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While We Live  by j_dav 6 Review(s)
AleiTheLeafReviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/19/2011
Hi. I recently stopped being a silent lurker here, and I wanted you to know that While We Live is really captivating, eloquent work. Thank you for writing it! It's one of my favorites! The ending with Sauron expresses his chilling persona perfectly.
Yours,
~AleiTheLeaf

LarnerReviewed Chapter: 1 on 12/2/2009
One can certainly appreciate just how capricious Pharazon could be in this story. How difficult living through the stripping away of her faith and integrity must have been. As for Zigur.... Shudder!

LarnerReviewed Chapter: 1 on 12/2/2009
One can certainly appreciate just how capricious Pharazon could be in this story. How difficult living through the stripping away of her faith and integrity must have been. As for Zigur.... Shudder!

Author Reply: Zigur--I shudder with you! He is very dangerous in an understated manner and Pharazon is unaware of it. And yes, the King was a very capricious man and mostly cruel.

The gradual stripping away of her determination to hold to her cause and falling a victim to others' plotting, Miriel's life was not an easy one.

Thank you for your kind words about the story. It is good to see people I know, had been feeling a tad adrift!

Jdav

Raksha The DemonReviewed Chapter: 1 on 12/2/2009
An interesting, if somewhat sad (but no sadder than what is said in The Silmarillion) take on the latter days of the last Queen of Numenor. She is so lonely and physically isolated; it is perhaps understandable that she accepts the comfort offered her by the husband who raped her.

Excellent texture of pain, pride and the subtle shading of decadence.

Author Reply: Oh, it is so good to see a familiar face here!

The Silmarillion says that 'And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, climbing over the land, took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls.'

It was such a sad ending for Tar-Miriel, one she certainly did not deserve. So many innocents perished in that civil war.

Thank you for your kind words about the story, Raksha :) That you think I managed to capture the decadence in a subtle manner enough has me very happy!

Jdav

sidhedragonReviewed Chapter: 1 on 12/1/2009
Amazing! You wrote these two very well. Zigur gave me the creeps, even though he cloaked himself in pretty form. I think Miriel has a slight case of Stockhlom Syndrome! Hats off,j! Looking foreward to more!

Sidhe

Author Reply: Thank you, Sidhe! Zigur is a dangerously subtle person, isn't he? I was wondering if I should or shouldn't write that slice, since it deviated from the 1st person narration. I am glad that you think it effective.

Miriel suffering from Stockholm Syndrome - Now that would be a whole new AU by itself! The ideas you suggest :D

And thank you for the birthday wishes too. I hope you did get my thank you that day :)

Jdav

PraveenReviewed Chapter: 1 on 12/1/2009
A different and touching perspective of the last King and Queen. I always wondered why most authors described Pharazon like a terrible villain. Sure he was cruel and ascended the throne by rape. Yet he must have had some good qualities to command such loyalty in Numenore. Certainly he was brave and a great commander. It was no small feat to capture Sauron - A Maia - alive, some thing all the elves could not do. And in his time the power of Numenore surpassed all other Kingdoms. And as far as I know the valar never gave up the governance of Arda while Morgoth was in his peak of power - they did so only once, and asked for Eru's intervention, and that was when faced with Pharazon's Armada. a man who could bring a mortal Kingdom to such glory cannot be all bad, and certainly commands a kind of respect. You seem to capture this well.

Of course, this is not to condone marriage by force; I hope that is clear.

Great story!

Author Reply: I have often wondered the same about the loyalty that the King's men bore Pharazon myself! They wouldn't have pledged their allegiance to a terrible despot, would they? They were citizens of a great civilization, after all. I have read somewhere that the marriage of Tar-Miriel and Pharazon was not non-consensual in one of the earlier drafts of Tolkien. Marriage by force - sad and prevalent not only within the story of Akallabeth. Perhaps it will end one day.

Pharazon was a mighty king indeed, his fleet and well-trained warriors. Akallabeth was a sad event in the annals of Arda. That Manwe laid down the government of Arda also testifies to Pharazon's might, I agree with you there!

Thank you for your kind words about the story, especially since this deals with the characters in a different manner than is usual.

j_dav

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