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| Dancing in the Darkness by Marnie | 12 Review(s) |
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| Gwynnyd | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/27/2004 |
| You make it look so easy! I love the way you've shown the twins and a happy Celebrian, and Elrond so formal and, and... your grasp of ancient elven history always awes me! Congratulations on another story very well done! Author 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! | |
| elliska | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/25/2004 |
| Another wonderfully told story. There is so much to comment on here and I have to go cook a turkey so I have to limit myself. My favorite part of this was just the idea that Celeborn's mother was one of the Singers. I just happened to be listening to the part of the Silm on CD (my early Christmas present) that discusses them and their battle on the ride home yesterday. I love that culture of elves. And I loved your portrayal of them here. Great job. Author 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 :) | |
| Morwen Tindomerel | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/24/2004 |
| Just the one chapter? I thought you said it was growing into an epic ;) Interesting making Erestor an old political opponent of Celeborn's Trust the Noldor not to realize that the withering of the ivy wreaths is part of the point. But then they're handicapped by having been brought up in a changeless land with no natural cycles. You make Celebrian so charming it really hurts to think of what's going to happpen to her. The twins really *are* related to everybody who's anybody in the First Age - eElf and mortal alike! :D C really has issues about dwarves doesn't he? No doubt with good reason, but will knowing Gimli help him resolve them? I love the exotic, even savage, and decidedly un-western (pun intended) look of the Nandor - or Silvan Elves as they prefer to be called. Author 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. | |
| Nilmandra | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/24/2004 |
| I am enjoying seeing Celeborn telling the twins of the time of the stars and the first age in Beleriand from the point of the peoples before they became so intermingled. The divisions of the Teleri are so many, and each became so unique, that there is much culture to share. I like them all painted up, too! I think the twins will long remember this and hope to do it again. Author 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 :) | |
| Layangabi | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/23/2004 |
| Marnie, I cannot express enough the beauty that is this fic. There really aren't enough stories about the Silvans, this fic offers a wonderful glimpse. I find it intriguing that the Silvans seem to not mind working for the Noldor, but remain fiercely prideful and protective of their distinctiveness from them, that there seems to be resentment at Noldor arrogance. Obviously, despite being a prideful people, what's important to them is very, very different from what's important to the Noldor. ;) I also find it interesting that Celeborn sees Heklo with two perspectives: one of them of Heklo as a savage (can you see Oropher jumping at this? ;) ), because he spent too much time with his wifefs folk. But Lothlorien is chiefly comprised of Silvan elves. How is it that he has spent too much time among the Noldor? (and absolute genius, btw, the way you resolved that Woodelf part of Celebornfs background, mentioned by Galadriel.) And again, I love Celeborn acquainting his grandchildren with the gdarkh part of their heritage, including that of the Silvans. (You see, Oropher? Your kinsman has not turned Noldor. *said Mirkwood king mutters something unintelligible under his breath*). But Ifm wondering about Celebriancsurely Celeborn has tried to ensure that she too, takes pride in her Lindai heritage. Surely she tries to ensure her own children take pride in this as well? Author 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. | |
| Sulriel | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/23/2004 |
| As always, I enjoy your characterizations, the differences between the elves, but I especially enjoy your Wood-elves in this one, dangerous and dancing naked, except for their paint, around the fire in the starlight. Good for Celeborn that he takes the twins to fill in the missing gaps of their heritage lessons. I hope we get to see Celeborn painted and dancing as well. It wouldn't do to have him standing back after interrupting their party. Author 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 :) | |
| Bodkin | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/23/2004 |
| 'It was the entire dwarf army turned up on the doorstep and massacred everyone without even asking for their version of what had happened.' People just don't listen, do they, though, under those circumstances. The automatic assumption is that the other guys are the baddies. It makes me think of the bit of the Bible that says 'for the love of money is the root of all evil' - only it's not money, it's Silmarils. If the jewels don't affect you, it's OK, but once you start obsessing about them, you're lost - and Elu did. Beren and Luthien were OK-ish, because they didn't want it for themselves - but once Beren started trying to get a second one, Morgoth awoke. It's comparable to the Ring, really. Frodo is (relatively) OK because he is pure and innocent and not interested in power - but had Galadriel taken it, she would have become the Dark Queen. But yes, I don't think Celeborn would ever see it like that. (Ancestors back into legends . . . that's Adar's adar, then.) Author 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. | |
| Bejai | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/23/2004 |
| Ah! A new story! What a treat, full of brilliant, vibrant images and layers and layers of good stuff. Just to mention a few: - Celebrian poking him about a "mystic moment." Ha! I love Celebrian. She has Celeborn's clear view of the world, and his humor, without much of his spiky-ness. - The Mirdain being worried about a wilted and dying wreath. Ah, the Mirdain, always trying to hold on to what was. I can't fault them for that -- how terrifying would it be to have the world disintegrate around you over and over -- but like Celeborn, I shake my head at the futility of it. - Loved the little aside about who Erestor was. One of the revolutionaries in Eregion! Nice. - Being reminded of Dior. I love it when you write little moments like that! In fact, Celeborn does a lot of remembering this night, and I love how so many threads of the tapestry of Middle Earth seem to pass through and around him. - That prickly moment when they interrupt the dancing! The dance isn't the only ancient thing going on! Old resentments and divisions are so hard to get rid of. A wonderfully tense exchange, there. - Painting the twins into fish. I can't help but wonder what their parents are going to think when ol' granddad brings them back. But that's what grandparents are for, yes? - Loved how you filled in that missing gap -- who the heck was Celeborn's mom? Perfect! And so ... *figures out the family tree* ... Celeborn's other granddad was Lenwe. Nice! And I enjoy how that makes Elladan and Elrohir even MORE the descendants of everybody important who ever was. - And someone finally told Lenwe/Denweg's story. Wonderful! I sometimes forget that there are all these other untold stories out there. That's what is so fun about this. - The "unfortunate family tradition." Ah!! You're breaking my heart. And it's not over yet. So many good things. Do we get to hear more? Author Reply: 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? | |
| daw the minstrel | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/23/2004 |
| And if Bodkin can review twice, so can I. I have something totally irrelvant to say. I'm taking the title as a tribute to Bruce Springsteen just because I want to. :-) Author 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 ;) | |
| daw the minstrel | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 11/23/2004 |
| This was beautiful and primitive and very elfy. I love seeing Celeborn tell his grandchildren these tales. As with Nilmandra's stories, they help me too, to see how these farflung events might have felt to those who lived through them and long after. Wonderful job, Marnie. Author 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! | |