Stories of Arda - Lord of the Rings Fan-Fiction Archive


	About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search

To See A World by Nightwing	19 Review(s)
meckinock	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 3/12/2005
Legolas and Aragorn's tense but calm, businesslike division of labor in preparation for the immenent attack was great. One of them blind, and one of them almost completely incapacitated, but they're handling it all like any other tactical problem. You conveyed Legolas's use of his senses in reading the battle and his opponents wonderfully. I liked the POV shifts between him and Aragorn. Each of them is "seeing" things the other either can't, or doesn't consciously reflect on, so the two accounts together build a complete picture for us of what's going on.

e_vrouw	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 2/13/2005
Hi Nightwing, I actually read your story the day you posted it but real-life is catching up. I don't have enough time to leave as long a review as I'd like, or one that's worthy of this chapter. But I would feel guilty if you posted the next chapter before I had reviewed this one. I only have a few minutes so I'll be brief. I love it! The action is portraid beautifully, especially from Legolas' point of view. You really show his reasoning, why he does the things he does. Very well written! As soon as I read the first paragraph I just knew they would be captured. I mean you can't let them die, or something like that. And you already had them seperated earlier (in the forest). And escaping would simply be too easy. I mean, you can't just builed up an entire history of a village where people live in fear and hate one of your main characters and than have those main characters simply walk away, now can you. ;-) Looking forward to the next chapter. e_vrouw Oh... I almost forgot. GO TITHLAM! If I'm not mistaken she's hissing in the corner. Too bad she didn't attack anyone. I can assure you attacking cats are ferocious!! P.S. I hope I don't sound too evil but I want Legolas to return to Mirkwood still blinded. I think it would be interesting to see how he (and his father) deal with that. After all, the plan was to stop in Mirkwood on their way to Rivendell, where Lord Elrond might be able to help Legolas. :-) Author Reply: Of course they had to be captured! Lots to come with Alun and Tarnan and the baddies in the city. Thanks for letting me know I managed to pull off the fight. It was the hardest chapter to write by far. As for Tithlam, I sure she would have put up a good fight. But I think most cats would just run for it! She's bolted for safety by now, and a good thing too.

Thundera Tiger	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 2/4/2005
For the sake of variety, I'm reviewing over here rather than over on FF.net. I have no idea why. I suppose this is my way of spicing things up. not that this chapter needs any "spicing." It was exciting enough on its own! What I like best is how you've broken up the action. It's remarkable, really. Up until the last section (and even into part of that, too) it's one, big dramatic race. If it's not an outright battle, it's all the tension that leads up to one. That's tough to write, and I'm more than a little envious at how easily you managed to pull this off. Or at least to make it look easy! The changes in perspective were fast and perfectly placed. They broke up the action so well and kept the narrative feeling fresh and new. Which is perhaps one of the most important things to do in a battle sequence. Oh, it was gorgoues! So beautiful! Right, I'll get to the individual sections now. First section! The loss of the bow is what hit me most from this section. It's what seems to hit Aragorn and Legolas most, too, judging from their reactions. But what I like best is how quickly Aragorn moves on. He's angry about it, yes, and he probably realizes it was an accident. But it's still an inconvenience that must be dealt with, so his anger is a natural response. What makes him stand out is the speed with which he moves on to other issues. He evaluates options left and right, discards the useful ones, picks up the practical ones, and gets them ready. Legolas felt a bit too frazzled to help out here, which makes Aragorn stand out all the more. Nice contrast. And nice work on Legolas's part in banking the fire. That was a brilliant touch of inspiration played out very well by the narrative. Second section! The battle begins, and interesting choice for the POV. You let Legolas fight it out without telling us how he's doing it. We can infer a few things based on what Legolas has been doing in past chapters, but by and large, we're as much in the dark as Aragorn is once he douses that torch. Which makes for an interesting time because we can sympathize with Aragorn, who isn't quite sure how Legolas is doing it, either. As for the battle itself, it was fast and furious, and the narrative matched pace quite well. And you kept the actual fight scenes to something of a minimum, which can also be a very good choice. Pages of fighting tend to drag after a while, but you moved us around quickly enough that it was never a problem here. Third section! What fascinates me most about the entire story is how well you manage to describe what is happening using things other than sight. You build a mental picture out of sound and instinct. It's amazing, and you've become quite good at it. It feels entirely natural coming from Legolas now, and I have to keep reminding myself that these aren't visual clues. What's even better is that we don't need visual clues. We don't care about proportions or color or things like that. In Legolas's world, they don't matter, and the beauty of your narrative is that it doesn't matter to us, either. Gorgeous fight scene that went on much longer that the fight in section 2, but that was fine because it was told from such a unique viewpoint completely independent of sight. I very much enjoyed it! Last section! Ah, cliff hanger. Really should have seen that coming. You caught me off guard, but what really surprised me was the Daleman. Points are awarded to Legolas for catching this. I'm trying to figure out if this guy knows Legolas is blind or not. He studied him long enough that I'm a bit concerned. He undoubtedly realizes he's from Mirkwood, but I wonder if he knows he's the prince. Hmmm... Anyway, nice wrap up, even if nothing was quite wrapped up. The nature of cliff hangers, after all. And I eagerly await the next chapter! Hope it's not long in coming! Author Reply: Hello at last. I would have responded ages ago, but my computer had to be laid to rest. It crashed and burned big time, and we were forced to wait while attempts to fix it were made, but to no avail. So here I am on my new one which is very nice, but I was forced to wave goodbye to all my emails, etc. But the word documents (my writings!) were rescued, so that was a blessing. And thank you for such a wonderful review. I'm delighted you thought the fight went so well, as I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. It was terribly difficult to write, particularly from Legolas' POV, which is probably why I kept changing perspectives. If all the switching and section breaks enhanced the action it was entirely unintentional, so I'm very grateful you think it worked! I still find myself stumbling when I write from the elf's POV. I forget and put in little observations that he cannot possibly know, and then I find them upon rereading and have to correct. Tedious, but a good challenge, and sometimes it's fun if I don't get bogged down. I got very tethered in the writing of this chapter however. Writing it was like swimming through an endless ocean with exhaustion growing minute by minute (and I'm a terrible swimmer), and I emerged hating every word of it. Only now am I starting to like it again, since I have been able to pull away from the experience of writing it. Poor new chapter has been delayed due to the computer death. But I worked all day on it yesterday (husband and child out of town!), as I had a great big stretch of time for the first time in ages. Thank you once again. And now I owe you a review!

Timmy2222	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 2/1/2005
Great chapter and very good fight description. Wonder if the two heroes will ever get out of trouble! - T. Author Reply: Thank you! I think in the end things will calm down, but for now they are in very hot water indeed.

lwarren	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 1/31/2005
Ai!!!!! Nightwing!!!!!! The elf...the Ranger...the cat! wails and runs away to hide until next update linda (What a marvelous chapter! When I recover from my heart failure, I would dearly like to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!) :-) Don't you love slightly demented readers....of your making??? :-) Author Reply: Ha! Don't blame me for your dementia! We're equally caught up in this tornado, but the ride is a fun one. Personally, I blame Viggo and Orlando for being so darned good looking. I can't get them out of my head.

Gandalfs apprentice	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 1/31/2005
What a great story! I have been wholly engrossed and looking forward avidly to your next posting. Are you going to have Arwen appear as a character in the story later...I mean aside from Aragorn's memories. I hope so, because I really like the way you deal with their relationship, which too often comes off as very childish in a lot of the stories on the site. I completely agree with you about elves and sex. Legolas's bawdy song was one of my favorite moments. It seems to me elves would be doing a lot of naked bathing in forest pools, and stuff like that. It would be especially nice to see a story that deals with why Arwen loves Aragorn, since Tolkien always says it's because he is just like an elf lord. But she had dozens of them around, so that doesn't seem right. There has to be something about his being a Man that matters. The warmth of mortal love? and perhaps she's bored with being so sheltered? Admires his spirit of struggle? Aside from the fact that he's irresistable! I mean I don't know--play around with it. I'd be interested to see your take. As you can see I'm more of an Aragorn fan than a Legolas fan, but of course I love them both, and I think you get both characters just right. But don't forget that Aragorn is supposed to be very good friends with Gandalf, too. No mistake my screen name. Author Reply: Oooh, I like that visual of the bathing elves. Mmmm... I do not plan to have Arwen make an appearance in this story. It sounds like you are full of ideas for a certain story though... perhaps you should write a tale of their romance. Excuse me now, but you have lit a fire under me. I'm off to take a peek at that forest pool.

fliewatuet	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 1/30/2005
Wow! This chapter was well worth the wait. Not that I intend to sound impatient. If the outcome is like the latest chapter, take all the time you need. My absolute favourite part was the description of the fight from Legolas' POV. The way you managed to give each of his opponents his own distinct sound and what Legolas deduced about their personalities from that sound was simply terrific. There was just one thing I wondered about (apart from the obvious question who the attackers were and whether Alun had betrayed them), namely whether Aragorn had time to get dressed or whether I should feel all the more sorry for him since he's sitting around in the snow in nothing but his nightshirt ;-P Author Reply: Thanks for telling me you liked the fight from Legolas' POV. I almost wasn't going to write it from his perspective... it scared the hooey out of me. But I thought if I just stayed in Aragorn's head I'd be copping out, and one of the resons I decided to blind Legolas was to challenge myself. But it was hard, incredibly hard to write. Brrr! Is Aragorn dressed? Good question. It did occur to me when I began the chapter that he probably didn't have much on, since he was in truth forced from his sickbed. But the attack came on so suddenly that I didn't think it would really work to write about him trying to yank some pants on (probably with the elf's help), so I just let it go. Feel free to envision him any way you like!

sayre	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 1/30/2005
Oh no! Don't hurt the cat! Author Reply: Never.

Legolass	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 1/29/2005
A long chapter, as you promised, and another brilliant one! Thank you - and please let the wait for the next one be less agonising. :-) Author Reply: Hmmm, how to decrease the agony? It will be a while until I post again... probably close to a month. Have a drink and hang in there!

OakWolf	Reviewed Chapter: 33 on 1/29/2005
AYE!Nightwing, my word when you write you positively throw your readers into the snow and the fray-as always well done!! Author Reply: Thanks! I threw myself into it too, and was utterly exhausted by the time I was done.

First Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Last Page

Return to Chapter List