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The Acceptable Sacrifice by Larner	11 Review(s)
Grumpy	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/8/2006
I was hopimg to write this before the cat came along to claim my lap, but to late. He does not like to share. Anyways loved the "scouring of the Shire" from Mina's point of view. She or you put it all in a great way. Poor Frodo trying to explain things to Will, loved the part about Galadriel not being his girlfriend. Author Reply: Mina has had to watch what has happened and has felt helpless; and then Frodo comes home with the other travelers and everything is turned around in a heartbeat; now it's time for her to begin doing for others. And Frodo is having to try to put himself back into realizing how those who have no idea what happened will think, and switching gears isn't as easy as he might have thought. Then there's Will, who after all does think kindly of Frodo and would love to see him married and happy, I think, and finds this was a hospitality gift and not one dealing with interest after all. So glad you appreciated the irony.

Radbooks	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/7/2006
People handle their grief in such different ways - I know people that have done as Mina and left a loved one's room untouched and others that come in and totally change a room around. We all have to deal with it in our own ways. I loved when Frodo was describing Aragorn to Will, how well he knew him and how they knew that he was the rightful king. How proud he was of his friend and could focus on the good things of the last year for a moment... to maybe for a very brief moment think of what his deeds had allowed to bring about. Though I still don't think he sees that! Seeing Pippin through other people's eyes was good... I liked having his outfit described in such detailed. It would have been so strange to the people of the Shire. (the same later with Merry) But I felt so for him knowing what was going on at home with his parents. :( Nicely done! Author Reply: I've seen a few who did that with loved ones things as well. I know when my husband died it took me a few weeks to begin going through his things, and months to find homes for much of it. Still have a couple coats in the closet, in fact, and it's been over four years now. Aragorn is one subject all four of them can speak of freely. Trying to explain other things, however, is harder to do, and Frodo still can't easily speak of what he's been through himself. I'm so glad people appear to appreciate how their clothing is described--it is so heartening; but it would look odd from a Hobbit's point of view, I think. And I agree with feeling sorry for him with what's going on at home.

Kitty	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/7/2006
Now you’ve me wondering if all the jewellery and other treasures Lotho’s bullies had stolen have been found and returned to their owners? “You know him?” The idea a Hobbit of the Shire would know the King Returned seemed awful queer to Will Whitfoot. Frodo seemed surprised anyone would ask such an obvious question. grin Well, for Will it’s not that obvious, isn’t it? The hobbits have always seen the old history as fairy tales, after all. To believe anyone who tells them they are all true is not so easy. But for the other hobbits it’s difficult to believe anything the Travellers told them. Anyway, I think the problem is, the other hobbits need to hear about what happened, even if they wouldn’t believe it all, but the Travellers aren’t able to talk about it, at least not much. A quite difficult situation. Author Reply: We haven't learned about the jewelry as yet; probably sometime soon, though, as more stashes are found. For Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin, what was legendary has become what they've lived with for the past year, and so it seems strange it should be questioned; for everyone else, however, it remains legendary and is hard to take in. There must have been several "obvious" facts on both sides that the other side had to try to deal with. The other problem is that it's harder for the Shire Hobbits to appreciate what went on "out there" than it is for the Travelers to understand what happened back home while they were gone; what they see has happened, after all, is but an extension of what Sauron's folk were out to do everywhere and what they'd done to much of the outer world. So the ones who remained home, who remain mostly insular in nature and inclination, find it easier to focus on what they've experienced themselves than on what others are going through.

Andrea	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/6/2006
The conversation between Frodo and Will reminds me of the "questioning" with Faramir and his Rangers. Frodo's answers are very polite, but he is reluctant to tell too much. So what he reveals is perfectly balanced between what Will as Mayor has to know and what should be private matter! I really admire Frodo for that ability! Will is not to blame, of course, for as the Mayor he has the right to know what happened during the absence of the four travellers. And he cares for Frodo (and Bilbo) and so wants to know how they have fared. Mina deserves admiration, too. Fate was cruel to her and it is wonderful to see her awaken after a nightmare and find that not only her husband is there but also Frodo, in the room of her beloved Fenton, after all those years. I loved it to see the clothing of Merry and Pippin described through her eyes and the compliment she gave to Merry. Mina is a good soul and she deserves a bit of happiness! Author Reply: Frodo does do his best to inform without giving more information than he ought to or than the other can handle--or than he can handle. Glad you like that ability in Frodo. Will and Mina try to understand, and in the end Mina ends up understanding more than her husband does--but that's only to be expected. Will admits he doesn't have the experience to understand in "The King's Commission," so instead he just accepts as best he can that what is is true. And Mina is finding a purpose she thought lost when Fenton died--to help someone who is at the same time remarkably strong and remarkably vulnerable, who's a mix of needy child and fully capable adult who needs her mothering, who needs at times to whisper the nightmares to someone. It's reassuring to have that room filled again. Aster she saw to adulthood and fulfillment--she lost Fenton before the end of the process. Hopefully with Frodo she'll be able to find that closure of seeing him ready for what comes next and they will be mutually healing for one another. And for her seeing the clothing of Merry and Pippin helps her understand that indeed these four DID go "out there" and did extraordinary things. Perhaps Frodo ought not to have insisted on going back to Shire dress so quickly. His actions made it harder for others to remember he, like Merry and Pippin, had indeed gone "out there," too.

Queen Galadriel	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/6/2006
Oh, I love Mina! She seems like such a motherly person, the way she always has food ready, when she checks on both Will and Frodo, and the last little thought on "her menfolk." I hope we see more of her. :-) God bless, Galadriel Author Reply: Glad you like her, my Lady. And right now maybe Frodo needs some plain old mothering from someone he won't fight at every turn. She'll be prominent until Frodo leaves the Shire.

demeter d	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/6/2006
Eru can use our weaknesses for his purposes. And Frodo carries the best traits from many different families, each strong in their own ways. He seemed to have been born for just that mission. But it was still up to him to choose to acept the calling. I quess that is the simplest way through that old theological debate that anyone could ever find! I really do believe that we each have our own gifts from above, given to us for our own and others benefit, if we will listen and learn howto use them. I can not see how anyone can separate that Presence out of Tolkien's stories. And it surely has shone like a light through all of your writings! I too have enjoyed the point of view of a lesser character here. After all, rebuilding after disasters is done day by day, by ordinary people. Sometimes, as in the case of many of our Hobbits, by seemingly ordinary people quietly doing extra-ordinary things. I think that Mina could qualify as part of the unlooked for help Gandalf once forsaw. It was interesting to read Pippin trying to tell the tale to Will Whitfoot. The names he told him were names out of legend for the Mayor. I imagine that is how it has always been for those returning from wars. The people back home can never really understand what they have gone through. Author Reply: That you see the Presence shining in my stories is humbling and gratifying, for certainly I try to open them to It. Certainly It's part of what has attracted many of us to Tolkien's writing to begin with, and what caught so much of my initial attention when I first began reading LOTR over forty years ago. One monk once commented it was easier in many ways for a good husband and father to live a properly spiritual life than for someone like a monk or priest, as the good husband and father has to live Christian charity seven days a week, all day long. He has to practice love, patience, discernment, humor, assistance, and so on constantly in his interactions with wife and children and extended family and neighbors, and it can't be artificial and him still be a good father and husband. Mina is, I think, an example of this and helps Frodo accept that he, too, is intended for now to live such a life. He's not a lover or father or even a proper son himself, but he becomes a surrogate of these things while he remains assistant Mayor, and realizes he's been this all along in his life in the Shire and that this is important! As for the experience of the veteran coming home and finding he can't properly explain to others because they don't have the experiential base to understand, and that it hurts to discuss it with those who don't understand--that's been true of life for all the history of mankind, I think.

shirebound	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/6/2006
I very much like the descriptions of how the Shirefolk view Merry and Pippin's unusual garments. (I tend to completely forget, in my stories, to talk about how anyone is dressed!) The Travelers are explaining what happened down South as simply and honestly as they can, but... how could they ever really explain it to anyone who wasn't there? No wonder passing on the Red Book was so important to Frodo. Author Reply: Now and then I do go into the dress and how people react to it. I remember in writing my version of the first encounter between Pippin and Diamond when he's sent with messages to Long Cleeve purposely writing it to make a Howard Pyle knight in shining armor suddenly enter into a scene almost straight out of a Jane Austen garden party. It helps at times to highlight how different they look so those who remained behind begin to realize that these have been through so much. And for Frodo the Red Book became the way he primarily let others know what had changed, what he'd done, how the world came to be as it was now.

Dreamflower	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/6/2006
I really like the way you show the reactions of Will and Mina to their guest and his kin--getting used to the changes in them, hearing the first few hesitant and reluctant attempts to explain what happened. Their mild disbelief and confusion, yet acknowledgement that however strange it sounded, they must be hearing the truth--and still incredulous and troubled by it. Of course, as Mayor, Will needs to know what happened and why--he needs to understand, really, though I know he will not. But it is hard for the Travellers to talk about at home, and I think the way you showed it with Pippin was just the way it would have been--a willingness, however painful to answer direct questions up to a certain point, but unless pressed by circumstance, an unwillingness to initiate the explanations. And the descriptions of Pippin and Merry and their Outlander garb from Mina's POV was very well done. I like the beginnings of overlap here between this story and "Choice of Healing" and "Family Ties". Very well done. Author Reply: It would have been very difficult for them to come home where the thought of future kings wandering the wilds allowing themselves to be called "Strider" and golden rings that willfully twist the nature of their bearers and so on are almost impossible to imagine. It was hard to talk of it much in Gondor, even to those who knew. How much harder now. And glad you liked the descriptions of the reaction of Mina to the livery. I'm trying to overlap without repeating. Thanks for the compliments.

harrowcat	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/6/2006
He is at it again Larner! Pushes himself to tell a little of the tale, sees a whole pile of work to do to get things straight, feels guilty and dives straight in with no thought to pacing himself. And surrounded by people who, at this point, don't understand much. I am glad that Mina is so empathic. When things have been in such turmoil there is great comfort in regular routine and the mundane. BTW Is your computer still refusing to speak to mine? Author Reply: Yes, Frodo has difficulty pacing himself indeed, and is also having difficulty with the personal questions as to why he has changed. And, yes, PMMail keeps accepting your email address and then converting it to simple HARROWCAT, and then wondering why the server won't accept it to transfer on to England. GAACK!

Bodkin	Reviewed Chapter: 60 on 1/6/2006
I like seeing this from Mina's point of view. Frodo will cope, I think, as long as he feels he is really needed - it's when things settle back down and he has too much time to think that it all becomes too much for him. The special tea will help a bit, but there's a lot of pressure at the moment. Author Reply: My mother noted that so many elderly folk she knew were fine until they were prevailed upon to retire, and that then they went down hill fast, perhaps most strongly because they no longer had a sense of purpose. Frodo did himself a disservice by pulling himself out of Hobbit society when he returned the office of Mayor to Will. He might have done much better if he'd left himself an outside interest to give himself something to focus on. And, yes, there's a lot of pressure in the moment.

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