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| Reflections from the Paradise of Elves by Bodkin | 12 Review(s) |
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| Nilmandra | Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 5/22/2004 |
| "She was the foundation upon which Elessar built his House." People tend to trivialize Arwen, say that she had no real role in Tolkien's world, and she was just a wall decoration. I agree with your line here - she was his foundation, she gave him strength, she believed him and she was incredibly brave to leave her people entirely to be with him. Nicely captured. Author Reply: I do think Tolkien is pretty unreconstructed. His female roles are not the best drawn or the strongest. Even Galadriel, mega-strong elf that she is, is shown as being masculine in her power (Nerwen). Though I suppose that is fairly normal in what is a boys' action tale. Arwen is important - she is Aragorn's motivation, and she is strong, but it is a kind of feminine passive role of standing by her man. There must be a great deal more to her than that. It is actually the things that are beyond the story that make you see her as powerful - like taking up the role of Gondor's Queen as the only elf to live in the city, living with death and disease, enduring the loss of her kind, and all the while knowing that her happiness would last for such a short time - what is a hundred years when you are almost three thousand - and never knowing how long she would survive Aragorn. | |
| Jay of Lasgalen | Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 5/22/2004 |
| I like the sad and melancholy tone of this part of your tale. How different things could have been - but I love the idea of Legolas as a protective father defending his daughter from a scruffy Dunadan! I've always felt their families would be delighted if Legolas and Arwen married, and have played with the idea myself. BTW, I think it would be easier to read as one story with separate chapters, but I'm not sure you could do it without losing reviews already posted. Jay Author Reply: Thank you. Despite the tendency of casual chat to be frivolous, it would be hard for this lot to avoid serious topics completely. - I was thinking of just leaving the ones already there, and going back to the first one and then adding all the others as subsequent chapters. That would keep the reviews on the originals, but enable anyone to read the lot as part of a sequence. I cannot think of any other way of doing it. | |