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The Acceptable Sacrifice by Larner	11 Review(s)
French Pony	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/19/2006
I'm here and catching up -- Le Thesis is stealing quite a bit of my time these days -- and all I'll say here is that I love the description of Bag End, with its blend of original and new decoration, each bearing its own story. Your descriptions are always wonderful. Author Reply: Le Thesis has a way of doing that, you'll find. Good luck, and break a leg. I am so glad you appreciated the first full inspection Frodo gives his home returned. Thank you for the compliments.

Ami	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/14/2006
Beautiful chapter once again. The parallels you draw between Frodo and Bag End are astounding and incredibly poignant. It is nice to think, though, that both find ways to thrive in their changed forms (Frodo in the Grey Havens and Bag End with a new, non Baggins, yet loving Master). I read your replies regarding the storms and your hard drive. I am glad to hear that you are safe and sound, and I look forward to reading more of your story. Author Reply: Windstorms can do a good deal of damage, and I HOPE that was the cause of the problems with the desktop, although there are other possible causes as well. Am just glad I can post again. I am pleased you find the parallels poignant, and I hope the last chapters of the story continue to please as have the first seventy-nine. I've been taking advantage of the inability to post to work on the next few chapters. I hope I'm nearing the end at last.

Lady Saruman	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/14/2006
Hi Larner! I'm so glad to "hear from you again"! It's been quite a while since you last updated. Probably January-ish? Well, I've only reviewed for the last chapter so I don't suppose you'd remember me...not that it matters...hehe... Well, it used to be those days when you were able to update like, every day, and sometimes, every two days; but now it's been close to a whole month. I was starting to get anxious that you might consider leaving your story hanging. DON'T EVER DO THAT!!!!!!!! YOUR STORY IS WAY TO GOOD TO BE LEFT DISCONTINUED!!! Well, anyways, this chapter was quite sad, bringing memories to Frodo.... The fact that he would never be able to feel the kind of love that he once did was rather heartbreaking; but that just proves part of what the ring symbolizes. Though he had everything to offer to a wife, it was just fate that stopped him from ever having a girl to love after the trauma with It. With his home, everything seems to have been replaced---and his chair and sofas sold to Lotho---that's really unfair, because Lotho had, just like his parents, hated Frodo, and so he doesn't deserve to have such luxurious items, no matter how rich he was. But I like how you ended up the chapter with Sam coming in and Frodo preparing second breakfast. It restores the jolly that had been previously absent from the early stages of this chapter, and it tells of the great friendship between Frodo and Sam. Certainly, Frodo was in debt of Sam, but Sam won't mind---and that's the most important part in any friendship. Once again, great job, and the next update I hope will probably come sooner, though I know how busy everybody can be. But at least you won't take that long. Some authors take months until their next update. Remember, don't keep us dangling! MISCELLANEOUS: If you would be kind enough, please visit my newly established website: www.councilofelrond.com/members/LadySaruman. If you are a member of CoE.com, then you can sign my guestbook! If you aren't, then you can become a member or you can tell me what you think of it some other way...maybe in your reply to this review? Well, that is, if you chose to reply for this review... OK, in my website, it is a biography of my alias, Lady Saruman. Nothing there is the TRUE biography of me except for the age. The first age will be my age in elven years, and the second age mentioned will be my age in human years. See you when you next update! Hersheys hugs/kisses -Lady Saruman ^_^ P.S. I've been really busy too. In school, we have double history lessons (I've always hated history -_-). See, there's history class, of course, then we're learning the same thing in english class! Yuck! Well, we're learning about the Oregon Trail and the Sager family, and so, it basically sucks. (Not that you'd care about what we're learning in school, but like they say, the years of a teen girl's life are probably the busiest ones they will ever have to encounter.) Bye-- Lady Saruman ^_~ Author Reply: A few weeks ago I went to visit a friend out of state for a week, and posted from her house, but came home to find disaster had struck while I was gone. The A: drive on the server for our home system hasn't worked for a time, and so I've been unable to post from it--until today, when the Kid rescued me. My personal desktop, when I got home, wasn't working at all. Someone had turned it off, and the CD-ROM appears to have gone south and I can't get the system to boot. The Kid took it with him to see if he can get it fixed this week, taking with him the new CD-ROM he'd given me as a Christmas present to see if it will do better than the old one. Have been going through misery with tenants, who are about to find their way elsewhere. It's been anything but a pleasant last two weeks, to say the least. Anyway, although the desktop had gone east for a time, I can now transfer the chapters to the server and post from it, although I need to replace the mouse, as this one is a royal pain in the patoot. I hope others read this and find the answer to precisely why it's taken so long to update, but here you have it. Frodo is finding home isn't as he remembered it, but Bag End is able to give him a degree of comfort in spite of the changes; and he's finally having moments alone to begin coming to terms with the changes he's found in himself as well. And he's realizing he is capable of envy and also that he can set it aside, although the fact he feels the envy he probably sees as another failure. And, in the end, he's able to face Sam as he always has, but with the deeper caring the two have come to have for one another after their ordeal together, and to return to normality as well as they can as expressed through second breakfasts. I'll have to check out your site. Am not a member on any live journal sites as yet, for I have found it's impossible to follow all the sites I'd like, or all the discussion groups, or all the bulletin boards. Have taught my share of history classes as well as taking them. We tend to study the Whitman Mission here, and Henry Meeker, Doc Maynard, the "Baron" who was really a baker who built the Manresa Castle, Henry Yesler, mudslides and eruptions and so on, as well as the Oregon Trail, the Alaska Exposition, and, of course, Lewis and Clark; and when visiting King's Lynn on the east coast of Britain I gave an impromptu lesson on the impact of that city's favorite son, Captain George Vancouver, on the history of our region to a number of children we found clustered about his statue in the harbor. We know more of his exploits here in the Pacific Northwest, I think, than they do there in Jolly Old.

Kitty	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/14/2006
Welcome back, Larner! After two weeks without update I was getting worried about you and so very glad to see this. I hope you're well? hugs This chapter is ... I think bittersweet is the best word I can come up with. To see Frodo exploring Bag End and noting what is as it always was and what is new, missing some old things and finding others again there left me with quite mixed emotions. Sad was that he thinks so bad of his ability to have a family of his own, and not so much because of his bad health, but because he thinks he can't love again. Sometimes I think if he had been able to remain in Middle-earth and to heal fully there he could have found his deepest wish come true in the end. But sadly we will never know for sure. Well, Tolkien's definition of 'happy end' was never the same as mine - he doubtless thought it a happy end to have Frodo survive and to go West, away from all that he loved :-( Author Reply: Nice to be able to post once again as well. Frodo may have left what he loved behind him, but went surrounded by other love that cherished him even more, perhaps, than his own folk had done; and in the end he found the ability to love others there, although not the personal family he'd always wanted. But you are right--this is a bittersweet chapter.

Linda Hoyland	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/13/2006
Poor Frodo,unable to enjoy being back in his own home and look forward to Sam and Rosie's wedding.It must be so hard for him. Author Reply: Author Reply: I wrote such a nice reply for the server to have decided to eat it! Gack! Frodo is looking forward to their wedding, and finding more in himself to dislike in this envy he feels is beneath him. But he knows it will be all for the best in the end.

Antane	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/13/2006
Welcome back, Larner! I was getting a little worried. Glad to see Frodo back home, though with changes there and in himself. How I wish he would heal! And in the Shire. Ah well... Love the ending. Namarie, God bless, Antane :) Author Reply: Finally the server is able to transfer files again, and my desktop is off getting still another repair. It DOES get such a lot of work, you know. There is healing and healing, and accepting he's able to feel the "low" emotions such as envy is part of Frodo learning to accept himself as he is. It is part of what he probably needs to understand before accepting the grace offered to him. He does need to know joy again, and with the healing he can receive in the West he will finally have that again, even if it is at the cost of leaving behind those he has loved and who have always loved him in return. Yet that in the end opens him most fully to the joy once he quits Arda in the end.

Queen Galadriel	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/13/2006
I come from a long, chaotic day feeling half dead, look in my inbox and find...an update! Hurray! :) :) (All right, I'm purposely being really dramatic, but it was a wonderful treat after my least favourite day of the week.) I've often wondered what Frodo would have felt and thought as he gave Bag End a thorough looking-over on his return to live there. This was very poignant. And the bit about his thinking he has nothing left to offer was heart-breaking. I suppose with the physical condition you've given him it's partly true, for his body is almost spent. But as to the rest...He just doesn't understand how love-worthy he is, and I can't put it into words. He just doesn't understand that the Ring didn't take all; didn't take the natural gentleness, the goodwill, that love for others described so eloquently by Aragorn in "The Ties of Family," and to me, even the stubbornness is loveable. :) A very thoughtful chapter, and I can't wait to read more! God bless, Galadriel Author Reply: Will get the next chapter up shortly, I think. Glad to have given you a pleasant thrill after a hectic day. My Monday was also anything but pleasant, believe me. Frodo only half accepts himself, and accepting oneself is an important part of healing such as he needed. Yes, his natural gentleness and compassion and intelligence are an important part of what makes Frodo as wonderful as he is; but those he's always thought to be just normal, and he had wanted to be so much more. He's looking at the envy and setting it aside, and looking at accepting what comes now between himself and Sam. And in the end he'll be an even better Hobbit and individual of any kind for it.

harrowcat	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/13/2006
Yeh! You are back!!! And a lovely, descriptive, chapter to savour. When I read this... Instead of loving their dad, his children would have trembled each time he came into view, either cringing away from him or clinging to him in fear of a world which must be worse than the life they knew. I found myself being glad that Frodo never met Denethor. Just hearing about him must have been bad enough. And I am glad that he manages to put aside the envy of Sam and Rosie. I love the way that you compare the changes and refurbishment of Bag End to the changed and returned Frodo. The same but different in subtle and not so subtle ways. Nothing can ever be exactly the same, no matter how hard you wish or try. Oops! One typo! abviously Elvish. 10th paragraph. Author Reply: I so appreciate the correction, and have seen it changed. Have found a few others here and there elsewhere in the story that still need to be fixed, however. Yes, Frodo and Bag End are both changed, but hopefully in the end for the better, although Frodo's not able to see that in himself as yet. But there is the comfort there for him in what's the same as well as that which has been made better, while some things such as the floors and the mantel in his room are just different and yet in those differences better reflect him in many ways as he is now. So glad you found it proper to Frodo as he is now. And accepting our worst traits as well as our best is part of our healing, oftentimes.

Andrea	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/13/2006
It was given back--his life; given back, but changed, as he had returned, but changed. Some of what was here in Bag End had been patched, some repaired, some replaced, some yet the same--even as it was with himself. Another brilliant chapter! A detailed description of the newly restored Bag End that mirrors Frodo's feelings about himself, his past and his future. Regardless of the changes made to Bag End there is one pattern that most of the rooms have in common: the Star of the West! Good old Gimli! Whatever the image of the star awakens in Frodo, memories of Aragorn, of Minas Tirith, of a future promise, it seems to help him accept the changes, and I'm glad of that! Thank you for updating, I've really missed this story :) Author Reply: I thank the Kid for making certain the A: drive is once again functional on this machine as I await the return of my desktop and my more normal means of internet access. And Gimli, with the one motif, has helped give Frodo a new anchor for himself as well as expressing appreciation for what Frodo means to the greater world beyond the boundaries of the Shire. And I am humbled as the expressions of welcome for the new chapters. Again, thanks be to the Kid, the hero of yesterday. Now if he can only get the desktop going once more.

shirebound	Reviewed Chapter: 79 on 2/13/2006
How marvelous to tour the restored Bag End with Frodo. Dear Gimli, how I've grown to love him! :D Author Reply: So glad you appreciate it so, Shirebound. And Gimli is quite the treasure indeed, isn't he? He's found one image to use to help Frodo remain anchored while he remains in Middle Earth. So good to be able to post again! I don't do that much writing on the desktop or the server, for I can take the laptop everywhere and work while clients sleep and so on. I hope to be able to continue posting daily or almost daily once more.

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