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| One Who Sticks Closer than a Brother by Lindelea | 4 Review(s) |
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| Bodkin | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/28/2006 |
| It's not surprising that Tolly knows there are men and men, then. Or that he might not want to see all of them suspended from trees. Here we have a family whose children could even be considered hobbits, since they might be native to the Shire. That'd be a twist and a half! Tolly seems a little better - although he won't be truly recovered until he's sitting at a heavily-laden table and ingesting quantities of hobbity food. And he's probably better off than the hobbits who will be searching for him. And not worried, either. Which is a big plus. Author Reply: Native to the Shire, what a concept! It would give the Edict a whole new meaning... except that the woodcutter and his family, like the other Men to be found in the Shire, are aliens and strangers. The King gave the Shire to hobbits, long ago, and I think that included some sort of provision (or Bucca or one who followed him) whereby Men could not own property in the Shire. Smacks a little of apartheid, perhaps, and yet Men have all the other territory in M-e, and are bigger and stronger, and more likely (at least the less noble ones) to take all the choicest bits, so perhaps some sort of protection is of value? Don't know, haven't really thought it out all the way. I know that Men and hobbits live amicably in Bree, but that's said to be something of an oddity. There must be some reason why JRRT set up his world that way, with only hobbits in the Shire, at least while there was a Shire. | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/26/2006 |
| A wonderful memory regained of good done long ago, although it's a different tub he's actually in, and Hobbits about him rather than Men and a baby of Men. Lovely moments. Author Reply: Thanks! He has good memories of Men, as well as bad, and recent events have brought these to the fore. | |
| Dreamflower | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/26/2006 |
| Tolly's had a longer acquaintance with Big Folks than we'd previously suspected! I like this family of woodcutters. I wonder what came of them? They were clearly no longer there by the time of the Quest? It's a wonderful device you have, how the physical stimuli are triggering the memories--really well done! Author Reply: I think your questions will find answers as the story proceeds. Tolly's never had the attitude toward Men that Ferdi exhibits. At least I don't think he has... This background is something of a surprise to me as well! ...though it logically fits with his having let two ruffians go, before "Runaway", and now we are learning "the rest of the story". I'm quite as interested as you are to see where the Muse is leading... (though, having written the outline, I have a good idea.) Y'know, I remember smelling something somewhere and being transported in my mind back to my grandmother's house, standing on the landing of her stairs, looking at some feather-grass in a large urn... Interesting how some memories are locked up in smells or sounds or textures. Thanks! Author Reply: (and as I mentioned to harrowcat, Thain Paladin would be unlikely to have Men working for him by the time of the Quest, I'd think, or at the latest by the time he argued with Lotho, as reported in the "Scouring of the Shire". At some point the woodcutters would have been sent packing.) | |
| harrowcat | Reviewed Chapter: 9 on 9/26/2006 |
| Hmm, this is getting wierder by the minute Lindelea! But I, for one, am really enjoying the product of your rather over-actice imagination! *g* Author Reply: Ah, but dreams can be that way... mixing long-ago events with present happenings, and sometimes things that never happened at all. However, I can assure you that Tolly is at the moment dreaming of things that really did happen to him. Though I don't think Men were allowed to hold property in the Shire, it didn't seem such an unusual thing, the way it was written in LOTR, for Lotho to have hired Men to serve him. Wanderers were seen in the Shire before the Quest, for they were "increasing" as FOTR begins. Thus it is possible that Men might have been hired by hobbits, might even have rented homes or land in the Shire, though not been allowed to own property in the Shire, since it was hobbit-land. And so it is postulated in this story that the Thain owned forested property in the Woody End, and hired Mannish woodcutters. Thain Ferumbras, that is. Paladin may have allowed the woodcutters to remain, when he became Thain, right up to his argument with Lotho (and the troubles with Lotho's Men), or he might have turned them out of their home and sent them packing on his becoming Thain, out of a general distrust for Men on his part. The outline's not quite clear on that point, and the draft doesn't say, though it might have to be clarified as the story takes firmer shape. Does that help? *g* | |