Reviews (21)

Author's reply

I think it's often the case that the peacemakers and people in the middle have a tendancy to do high-minded gestures which only succeed in offending both sides. But Tolkien is largely positive about the benefits of mixed blood, and most of his heroes seem to have been the results of love across cultures. A very progressive attitude for his day and age! As for the Twins, it's a shame we don't hear more about what they did during their tenure on ME, but I seem to recall them appearing in a mysterious way in Calednardhon and aiding Eorl the Young. So possibly they were a lot more important than we get to know from LotR. I can't help hoping so. Thanks for the review!

Author's reply

Thanks for a fantastic review, Bejai! I was rather fond of the image of Thingol welcoming Denethor - the impression I get of Elu is that he is very much a larger than life sort of monarch. And - as Finrod finds later - he does have a tendancy to just give away kingdoms to his kinsmen and friends. Something I wanted to get over because so many people seem to think he's greedy. Once it occurred to me that that the moon letters on Bilbo's map were made of ithildin and therefore it could be a kind of ink, I'm afraid I too thought it would be really cool as a tattoo. Celeborn himself, as you can tell, was not so sure :) The battle is definately a 'could have happened this way' rather than a 'did happen', but it seemed to make sense this way, and I also got to explain why Tolkien talks about Mablung always being around when the King needs a warrior, and never mentions any of the later Sindar Lords, like Celeborn, Oropher and Amdir. I mean it's Tolkien himself who calls Celeborn 'prince of Doriath', so I felt it needed explaining why Celeborn is never visible doing anything ;) Yes, the Noldor do seem to have distained the Sindar for living in a fortress-country. At least, until they too had experienced for themselves how overwhelming the odds were against them - then they either got wiped out through their own arrogance (like Feanor and Fingolfin), or they adopted the same strategy; like Gondolin and Nargothrond. Amdir got to command the right flank, and poor old Oropher got to be Celeborn's bodyguard because I'd written myself into a corner by saying in 'The Wisdom of Isildur' that Oropher didn't have experience of commanding an army in open warfare. But I'm delighted to hear we'll get to see the Last Alliance from Oropher and Amdir's POV in DF. Fantastic! It really is about time they got some recognition for their efforts. All the glory goes to Gil-galad just because he was in a position to fight Sauron himself. Would he have even got to that postition if not for them? Even if he would, they made the same sacrifice he did for the same cause, and don't deserve to be forgotten. I do have material for one or two more of these. Stuff which was intended to go into the third part of O+W. I'll have to see which I can face doing. But stuff like Thingol almost attacking Nargothrond really ought to be told, I think ;) Many thanks again!

Author's reply

Thanks, Elliska! Loaded chapters are one of the penalties of having a muse like Celeborn the Wise, who's been around forever and seen just about everything (and usually has to comment on it) ;) I do sometimes think - on the subject of unity - that one of the reasons why the Sindar seem to have more problems with dwarves even than they do with the Noldor (both of whom sacked Menegroth) is that at least they didn't think that the Noldor were their friends at the time. So although it was terrible, it wasn't a betrayal. I think that seeing how well Elrond has turned out would have made Celeborn soften even towards Maglor. And Gimli's sensitive soul clearly astonished him and made him rethink even his attitude towards dwarves... but he's not quite *that* far along here! But Haldir's line does make me wonder again about exactly what grudge Lorien bore Mirkwood. Was it really all down to Oropher's decision to move north, just to avoid Galadriel?

Author's reply

LOL! Yes. I was with him on the subject of the wreath right until he explained his reasoning about the tattoo - whereupon it became obvious that Celebrian had just been trying to do exactly the same thing, and had recieved the same lack of understanding from him that he got from all those other people. The boys were modled after my children at the start. They're good girls, but they *do* hate having to sit still and make polite conversation :)

Author's reply

Many thanks, Aislynn! I am very reassured by your review. I wasn't too sure about this story - Denweg and Denethor are so obscure, and all the book warn you about putting too much exposition into a story. So I'm delighted that you think it worked. I just loved the idea of ithildin, and it seemed a shame there wasn't more of it around than just on the West Doors of Moria. Then when I remembered the moon letters on Thorin's map I thought that they must have been able to make ink out of it. And in a story with tattooed elves, that was just too good to resist ;) There may be one or two more 'lessons' in this series - but on other obscure bits of history; such as the time when Thingol got the army of Doriath ready to go and attack the elven-kingdom of Nargothrond, and why :) Thank *you*!

Author's reply

Wow! Another great review! I'm glad I didn't put you off last time with my incessant arguing :) The Sindar are pretty stuck in the middle, aren't they - no wonder they're called Grey elves - half way between the woodelves and the Noldor. And Celeborn who rules an ancient Silvan land with a household full of Noldor and Sindar nobles, and a Noldo wife, has a tough balancing act to do. As tattoos go, Celeborn's is probably inoffensive - as long as he doesn't take his shirt off in the moonlight you can't see that it's there at all ;) But I know what you mean - my father had tattoos on both arms and legs, done while he was in the army. By the time I came along he was so ashamed of them he never wore a T shirt or shorts again. Which has always made me slightly wary of them. But to a certain extent I think of the Sindar+Silvan elves as being like the Celts and Picts; and tattooing was a big deal for them, culturally. As an aside, I've always wondered whether Tolkien intended the necklace to be the symbol of kingship among the Sindar (what with all the fuss about the Nauglamir), like the Celtic torc. But anyway, I'm digressing ;) It is quite staggering how much older Celeborn and Galadriel are than anyone else, so that things which are distant legend to other people are living memory for them. The stuff they've lived through! My theory on the descent of elvish royalty is that Kingship doesn't pass through the female line, unless (in the case of Dior) the King himself names that person as his heir. So in theory no. In practice it probably makes it easier for the Silvan elves of Lothlorien (and the large following of Green-elves he brought out of Beleriand in the 2nd Age) to accept his rulership. And yes, when you have children try and live at least a day's journey away from your parents - it makes it harder to get babysitters, but at least you can take the kids away before they get too spoiled ;) Many thanks for a fabulous review!

Author's reply

Thanks, Daw! I was trying to get some of that sense of a much deeper relationship with the Land than humans have, which you get when Legolas casually remarks in Eregion that he can hear the stones lamenting. I do get the feeling that that attachment to Middle-earth is something the Noldor don't have. They make a big deal of being Exiles, and we hardly ever hear from the elves who are at home. I can't claim any cleverness re the cider, I'm afraid. It's another case of being two great nations divided by a common language ;) Here in England cider is alcoholic by definition. Particularly in Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall, really rough, very strong head-splitting cider is the traditional working man's drink, like bitter beer in the North, and stout in Ireland. So what would be the American word for an alcoholic drink made from fermented apples? Anyway - sorry - I'm getting distracted by cross cultural stuff, and I should stop. Thanks again!

Author's reply

LOL! Darn cousins! Glad you liked the end though, I was rather afraid that it would put people off, being a little too heavy on the moral. But I couldn't think of any better way to end, so it stayed ;)

Author's reply

Thanks, Gwynnyd! Believe me, it wasn't easy! Part of the reason for not posting the second half was that obscure little details from HoME kept cropping up and changing things all the time :) (The other half was the fact that FF.net went down for the rest of the week.) I'm glad it managed to hide the fact that it was such a strain to write!

Author's reply

Thanks, Elliska! The second part of this (with which I've been having so much trouble) features Celeborn's account of that very battle, so you'll be able to tell me if I got it right or not. It's very confusing - I mean, it says that 'Thingol was assailed', which to me indicates that he was attacked first, but then it says that the battle between Denethor and the orcs was 'the first battle'. So I've taken it to mean that 'the first battle of Beleriand' was the whole thing - from the point where Thingol was assailed to the point where the elves were victorious. Coincidentally that's exactly what I'm getting for Christmas too! Many thanks for the review :)

Author's reply

I got the whole 11,100 words written, but I found that this half was ready to go long before the second half looked anything near finished, so I decided to put this half out independantly, rather than be silent another week. I was desperately looking for something that would make Erestor even slightly interesting. He is a bit of a blank slate! LOL! Yes, it seems a shame with all that heredity on their side the twins didn't really do anything. Perhaps the whole 'blending of all the royal lines of the elves' thing was for Arwen's benefit, so that she should then bring it to the line of the Kings of Men. And Celeborn's behaviour around dwarves strikes me as being the extreme reaction of a trauma victim - not only his flare up around Gimli, but also his refusal to set foot in Moria. It's partly why I'm convinced he was present at the Sack of Doriath - that it's a personal experience rather than being (as with Thranduil) an inherited grudge. It occurred to me that Tolkien describes Legolas as 'a strange elf', which set me thinking about the look of the Silvan elves, and what it was about them that looked 'strange'. Exotic is definately a nicer word!

Author's reply

Thanks, Nilmandra! There wasn't much that you hadn't already done, so I had to move into near-prehistory and go for some really obscure bits. The Teleri do seem to have a much more complicated history than the other two clans, and that's saying something when one of the other clans is the Noldor! I'm glad you are enjoying it - it owes its existance to you :)

Author's reply

Wow, thanks! No, there aren't many fics about the Silvans of anywhere other than Mirkwood. I'm thinking that they co-exist with the Noldor in a similar way to that the Sindar of Hithlum did - they accept the Noldor's rule and work for them, while still retaining the sense of their own identity. I think Celeborn is being a bit disingenuous in blaming the Noldor entirely for that moment where he sees Heklo as a savage. But he has been out of touch with - so to speak - the pure Silvan influence for some time. He was a long time in Ost-in-Edhil with the Noldor, then in Imladris with the Noldor, then in Edhellond with a group of fairly hard-core Sindar, then in a Lorien which had been Sindarinized by Amdir and Amroth, (who did not make the decision to adapt to Silvan culture as Oropher did). Some of the prejudice may be home-grown, but it's easier for him to reject it if he thinks of it as a Noldor thing. Celebrian is dealing with the mongrel heritage of her sons by adapting Noldorin and Sindarin traditions to try and fuse them together (like her wreath - the wearing of which in autumn is clearly a woodelf thing, because Thranduil wears a crown of leaves and berries in autumn, but which she's adapted to a Noldorin household by having it made out of metal.) In other words she's trying to concentrate on new ways of doing things, which incorporate, but replace the old.

Author's reply

LOL! He thought about it, but in the end decided that it would be too much of a shock (a) for his poor son in law, and (b) for the gentle readers. I've always felt that *someone* ought to tell at least one story about Denethor and Denweg. They must have been more famous than we think, if Denethor the Steward of Gondor was named after him, in the same way that his father Ecthelion was named after an elf hero of old. Glad you liked it! And congrats on keeping up with the resolution :)

Author's reply

Yes... but Elu didn't do that to the Feanorians, even after he found out they'd killed his kin and stolen their ships. He blanked them - sent them to Coventry, so to speak - but certainly didn't attack them. Perhaps that was a typical Sindarin response - what Celeborn would consider the 'natural' response. In which case think of the mindboggling sense of betrayal that your oldest allies didn't even bother finding out what had really happened before they mustered an army to start killing you. From the elvish point of view it has to look almost completely unprovoked. I suppose what I don't really see is that Elu was 'corrupted' by the Silmaril. The Silmaril is a holy jewel, *not* an evil artifact like the Ring. Yes, he's subject to its power - but the power is merely to make him want to keep it. He begins his possession of it (like Bilbo) after pitying Beren and letting him off. He ends by losing his temper and saying a few things to the dwarves that he might well have repented of in a cooler moment (just as he repented of his behaviour to Beren.) To me he's a larger-than-life version of Celeborn, with a tendancy to open his mouth and say nasty things that he later regrets; but - in the case of the dwarves - he just wasn't given the chance to regret it.

Author's reply

thanks for the review, Bejai! I'm glad you liked it; it got so long and so complicated with all those names and languages that I rather went off it myself. Yes, I've started to really like Celebrian too - she's got more tact than her father, and she'll point things out in gentle teasing rather than his customary mode of accusation. But she's got that same unconventional way of looking at things that he has. I wish I could think of a plot or two to do her justice. On the other hand I seem to have concieved a dislike for Erestor, for no good reason other than the fact that he's a more popular fanfic character than Celeborn, despite having only one line in the book and none in the movie, and using that line to suggest they give the Ring to Bombadil. Actually I'd rather admire that kind of lateral thinking if it wasn't that I was jealous of the attention he gets ;) I do think that a lot of fanfic attempts to make the elf-lords too friendly with their commoners. It's nice and democratic, but it ignores the fact that the servants might actually want times and places of their own, where their 'betters' can't be involved and won't be welcome. That's another reason why Celeborn won't be pushing his luck too far by dancing himself - he might belong by blood, but he doesn't belong by status, and he's aware that they're humouring him. It seemed to fit Celeborn, somehow, to have another relative who was actually quite important while simultaneously being thoroughly obscure ;) The second half is finished in a rough form, but is going to take a bit more checking and tweaking. I'm still catching things that are wrong in it - eg, I made Denethor short, but this morning I found out that his name means 'lithe and lanky'. This fic has been a real horror for getting the details right! And you? How is Deific Flame coming, now that you're up and sprinting about the place?

Author's reply

LOL! You can if you want to, but I confess that I don't know any of his songs at all, so it will have to be subconsious if anything ;)

Author's reply

Thanks, Daw! Yes, this series was conceived of as a sort of companion to Nilmandra's History Lessons - telling the more obscure bits that don't quite fit in to the grand sweep of the Silmarillion, but must have been important to the people who lived them nevertheless. Primitive and elfy was exactly what I was going for, so that's brilliant. Thanks!

Author's reply

Sorry to review again so quickly, but I JUST WANTED TO, OK? Quite OK with me! Wonderful, in fact :) When I was writing that sentance about 'no one left to tell them of the Night' it occurred to me that when Frodo sees Arwen come to marry Aragorn, he says something like 'now not only day shall be beloved, but night too should be blessed and free of fear' - something like that. It surprised me to think of one of Elrond's children representing the blessed night, but really it shouldn't have done, should it! No, I don't think that life with Maglor and Maedhros would ever have been a bundle of laughs :) And Celeborn is not dancing, in order to spare the tender sensibilities of Elrond's advisors. Ooh, and you would never get Celeborn to agree that any of the blame lay with Elu - Tolkien says as much. Perhaps - like Beren and Luthien, or the Laegrim who got it back from the dwarves and handed it over to Thingol without any kind of trouble - he just didn't see the attraction of it, and therefore was unable to place the blame on the Silmaril? There do seem to have been more people unaffected by its power than affected. On the other hand, there's a case to be made for him saying; 'Other than wanting to keep the dowry his son in law and daughter had gone through hell to bring him, refusing to give it up to armed terrorists at his gate, what exactly *did* Elu do wrong?' He was a king, and they don't respond well to threats. If the Sons of Feanor had tried *asking politely*, things might have been different - who knows? Sorry about the essay back! Many thanks for *two* reviews - it made my day :) Author Reply: Hm, and I'm also thinking that it wasn't really the murder that he holds against the dwarves (well - he might at least be able to understand that). It was the entire dwarf army turned up on the doorstep and massacred everyone without even asking for their version of what had happened. You would have hoped that millenia of friendship would have counted for more than that.

Author's reply

Thanks, Bodkin! I'm surprised (and delighted) that anyone would read a story about Denweg and Denethor. It was so long, and I was sure no one would like it, so I'm very happy indeed :) LOL! Yes, Celeborn is making the most of his time away from home, though he's still *slightly* restrained by not wanting to embarrass Elrond too much. I've always liked the idea that Celebrian had inherited more than just her hair from her father. I don't know, but I feel that Elrond probably needs someone to winkle him out of the library every so often and get him to live in the present. There will be a chapter two - it's very nearly finished, but I need to check it and tweak it a bit first.