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Msg# 5095

Reviews Final as of 8/17/2005 part 11 Posted by Ainaechoiriel August 17, 2005 - 23:12:49 Topic ID# 5095
Title: Grey and Pale
<http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterlistview.asp?SID=1252> Gold · Author:
Kielle
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=19
7> · Genres: Drama (includes Angst) · ID: 54
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=54>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-01 20:43:30 Score: 4
I thought this was a wonderful story. You did a remarkable job capturing
both the textures of daily life beyond Edoras, on the front, as it were, and
your characters through simple actions and dialog that read clear and true.
It is rare to find a story in with four main characters are each so well
drawn. I'm not familiar with most of your work, but I'm going to seek it
out, now.

Title: 110 <http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=4427> ·
Author: Aeneid
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=20
1> · Races/Places: Men · ID: 59
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=59>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-01 20:53:17 Score: 2
I think this 'experiment' certainly worked, and worked well well,
successfully communicated experience in thought and memory. Well done.

Title: Shire: <http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterlistview.asp?SID=1052>
Beginnings · Author: Lindelea
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=27
> · Genres: Adventure: Long Form · ID: 703
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=703>
Reviewer: Inkling
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=28
3> · 2005-06-03 02:19:44 Score: 10
This wonderful, original story is difficult to categorize: part adventure
saga, part well-researched ME history, part folk/fairy tale, by turns
whimsical and grim. It’s full of the wonder and magic of storytelling that
deals with origins…which is why Lindelea’s allusion to Kipling’s “Just So”
stories in the prologue (the narrator addresses his listener as “Ah, best
beloved”) is so appropriate.

The origins, in this case, are the very early (though not the earliest) days
of the Fallohides, and the events leading to their migration westward. I
love these hobbits! Sharkey’s ruffians would have had a hard time pushing
THEM around! Brave, smart, selfless, generous, resourceful, pragmatic,
adaptable. No self-pity, resentment, vengefulness. Lin said she has received
complaints that the hobbits in this story are “unhobbity.” Now, granted,
these are Fallohides, and Fallohides in their pure, undiluted form at that,
so a pretty special breed. But to me, they are the very essence of
hobbit-kind…all the best qualities of hobbits, with the surface trappings of
Shire civilization stripped away. They do the right thing instinctively,
without thought of what’s in it for them, as when they help “Grandalf” or
the Elves. They have a nobility of spirit and a quiet dignity that are both
inspiring and humbling. You can see how centuries of easy living could turn
them into the fussy, complacent hobbits of the late Third Age, but you can
also detect in the modern hobbits the traces of these forebears: Tolkien's
"seed of courage hidden...in the heart of the fattest and most timid
hobbit.”

One of the high points of the story is when Glorfindel and Blackthorn visit
the king of Rhudaur. This powerful and disturbing chapter brings to mind the
atrocities of the Holocaust…another time when men refused to see the
humanity in other men though it was right before their eyes. Glorfindel’s
unveiling of his power was breathtaking…straight out of one of the great
fairy tales. The murk that is briefly dispelled and then regathers raised,
for me, the same question about the nature of evil that runs throughout
LOTR: whether it resides in the hearts of men, or comes from without…or
both.

Every now and then—not often—I come across a story that I think Tolkien
would have enjoyed. This is one of them.


Title: The Heirs of <http://www.freewebs.com/aure/heirsofisildurthe.htm>
Isildur · Author: Marta
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=16
> · Genres: Humor: Drabble · ID: 24
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=24>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 22:25:50 Score: 4
This drabble captures a rather Elven moment of humor when it comes to
interactions with races of lesser longevity. There's just so much to keep
track of after a few millennia that it's only to be expected that once in
awhile, one might put the wrong name to the wrong face by about fifty years
or so. It gave a bit more flesh to Lindir's one line in FOTR, that to sheep,
other sheep no doubt looked different, or else to shepherds.

Title: Olorin
<http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Chapter.php?CHid=1127> I was in
my Youth In the West that is Forgotten · Author: Azalais
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
7> · Books/Time: The Lord of The Rings: Drabble · ID: 25
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=25>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 22:26:39 Score: 4
There are so few Gandalf stories that get inside his head, but in one
hundred words, Azalais gives us a glimpse into the existence of a being
whose embodiment is a real alienation, for whom forgetting is not natural,
nor the aches and pains that even an immortal body inevitably comes with.
The juxtaposition of that brief glimmer of remembrance, and the immense
power that Gandalf's body is housing, with the indignities of age and
Pippin's evaluation of him is very nicely done.

Title: The
<http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterview.asp?sid=3594&cid=13632> Protocol
of Princes · Author: maranya14
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=12
0> · Genres: Humor: Drabble · ID: 26
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=26>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 22:27:27 Score: 4
A humorous interlude between Faramir and Éomer is a bit of a rarity so far
as I can tell in fandom. This one is exquisite. There's a lovely, lazy
mischievousness about it that reeks of Rohan, but also suits Faramir, who
shows himself to have a definite wicked streak. There's a verbal agility in
this little exchange that's delightful on both sides—Fourth Age exuberance
and confidence shines through.

Title: Cunning <http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1361107/2/> Gold · Author:
Lyllyn
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
8> · Books/Time: The Silmarillion: Gondolin · ID: 28
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=28>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 22:55:13 Score: 10
As with some other stories, I'm going to resort to some older comments I'd
made, since I still think they're accurate to my view of the story and were
fairly well thought out when they were written. This was a wonderfully
unique take on Glorfindel as a commander, and as a veteran. The
ridiculousness of his attire, coupled with his foreboding that there will be
no victory, that the little he can give—laughter and his life—will be taken
from him by the time the smoke clears, is a terribly clear-sighted
commentary on war. It also brings to mind a particularly apt passage in
Kierkegaard's 'Fear and Trembling' that describes the Knight of Infinite
Resignation:

" I am able by my own strength to renounce everything, and then to find
peace and repose in pain. I can stand everything—even though that horrible
demon, more dreadful than death, the king of terrors, even though madness
were to hold up before my eyes the motley of the fool, and I understand by
its look that it was I who must put it on, I still am able to save my soul,
if only it is more to me than my earthly happiness... Then [I] will calmly
put on the motley garb. He whose soul has not this romantic enthusiasm has
sold his soul, whether he got a kingdom for it or only a paltry piece of
silver."

Glorfindel puts on the garb of the fool for the sake of others. By his own
strength he can do this, and he must do this, and it is war that has brought
him to the point of playing the fool. This also reminds me, on a slightly
more sinister note, of Polonius's famous line: "Though this be madness, yet
there is method in it!" There's a certain personal darkness to Glorfindel
here, a grim understanding, that's at odds with his clothing—a sort of fury,
I think, that comes across that this is *it*, that's all he can do, and they
are still doomed. What redeems him is that 'romantic enthusiasm' that will
play the game out to the very end, and so he saves himself in a sense from
descending into real madness, where for no good reason, he will simply fight
and die in isolation—the meanest of all deaths. By his fingernails, he hangs
on to his relations with others, and in so doing is able to inject meaning
into what otherwise might be a very meaningless fight given the overwhelming
forces we know he will face. Sorry there's so little new material here,
Lyllyn, but it was a lovely story nonetheless.


Title: About Men <http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1596277/1/> · Author: Lyllyn
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
8> · Books/Time: The Lord of The Rings: The Shire · ID: 29
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=29>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 23:12:49 Score: 10
This fic captures a certain hobbity sensibility, so that you feel as if you
are hearing a hobbit describe the Occupation. Robin Smallburrow was the only
sheriff we ever got to see who had a voice, and it comes through
magnificently here. Lyllyn covers the important bases in this vignette: the
slow changing of the environment; the difficulty of seeing, at first, that
something is wrong; the inevitable regrets that hindsight brings; and most
importantly to my mind, the ambiguity and complicity that occupation
inevitably bring that make vices of virtues, but which can't easily be
condemned. Robin's point of view, as one of the more obvious collaborators
with the ruffians' regime, is not tainted by the kind of realism that is
really merely cynicism in disguise; nor does he fear to offer his judgments
about what he saw and participated in.

In his very complicity, he's afforded insight and distance enough,
paradoxically, to really testify to the generosity and compassion that I
think Tolkien meant to be the sort of 'spiritual character' of his hobbits.
Robin recognizes that the most basic impulses, to care for one's children,
lead, in unjust circumstances, to individuals consciously doing what they
know, in their heart of hearts, will damage others. But although he does not
condemn those who took that route, neither is there a trace of self-serving
justification in his evaluation—it is this that gives his voice its gravity,
despite the lightness of word and tone that is wholly appropriate to hobbits
and which recalls Tolkien's description of Merry and Pippin as they walked
lost in Fangorn: to hear their voices, you would never guess they'd been in
terrible danger, endured a form of torture, and were even at that moment
facing an uncertain future. Given the current state of global affairs, this
fic is one that I find meaningful as a reminder that complicity and
suffering can breed something greater than themselves, and that it's
important to find it, because otherwise, there is no hope for real healing
rather than a false peace.


Title: Beyond This
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=43> World · Author:
Thundera
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=86
> Tiger · Books/Time: Post-Ring War: Final Partings · ID: 32
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=32>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 23:39:42 Score: 10
I remember when I first read it, I had the hankies nearby and needed them,
which is pretty rare for me and hence it stands in my memory as *THE* Fic
That Made Me Cry. I think the thing that struck me most about this story is
that it deals straightforwardly with the debilitations of old age. We all
find it immensely satisfying to put our favorite characters through the
wringer to let their virtues and endurance shine through, but such
situations are artificial on more than one level. It isn't normal to be in a
situation where one might have to kill someone else to survive or to save
others; it isn't normal to expect to be in such situations. But unless one
is an Elf, old age and the slow impairment of the body and, to an extent,
the mind, are as normal as they are inevitable, but they can be very hard to
write about.

The virtue of this fic is that it doesn't flinch from this. There's no
heroism here—Gimli isn't enduring what he's enduring for the sake of some
greater good. It's simply his time, and he and Legolas have to deal with the
fact of his mortality. Thundera has given us a very wrenching tale of
letting go that doesn't end in a sort of dignified repose (Aragorn) or a
life cut short; Gimli is very simply dying, and his body is shutting down in
a variety of ways that alter the scope of one of Middle-earth's more
infamous friendships. That's hard to write, but done well, as it is here, it
is extremely satisfying.

But beyond that, Thundera uses Gimli's dying and death to put a choice
before Legolas. This isn't just a story about death and dying, it's about
family, and ties and loyalties that are stronger than blood. Legolas in the
end casts his lot beyond the world of the Elves, and in so doing, loses that
most elemental of elven traits: being rooted in self and Arda. He literally
becomes something other than he is in order to pursue his friendship with
Gimli to its uttermost end. Now *there's* a good story!


Title: For
<http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matthew.adams1/personal/isabeau_drabbles.htm#s
eason> Everything There Is A Season · Author: Isabeau
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
2> of Greenlea · Books/Time: Post-Ring War: General Drabble · ID: 31
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=31>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 23:40:28 Score: 5
And another story of the Cygnets of Dol Amroth, which is best read, I think,
with "Just A Bit Of Chop" and could accurately be titled "Lothiriel gets her
own back". War time being over, other virtues than martial prowess and
courage in battle become more prominent. Lothiriel, having been consigned to
them by virtue of her sex, shows herself the more practiced in them than her
brothers. Being a soldier isn't nearly as hard as opening oneself
sufficiently to make a good marriage, or so the reaction of her brothers
says. A humorous little interlude, yet with its own edge to it.

Title: Just
<http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matthew.adams1/personal/isabeau_drabbles.htm#c
hop> A Bit Of Chop · Author: Isabeau
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
2> of Greenlea · Books/Time: Post-Ring War: General Drabble · ID: 30
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=30>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 23:41:13 Score: 6
No matter how many times I read this, I laugh. I can't help it. The timing
among the conspirators is dead on, and once it comes out what's really going
on, you can't help but feel for poor Éomer even as you applaud his equally
well-timed trip to the railing. Amrothos, the third brother, also gets
points for his exquisite logic, which fails to move Éomer at all, unless
it's to seasickness. One gets the sense from these hundred words that Éomer
will have *earned* the right to pay court to Lothiriel, which is ironic.
Peacetime having its own measures of worth, being instrumental in the
salvation of not one, but two, besieged cities and little trip to the Black
Gate were apparently inadequate to prove his worth on that score. Well done,
Isabeau!

Title: Gathering the
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=3082> Pieces ·
Author: Tehta
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
5> · Races/Places: Elves: First Age · ID: 13
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=13>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 23:47:11 Score: 10
Another instance in which I will borrow heavily from comments left in
another forum, and apologize profusely for the lack of originality. If I
were forced to pick the most compelling fanfic characterization of Maedhros,
it'd be a toss up between this Maedhros and Eärmirë's. Both nicely capture
the refraction that is Maedhros—when Elves break, look out, because it gets
frightening very quickly thereafter.

Tehta gives us an interesting portrait of Maedhros "in recovery". I use the
scare quotes because he is clearly suffering from what we'd call PTSD and
keeping healing, which would require a terrifying vulnerability, at arm's
length. However, being Maedhros, he's found a way to compensate for the fact
that mirror- and navel-gazing are endeavors fraught with peril, as is
allowing anyone else to see him clearly in his brokenness: all his energy
gets sublimated into a chessmaster persona, for whom life is a game only
because the possibility that it might be real is too devastating even to
consider. He becomes isolated, and his intense interactions with others are
in fact a disguise that cover over the fact that he's using those closest to
him in order not to have to deal with any real relationship.

This is not to say he might not have been manipulative before his capture
and torment, but the manner in which he calls his younger self foolish, that
he is glad to have lost parts of his soul and can't talk about that loss to
Maglor, who is closest to him—this all suggests that this chessmaster
persona is at the least an extreme modification of his earlier personality.
He's changed, whether others know it or not. At the same time, this fic
maintains the necessary balance between angstiness and a sort of devastated
calm: it shows the bleakness of Maedhros' life without allowing him to pity
himself in any obvious way. That's essential, I think, and it gives the
story something very unique, especially combined with the manner in which
Tehta writes it: third-person, short sentences that imitate the distance
that Maedhros feels from others and even from himself perhaps. As one who
enjoys it when the form fits the content, that trait just makes the whole
fic for me. He's in a sense not permitting feeling; he may, perhaps, have
lost the habit of necessity, in order to stay sane.

Survivorship is an unenviable position to be in, and it can permit of great
triumphs of recovery; it can also descend to appalling depths whence there
is no possibility of return. This story follows the latter path with
Maedhros; having seen even the beginning, the end of his story should come
as no surprise.

Title: Mary Mordor
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=411> Sue · Author:
Meg
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
3> Thornton · Genres: Alternate Universe · ID: 7
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=7>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 23:50:17 Score: 10
One of the dangers of Mary Sue parodies is that they become just as annoying
and clichéd as the phenomenon they are trying to counter. Meg's story,
however, goes to the depths that other such stories dare not go: right to
the heart of the specific kinds of banality, frivolity, callousness, casual
brutality, and vulgarity that together form the underbelly of modernity.

And she does it in the first person, which puts the reader uncomfortably
close to the action—you can't help but identify, and yet you're repulsed and
horrified at the same time. It's an excellent demonstration of the
difference between the kind of violence and cruelty Tolkien portrays and the
kind that informs our own conceptions of violence: it's a frightening thing
when we learn that even Sauron is, in a sense, more innocent than we
ordinary, vanilla-flavored citizens are simply because we lack Sauron's
original greatness, to say nothing of the necessity under which he operates,
and are more free to indulge in imaginary violence, which, by definition, is
unrestrained because unreal.

At the same time, there's something rather dreadfully heroic about Mary
Mordor Sue: she's the lab rat who fights back and the unfettered violence of
her imagination gives her the gutter smarts to survive and achieve her end,
through stepping on anyone and everyone as if without remorse to achieve it.
Even madness can be a tool, giving this OFC a rather unexpected connection
to a certain Danish prince, although as with Hamlet, it's a brutal
methodology that consumes friend and foe and self alike. This is a very
unique and pointed fic, and not for the faint of heart for all that it's a
very short fic—just one scene in prison with Mary and her prisoner, whose
identity and status become horribly clear as the fic progresses. Give it a
try—after this, I think I feel safe in saying, "Take a bow, Mary, there's no
more to be said."

Title: Of Herbs and
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=4653> Stewed Rabbit ·
Author: Alawa
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
3> · Genres: Drama (includes Angst): Gapfiller · ID: 9
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=9>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-03 23:51:56 Score: 10
With apologies to Alawa, I'm going to repeat much of what I've already said
about this story in a different forum. We begin this story with a
conversation between a Captain and a young Ranger one wet, soggy Yuletide's
eve, and this after a rather disastrous day in the field that has resulted
in some casualties. One automatically suspects that Aragorn might be the
captain.

But in the end, the situation is reversed in a move that serves to highlight
the real dynamic that drives this story: can one really act from hope or
keep hope alive at all if one always bows to necessity/expediency? What is
the meaning of tradition if it is not given practical expression? This is
the heart of the story—it's the battle of idealism versus realism, hope
versus necessity. It's about making meaning where you need it, because to go
without for the sake of sheer expediency is unbearable. As with Altariel's
"Flame of the West", this story forces us to recognize the importance of
practicing ritual, of making the absurd symbol embody an ideal and hope
worth dying for.

Aragorn, Hope embodied and so quintessentially idealist, is able to show
that the mindset of realism is only correct to the extent that custom and
all the things that make a people who they are and that motivate them to act
in a specifically human manner, are actually dead already. In which case,
the means have outlived their end—survival usurps the place of a way of life
that honors more than the simple fact of being not yet dead. Because he
holds to the original purpose of Rangering—the protection of humanly
necessary ties to other persons, past and present, and the need to redeem
the dead for the sake of present and future generations—Aragorn is able to
breathe life back into that purpose by reminding his captain that sacrifice
in itself is meaningless. Why continue to be a Ranger and suffer so much if
one is not willing to make a moral issue of honoring in practice the ties
they are trying to preserve? At some point, one has to decide what one is
living for and what one is, thereby, willing to die for.

That's the alchemy that transforms foolish risks into meaningful ones that
cannot be easily brushed aside, because Aragorn isn't holding out for a
blind adherence to tradition, either, which would deserve to lose to the
necessity of a given moment. Insofar as the meaning of those traditions is
honored as living in the Rangers who take a moment to light a candle, at
peril of their lives, they're upsetting the whole order of war and dominion
that Sauron et al would reduce them to. This is the very logic that I think
the whole of LOTR is based upon. Beautiful writing, wonderful insight,
without a wasted word. Bravo!

Title: Flame of
<http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Story_Read_Chapter.php?CHid=24> the West ·
Author: Altariel
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=18
1> · Races/Places: Gondor: Vignette · ID: 1
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=1>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-04 00:13:40 Score: 10
This would be Altariel doing what she does best: creating tightly paced,
thematically rich drama centering on Faramir. Here we find only the second
conscious meeting of Faramir and Aragorn, in the Houses of Healing, just
before Aragorn leaves for the Black Gate. But it's more than that—this story
is a reflection on loyalty and honor, and the need, I think, for ritual, for
giving a voice and a form to what might "go without saying" otherwise, but
which would be the poorer for being merely understood.

It takes a certain talent to write ritual meaningfully for an audience that
can be assumed to be thoroughly cynical when it comes to the ceremonies of
power, but the key is that we can see here that this oath-taking of steward
to king is personal between Faramir and Aragorn. It's something that Faramir
needs to do, not simply for his peace of mind but as an act of thanksgiving
and out of love, I think, and it is equally something that Aragorn needs to
do for Faramir as the man who would be—and who for this one man already
is—king.

That Altariel ties that interaction back into the profoundly positive
experience of Faramir's oath-taking with his father just makes it better by
affirming that relationship between Denethor and Faramir as important and
vital, no matter what else might have happened between the two of them. The
two oath-takings therefore shed light on each other by contextualizing each
other, and it's impossible to say whether one redeems the other or whether
that earlier pledge is what furnishes the meaning of the later one, by
setting the later in a relationship of continuity. Beautifully written as
always and something every Faramir (and Aragorn) fan can enjoy.

Title: Dandelion
<http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterview.asp?sid=1694&cid=7027> Clocks ·
Author: Alawa
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
3> · Books/Time: Post-Ring War: Gondor Drabble · ID: 17
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=17>
Reviewer: Dwimordene
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=8>
· 2005-06-04 00:16:07 Score: 10
I had to actually think a lot about this drabble. There's so much to find in
it and I quite enjoyed the hunt. Prima facie, it is a story of mourning—that
last line is fairly suggestive that the occasion for recollection is a
funeral, most likely Éowyn's (although I like the idea that it could also be
Aragorn's). But to stop at that would be to cheat oneself of one hundred
quite marvelous words that do far more than tell us a funerary tale. It's
all about time, which we might expect in a drabble where an Elven character
and a mortal are portrayed together.

We begin in the past, with the recollection of an endless moment. Thus we
start, essentially, in two very elvish modes of temporality: the past and
present, with their connotations of the static, the inert, the
by-default-restful. The seemingly timeless present tense of Elvish existence
is captured as a present oriented towards preserving the past. This
backwards-glancing aspect of the present is evoked both by the fact that
this is a memory and by Éowyn's telling of the collected folklore of her
people—their past, endlessly re-presented for its own sake.

Yet even here, in this first, most elven, paragraph, there are hints of the
intrusion of a different, distinctly un-elven temporality: there are
children present; love, romantically associated with the eternal, is tested
in the transformation of flowers to puff-balls; and the hours are told, yet
we know this is a telling that cannot honor the past but depends rather on
the incessant advance towards the future. This futural dimension is most
evident in the middle paragraph, in Arwen's recollection of the dandelion
seeds that "reached beyond the rim waiting for the wind to carry [them]
away". The seeds reach beyond themselves—beyond the source of their
generation and their 'ground'—towards something other that will catch them
and transport them away to another place, destiny unknown, even as time
pulls one up by the roots and drags one beyond oneself into the openness of
the indefinite future.

All of this, however, takes place in Arwen's memory, and Alawa imparts an
immense sense of distance from that past, which is evoked by a hollow
dandelion stem falling to the earth—presumably onto a grave site given the
veil Arwen wears. But at the same time, that veil has symbolic work to do:
it is not there simply for decorative purposes. Rather, it stands in for the
ambiguity of the present and suggests the meaning of this scene: by virtue
of its position in the drabble as well as its being a physical barrier, it
separates Arwen from what has passed even as it separates her from the
inspiration to memory (the hollow stem).

Of a sudden, at the last possible moment, Arwen comes unmoored. Is it the
stem that falls away, or is it Arwen who is losing what has connected her to
Middle-earth? One might as easily say that it's her own ground that's
falling away, that she assumes the seed's eye view, and that she stands now
on the cusp of that journey towards what is unknown, towards really leaving
her elvishness—rootedness in the past and the eternal present—behind for a
genuinely mortal futurity. Death and birth, appropriately enough in light of
the connotations of floral symbolism, find their connection in Arwen in that
moment; nevertheless, there is a beyond of that closed cycle, which haunts
the drabble, and suggests the Gift of Men that transcends the bounds of the
finite. So in closing: read this drabble; take it for all it is worth. Thank
you, Alawa, for perhaps the most suggestive one hundred words I've read in
quite some time.


Title: To Labor and
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=4557> To Wait ·
Author: Aliana
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=20
8> · Races/Places: Gondor: Houses of Healing · ID: 79
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=79>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-04 15:42:48 Score: 3
This is an excellent story, the more so for taking the same moment and
giving it five separate voices, five different hopes and fears. I
particularly liked how the City itself was often characterized - with its
smells, quiet and the walls holding their breath.

Title: Swan
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/challenge/chapter.cfm?STID=4204&NGID=286>
Flight · Author: AmandaK
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=20
9> · Genres: Drama (includes Angst): Gondor · ID: 84
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=84>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-04 16:06:45 Score: 2
The beginning of this story was an immediate hook, and the characterizations
were good. I found it sort of unfinished, though.

Title: Close your
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=4276> Eyes · Author:
Werecat
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=83
> · Books/Time: The Lord of The Rings: Poetry · ID: 95
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=95>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-04 16:19:40 Score: 1
Very sweet, and very appropriately Dwarven, I thought. The last line is
particularly poignant and appealing.

Title: Requiem for
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=3859> Boromir ·
Author: maranya14
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=12
0> · Books/Time: Post-Ring War · ID: 6
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=6>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-05 13:05:07 Score: 3
Thank you. This is a true requiem in that it brings the departed and those
who loved him together again. Your verses, too, bring the lament back
clearly into my mind. I think you did a good and appropriately strategic
thing in not including the whole lament here, but completing it.

Title: Dance of
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter.cfm?STID=3312> Terrible Grace
· Author: Adina
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=19
8> ATL · Races/Places: Cross-Cultural: Vignette · ID: 57
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=57>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-05 13:06:26 Score: 1
A great, flash of an idea unfortunately, I thought, weighed down with too
much unnecessary description.

Title: Fairer Than
<http://www.storiesofarda.com/chapterlistview.asp?SID=3587> Most · Author:
SlightlyTookish
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=20
5> · Races/Places: Hobbits: War of the Ring · ID: 69
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=69>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-05 13:18:36 Score: 3
This story has a lot of joys: good characterizations, a plausible and
in-keeping with Canon plot, and fun. I particularly liked Sam and Aragorn
coming together; a more unlikely pair in that quintet is hard to imagine but
for the skill and good sense of this author.

Title: On
<http://www.henneth-annun.net/challenge/chapter.cfm?STID=317&NGID=2> His
Stewardship · Author: Alawa
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
3> · Races/Places: Gondor: Poetry · ID: 73
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=reviewsBrowse&show_all=n
o&navbar_page=0&markpage=12&form_story_filter=73>
Reviewer: Nancy
<http://gabrielle.sytes.net/MEFA2005/index.php?page=authorDetails&form_id=10
5> Brooke · 2005-06-05 13:24:01 Score: 2
Two remarkable poems each catching clearly the Steward's voice. Who but
Denethor could be so vain and proud about serving in another's place? And
sees his city as the only love he can truly have.


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