietly amend canon" just because the facts are inconvienent. New explanations or extrapolation are one thing, but being flat-out wrong is flat-out wrong.
Quote:You could make that argument for why he wouldn't watch two random magicians going at it, but not for why he would not go pound some guy who threatened the entire city. It's a personal interest at that point. Ranma's going to risk Akane's life (to say nothing of his own and everyone else's that he knows) because of a facet of martial artist's honour that he's violated for free food? Mmmmmm-no.
Not what I said. He'll watch a martial arts duel (given no reason to interfere or personal interest) to observe the techniques used; he doesn't have that kind of professional interest in a magical duel.
Quote:So do I. Problem is, it's hard to do right and few people even try. Nor is it easy, as the whole Ranma/Jadeite thing shows.
You say kludge; I say world-building, when done right.
Quote:Ewww! No, no crappy anime things. ;p But seriously, Hybrid Theory is rigorously based on a single continuity for each series. Even Onna-Ranma's hair is black.
Or the Nanban mirror.
(Crossing over the Ranma anime and manga... that'd be a harder crossover than most. ;p)
Quote:That is indeed one way of looking at it. ;p
Ultimately though, it comes down to what it means to be real. I take the view that if you can worry about if you're real, you are. It doesn't matter that the universe creator, in-story, was a plagiarist - the people in it are no less real.