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From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: OC (operant conditioning and ninjutsu)
Message-ID: <1091@shark.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Oct-84 19:53:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.1091
Posted: Tue Oct  2 19:53:01 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Oct-84 05:40:07 EDT
References: <353@pucc-k>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 37

"Who are those guys?"  "They're my friends.  Like 'em?  I made 'em myself."

I don't think that what is happening to Kitty in K&W has a lot to do
with operant conditioning.  What actually is happening there is that
the author read too many Eric Von Lustbader books.

In "Ninja" E Von L has his e-vile ninja master use a "secret technique"
on the girlfriend of the good-guy ninja master.  This involved using
chi-harmony to invade her mind, and making a copy of his own personality
AND SKILLS over her own.  Then, at a particular trigger point, she was
supposed to kill her lover (the good guy) and commit suicide.

This was intended to guarantee the destruction of the good guy even in
the event that he manage to kill the bad guy.

I suspect that Kitty is being prepared in a similar fashion, except that
the ninja master doesn't use the "fast" technique.

However.  Except for the chi-strikes used to paralyze Kitty so she can't
protect herself, the indoctrination methods used are bogus.  The basic
idea is to install this stuff without her having any conscious awareness 
that it is there.  The training-under-brainwashing method won't do this
reliably because it is unstable in sufficiently intelligent people.
Also, she has had Xavier's training in mind control.  She should be able
to throw off the conditioning.

SPOILER WARNING:

Oh, by the way, in "Ninja" when the hero inevitably manages to safely
disarm his "possessed" lover, she snaps the conditioning, but retains
the full set of skills she was given by the bad guy.  This is interesting
because she realizes that she hasn't got the discipline nor the maturity
to safely hold those skills.

It will be interesting to see what they do with Kitty in this regard.

Hutch