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| Stirring Rings by Larner | 15 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Kitty | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/23/2006 |
| *sniff* You have killed Bilbiolo! :( Otherwise it was nice to have Gandalf as a guest to his wedding. And I was greatly amused about young Merlin - I can see our dear lads in him. He has particularly the Tookish curiosity and the love of books and documents we know so well from Bilbo and Frodo. Good that his grandmother conspired against his father to help him in this matter. As for Ortholo, I have to admit I don't like him at all and can only hope he doesn't cause problems for Platina and her children and for his own son. Oh yes, it had to be Bilbiolo who went back and told the remaining hobbits to go west. How sad he paid with his life for the help he brought to others! Drogo and Dudo, eh? How very fitting. I am sure many years later Gandalf thought back to these two! Galadriel knew Olórin quite well, didn't she, guessing how long he had hidden back then in Valinor *grin* As for Saruman ... well, at least Celeborn and Galadriel are under no illusions about him. No wonder Galadriel insisted Gandalf should be the head of the White Council. Sometimes I wonder how history would have changed if she had succeed in that ... Author Reply: Gandalf will be in Middle Earth for roughly two thousand years in the seeming of an elderly man, and watching mortals come and go is something he will have to face innumerable times. And even our favorites do in their time die, even Aragorn (I still weep for that, you know). Merlin is the ancestor of the Tooks and Bagginses and Brandybucks and, unfortunately, the Sackvilles as well; you'll likely see a good deal of familiar behavior in him and his progeny, I suspect. And I'm also glad his grandmother is feeding the Tookish part of him. I suspect that there were many names that tended to get recycled; and why not have two famous ones there from the earliest days of the Hobbits in the west? I suspect Galadriel and Gandalf would often anticipate how the other would react in various situations, and I can't imagine that they'd have been unaware of one another all that time in Aman. But I don't think in the end Gandalf would have accepted the role of head of the White Council until none could deny what Saruman had come to. And in the earliest days Saruman probably did well enough--he's more of an administrator kind of individual than Gandalf is, I think. | |
| SurgicalSteel | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/22/2006 |
| I enjoyed the look at early hobbit culture, the recognition that their migration into Eriador *must* have been quite dangerous - and Gandalf's recognition that he's not the only one interested in these small folk. Just lovely! Author Reply: I'm so glad you apparently find this a believable look at how the Hobbits first lived in Eriador, before the brothers brought them west of the Baranduin into what was to become the Shire. Am so enjoying your story, you know. | |
| Lúmë | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/22/2006 |
| Poor Bilbiolo! You've gone and made me cry again :-) I'm going to have to read up on Galadriel's history again, I find myself in terrible ignorance here due to faulty memory (it must be 15 years since I read The Silmarilion). But anyway, nicely written as always! Kind of off-topic: I was wondering what you think of Trevor Jones' score for the movies? I was just listening to the ROTK soundtrack and there are some goosebump-inducing moments for me. Great stuff :-) Author Reply: Trevor Jones's score? I wish I could hear it. Howard Shore's score is marvelous, of course, and I think that Trevor Jones's music was used in one of the series of previews for FOTR--I thought it was marvelous, and wish I could see the original movie for which it was written. I know that when I first heard the music as Gandalf drove into Hobbiton with Frodo I about melted, and I was already thrilled to hear a version of "The Road Goes Ever On" when Frodo first realized Gandalf had arrived in the Shire. And the music for the Lighting of the Beacons thrills me each time I hear it, as does any small bit from "Into the West." The daughter of Finarfin, Galadriel lived in Aman under the Light of the Trees, and came to Middle Earth at the same time as the revolt of the Noldor. I'm not certain whether she or Maeglor, who was one of Feanor's sons, is the elder; but those two are the oldest of all Elves to linger in Middle Earth at the time of the Ring War. I know there is another LOTR suite besides Shore's, and I wish I could find it again when I have the money to buy it. And I'd love to have a copy of Swann's "The Road Goes Ever On," music he wrote for the songs his friend Tolkien wrote for LOTR. I've done my own compositions for many of the poems and songs, back when I was in eighth and ninth grade, using my dad's piano. | |
| shirebound | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/22/2006 |
| It's wonderful to see Gandalf's continuing concern and interest in these small folk, and the 'intuition' he receives that they are, in some way, very important. (You might want to correct the ongoing italics in the chapter.) Author Reply: I swear I can do my best a million times to make certain all the text is the same sized font, and the new laptop will change it anyway. Drives me crazy, for when different sized fonts are encountered here, the server on which SOA is loaded sees them as reason to put the offending text at the end of the file. GAAACK! Anyway, it appears once again to be fixed. And Gandalf does realize there is special interest in the Hobbits not only from himself but from others, and now his own curiosity is on the alert. And thanks for the heads up on how the board reformatted the chapter. | |
| Dreamflower | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/22/2006 |
| A fascinating chapter. I enjoyed the visit with the early hobbits village. You've managed to create a believable prototype, that would have eventually evolved into the sort of culture found in the Shire. Merlin, of course, is recognizable as a predecessor to Frodo, but Ortholo seems to be a predecessor to Otho and Lotho. I am wondering now how Merlin's descendants will "divide up". Gandalf's visit with Galadriel and Celeborn was also very enlightening, and it seems that we see the beginnings of the White Council. And of course, we also see the beginnings of the division between North and South in attitude, aided by the suspicion and jealousy of Saruman. It looks as though the Istari have been there now, what? about 200 to 300 years? The hobbit migrations seem to have mostly taken place in T.A. 1300s to 1400s. What year is this particular encounter supposed to be taking place? (Just curiousity.) Author Reply: The Tale of Years indicates the Istari began arriving around the end of the first millennium of the Third Age, and the first immigration of Hobbits, mostly by Harfoots, was noted in Eriador somewhere between 1000 and 1050 Third Age. The second wave was mostly Fallohides and that was followed by mostly Stoors, although the dates appear somewhat tenuous. I suspect the full movement of the Hobbits into Eriador probably took several generations, and probably a couple hundred years. We know some Stoors returned eventually to the valley of the Anduin, probably late in the second millenia, perhaps about the same time as the founding of the Shire with the grant of the lands west of the Baranduin to Manco and Balcho, and it's likely Smeagol and Deagol's family came from that return eastward. We know that what hair Gollum had was lank and thin and fairly long, and I used that as a reason to indicate that Stoors might generally have had straighter hair than the other two lines. The Tale of Years indicates the first hints of Sauron's return were noted with the beginning of the building of Dol Guldur in what was beginning to be known as southern Mirkwood in 1100, although no one was quite certain it WAS Sauron until Gandalf entered the fortress in the third millennium of the age. Perhaps I'm making the actual first meeting of the White Council a bit later than canon, for this visit of Gandalf to Lorien takes place about 1350to 1360. Tolkien indicated that Meneldil himself, the son of Elendil's second son Anarion, was the first to refuse to accept his cousin Valandil as High King once Isildur was known to have been killed on the journey northwards. Apparently he found himself chafing at the idea of being a secondary king under his cousin, even though it was Isildur who had installed him as King of Gondor with the clear intent that Isildur would be High King until his death and his own heirs would follow in that role until the end of days. Nor does there appear to have been a great deal of respect of the northern kingdom or kingdoms by those of Gondor at any time. I suspect Romendacil's refusal to attend the first council was a continuation of a longstanding Gondorian tradition of pretty much ignoring all of northern origin as much as possible, seeing the northern kingdom as being rustic and uncouth and lacking in appropriate royalty in its line of Kings. And so it was (in my interpretation, at least) that the White Council came to be made up of the three Istari who remained in the western lands and the greatest of the Elven lords of the time as indicated by Tolkien himself. | |