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| Mortal Memories by LOTRFaith | 46 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Brazgirl | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 3/6/2005 |
| I am enchanted with your story. Very touching, so emotional! You almost brought me to tears several times, especially with that phrase of Aragorn. Great job! Author Reply: Aww! Thank you so much! I am glad you think so :-) | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/5/2005 |
| It's been a while since I read this story. Save for the fact both Merry and Pippin died in Minas Tirith and their tombs eventually were laid by Aragorn's after his own death, not too off canon. However, to see Legolas now in terms of being a young elfling still seems jarring in one who was several millenia old when he was in the Fellowship. But an interesting premise. | |
| daw the minstrel | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 3/5/2005 |
| I like the vision of his mortal friends in the circles beyond the world. Perhaps when Arda ends they'll all be reunited again. Author Reply: I think I will try and write a little bit into that :-) | |
| daw the minstrel | Reviewed Chapter: 8 on 1/10/2005 |
| You have a pretty grim picture of the twins after their mother left. It's as if they went mad for a while and then came back to themselves again. Legolas is slowly getting to the bottom of what's bothering him, I think, but I'm not sure that he has a lot of choices for what to do about it. Author Reply: I remember reading one story that was about Elladan and Elrohir after their Naneth left. I cannot for the life of me find it again, which I would love to read it again, but I can remember clearly the anger that stood out. The bitterness against the orcs for what they had done. I cannot imagine finding my mom in a dark cave and seeing her beaten, battered, bruised and with the horrible knowledge that she was raped. Just the thought left me scared and angry. So I tried to turn that emotion into my story. I don't know if it worked, but I tried:-) Yes.. Legolas is getting to the bottom of what is truly bothering him. And no. He doesn't have a whole lot of choices before him. Actually he has two choices. Accept it or deny it. So far he's been denying it. Now... If I can just find inspiration to write about him accepting it... :-) | |
| daw the minstrel | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 12/22/2004 |
| I liked Thranduil's analysis of how his children needed the two parents to balance one another. I also liked Legolas pinning Elladan down and loosening his hair. Thalion must have been astounded when it happened to him. Author Reply: Since I milk almost every night I get to listen to Focus on the Family with James Dobson (I don't know if you've heard of him of not) but he has many times talked about the balance disruption when one parent leaves. Say by divorce or death or such. And I thought it was something that Legolas probably would face. It is usually not something that most people think about, which is why it was never addressed before. At least that's my excuse;-) lol.. Yeah I did that once to my sister. She had her hair up in a nice braid and I sat on her back with one hand holding her wrists down and pulled her hair out with the other. It was quite fun! Before she started screaming for mom though ;-P ... | |
| Shemyaza | Reviewed Chapter: 7 on 12/22/2004 |
| You've brought up a very interesting aspect of this whole 'Elves heading for the west and Valinor for healing' issue. I realise that Tolkien was trying to make his Elves very passionate and ethereal yet strong and fierce, but I constantly have trouble with his idea that these strong fierce people would just be so weak that they would fold, especially mothers of children. As a race they had gone through so much, I find it hard to believe that a mother, like Celebrian for example, would just leave her family when the going got rough. Plenty of women get raped in the real world and they don't have anywhere to escape to, they just have to suck it in and deal with it, and I imagine that the human women in Middle Earth would have done the same. They do it for the sake of the children who need them there. I know that as a mother myself I couldn't bring myself to just walk away from my children, even now, and they are grown up! A mother is generally a very fierce, protective creature when it comes to her offspring although there are always exceptions to the rule of course! To me, Valinor always sounds like a huge cop out bolthole and the Valars' almost jealous protectiveness of the Firstborn, was always far too proprietary. I think a race like the Elves would be made of stronger stuff somehow. However I do know that many admirers of the book feel that the poor tragic Elves, beautiful, wise and ancient yet full of sadness and tragedy are a very romantic aspect of the whole tale. I myself find it rather irritating sometimes. I like Tolkien's work, but I can't help thinking every time I read it and his notes/letters, that a lot of his own insecurities about life, death and relationships shines through, especially when it comes to the Eldar. If we are to suppose that Thranduil's Queen was absent from his early life because she just 'had to sail for the west' then if I had been Thranduil I would have found it almost impossible to believe that his wife could just abandon her child because she felt she just couldn't cope any more and it certainly wouldn't endear her to me as a partner. In fact I think I'd be rather annoyed to be left as a single father with a young child *and* a realm under threat to cope with. Again of course, Tolkien inferred that the bond between male and female was so deep that if one partner left or died, the other one would soon follow. Again another hopelessly romantic notion with no basis in practicality. I personally feel that Tolkien had a very stylised romantic idea about women in particular which had its roots in the era he lived in, where women were not considered equal. He appears to have an unrealistic notion about how they react to any given situation emotionally or otherwise. For example, He wanted Eowyn to sound like a tough shieldmaiden,butwhat she actually comes across as is needy and repressed rather than tough. Galadriel is meant to be wise, beautiful and all-seeing, but she comes across to me as a power-mad 'know it all' and her granddaughter has little to recommend her other than she is beautiful like Luthien, dances barefoot in the woods and embroiders a nice little banner when she has a mind to! I just feel that the fading and needing to go into the West is a weakness that doesn't sit well with the otherwise wise, perfect and pristine Elvenkind. If you're going to write about a superior race of beings and *want* the readers to be impressed with that aspect, then you don't give them feet of clay, or show them to have unresolved emotional issues or large amounts of emotional baggage. However, to get back to the point of your story, Legolas or indeed any other child, would have suffered a lot if his Naneth just toddled away for the Havens one day and nobody actually took the time to explain it to him. Children have a way of taking the blame for such things on themselves. No mother of any worth on this planet would willingly put her child through that sort of distress. Not even a supposedly superior Elven mother. Sorry about the rant, I am just always pleased when I find a story where such things aren't just 'explained' away or happen without consequences. Hopefully Legolas would gradually come to terms with the notion of 'death' and what it means to those left behind. Author Reply: Ummm... Wow.. long review... Thanks :-) | |
| Wopt | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 12/4/2004 |
| Sad sad sad. Why did you have to make me go and cry like that! AHHHHHHH! You have a way with words that I could only dream of. I love how you dont seem to make the elves so supreme. Like they dont have feelings. It really adds a sweet touch to the fic. Wopt | |
| Tamuril | Reviewed Chapter: 6 on 12/2/2004 |
| I am crying. I can barely see what im tyoing. NO fair making me cry. Very good story. | |
| Tamuril | Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 12/2/2004 |
| I really like your story so far. I find your interpretation of Legolas to be very human and real. Truthfully, i have cried during parts of this story. You are very talented at writing. There are a couple of structural errors (nothing serious really just a little distracting from the reading). Otherwise, I really like this story, I like how you've given flesh to all of Legolas' family. Keep it up! | |
| Duchess | Reviewed Chapter: 6 on 12/1/2004 |
| You changed it for me? *awed* Wow! Thank you... *not sure what else to say to that* :) Okay, is Legolas letting go, truly grieving and healing now? I really REALLY hope so! Thranduil doesn't want to hurt his son any more than the poor thing already has been, but maybe thanks to the twins he won't have to. *crossing my fingers* His ailment is that heart is literally being ripped in two? Ouch! Don't think that would make him cough up blood, but hey, who says Elven anatomy is EXACTLY like that of Men? ;) This is your story, write it as you see fit. *vbg* | |