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Elf, Interrupted: Book One: Glorfindel Redux by Fiondil	13 Review(s)
hawkeye	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 9/4/2014
So that is what Glorfindel needed to learn. It makes a lot of sense, given how protective he is. Still, I think that is a hard lessons for a lot of us as well. I also found it interesting how Glorfindel doesn't seem to want to return to life. Others, Námo and Olórin, are rejoicing that he is finally healed and can fulfill the purpose for which Eru created him. But to Glorfindel, it's a big leap into the unknown. He's the only one not rejoicing, it seems. I love Námo's observation that Glorfindel was created for Life, not Death. Death, for one who was ultimately created to be eternal, becomes that much more sad. But in the end, life and love triumph. Anyway, speaking of Námo, he's rapidly becoming one of my favorite Valar. I hold you responsible for this ;) Thank you for an exciting chapter. I'm looking forward to see where Glorfindel ends up next :) Author Reply: We all need to learn something from life or death. And for Glorfindel, he has no memory of his life prior to death. All that has been taken from him and all he knows is Mandos. To him, that is life, so it's natural for him to feel reluctance in returning to the Outer World. It is a big leap into the unknown, at least for him, even though everyone else knows differently. I'm glad Námo is growing on you. He's a lot of fun to write and I like him a lot. :) Thanks for reviewing, hawkeye. I appreciate it.

diana	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 3/12/2014
Hullo Fiondil! I'm really enjoying your Glorfindel stories. I always did have a crush on him for some reason. I can see he'd make an excellent "uncle" to some "future twins" coming up in his life later. I really think Tolkien would be delighted with your stories, and I agree with other reviewers that you capture the style of his stories (but with better writing---gasp!!! I hope that's not sacrilegious to say). I also love love love how you always depict the Valar! Who wouldn't feel healed in their presence? I always say "a god/dess who doesn't love and cherish isn't worth worshipping!" Yup, like I said before, you're really a good writer!!!! I'm also enjoying your reviewers. There are some very thoughtful people that read you (thoughtful meaning thinking a lot and very good at it. hope that speaks well of me HA!) I haven't caught up with your latest stuff yet. I'm catching up on your back story universe. Still halfway through EA2 and took a little side trip. Anyway hope you're well. If you ever come by way of Eugene OR. let's get a NW coffee and some smoked salmon together! love Diana Author Reply: Hello Diana. I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying my Glorfindel stories. Glorfindel captured my imagination when I first read LOTR as a teen. Even though he has very little "screen time" in the books and none at all in the movies (and I will never forgive PJ for that!), for some reason, I just fell in love with him and so when I began writing fan fiction I thought it would be fun to write about Glorfindel, describing what happened to him after he died but before he was sent back to Middle-earth, since Tolkien admitted in an essay that the Glorfindel of Gondolin and the Glorfindel of Imladris were one and the same. Anyway, I'm sitting here blushing at all your praises but I thank you for your kind words and hope you continue to enjoy my stories. Someday I would love to come out to Eugene (and actually one of my betas lives there) and visit. You never know. Stranger things have happened. LOL! Thanks for leaving a review. I very much appreciate it.

Celeth	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 3/14/2013
Hi Fiondil! Its one of the hardest things to do, opening your heart to someone, learning to love them, and then having to say goodbye and watch them go. I don't know if I could ever learn that lesson well, even if I were given a hundred years. Hope you had a good day! Looking forward to the next chapter of Journey Home tomorrow :) Author Reply: It's a very hard lesson to learn, Celeth, and few of us are capable of doing so as fully as we should. Actually, my day is really just beginning but so far it hasn't been too shabby. grin Thanks for reviewing and I hope you enjoy the next Journey Home chapter.

Kaylee	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 7/26/2008
So now the twins have returned to their proper Hall, and Glorfi has been Reborn. I liked that Namo praised him for being a good pupil and the "Does it hurt?" "Let's find out" amused me for some reason. No idea why, meldonya. grin I'm glad Olorin is there for Glorfi!! ~Kaylee! Author Reply: I'm glad you're glad. LOL It has to be scary being reborn especially when you've forgotten what it's like to live in the hroa after so long. Luckily, Olorin and the other Maiar are good at easing such fears and helping the Reborn to adjust.

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 2/12/2008
And he walks with Olorin, the wisest of the Maiar, and one who will in the fullness of time, share his fate, facing the great Balrog of Khazad-dum as part of the task of facing the greater one of Barad-dur! I'm glad our Gandalf was one of his caregivers, learning to accept what comes as Glorfindel does. Author Reply: There are many parallels between Glorfindel and the Maia who will one day be known as Gandalf. Olórin has much to teach Glorfindel and to learn from Glorfindel.

Edlyn	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 3/13/2007
Since things are quiet this morning I decided to go ahead and comment on chapter five. This chapter generated an entirely different set of emotions for me than chapter four. As I read I fuond myself smiling with pride for Glorfindel. He has definitely matured along with the twins. I like the approachability of your care-giver Maiar as demonstrated in the fact that Glorfindel feels free to talk to and discuss things with Olórin. The Maiar's sympathy and willingness to explain things, as well as to reassure when those explanations worry Glorfindel, are an image of the Maiar that I much prefer to the stand-offish, proud Beings of Power that some other authors have depicted. The Powers definitely made a good choice when they selected Olórin to go to Middle Earth as Mithrandir (now Saruman--what was his original job in Valinor, anyway? Do you have any ideas?--might not have been the best choice but in the end his attempts to set himself up as another Sauron may have kept the Dark Lord from moving on Gondor and the Free Peoples sooner than he did). "You will know when the time is proper. Now, go and play and worry not." That's something that lots of us humans need to do more often, instead of shutting ourselves away from the fun things in life because we are to busy worrying about things we can't change. It was so good to see that the twins laughing and singing and chattering away after they were silent for so long. Glorfindel was definitely a good friend to them! How true are Lord Námo's words: "This door will take you there, but only you can open it." We are provided with choices, doors to the future amd opportunities if you will, and no one else can make those choices for us. Whether it's to go to a new job, to enter a new relationship (or leave one) or even to change our mind about some issue or belief, others can only offer advice. We're the ones who have to make that choice, unlatch the door and step over the threshold. Of course, Lord Námo knows when his charges are ready to make these choices even if the fëar are unaware of their own readiness. Even so, making a choice is difficult and frightening and there's always the possibility of a fëa who is balanced on the cusp of making a decision to move forward will choose instead to back away from that door(after all, the fëar still have free will even in Mandos). Ah, Glorfindel will definitely be a good parent as he's finally accepted the necessity of letting his "children" grow up and be free to live independently where they truly belong. That was the thing he was never able to do during his earthly life, being so bound within his chosen identity of a protector. I can understand why he was that way. People develop their identities around their job and they fear that if that job is taken away from them, they will lose themselves. Failure at their job--whether self-assigned as was Glorfindel's or assigned by someone else but accepted by the worker--generally equals failure and therefore loss of their selves (As an aside, I suspect that much of the fear of death that people have may be fear of this loss of self). As I had to learn that I was still a person of worth and my skills and talents were still useful elsewhere after I was suddenly medically discharged from the Air Force thirteen years ago, Glorfindel has had to learn that part of a protector's job is knowing when his charges no longer require his active protection. If he hadn't given the twins his permission to leave (while admitting that he really didn't want them to have to--thus reassuring them of his love and care) they wouldn't have agreed to move forward and their fëar would have become smothered and stunted instead of growing into the people they were intended to be. Then Lord Námo gives the news that Glorfindel is moving forward as well. It seems to me that the return of the Twins to the Mardi Winiron was the final test, not to prove anything to Valar but to prove it to Glorfindel, that he was truly ready to move on. Hmmm. I wonder if most of the tests we are given in life are really more to prove to ourselves we can do somethign than to prove it to others. I truly like the idea that one of the last things that a fëa must do before moving on to re-embodiment is to face up to the (many times harsh) truth of the death that brought them to Mandos. Letting go is one of the hardest lessons for anyone to learn, I think. Whether it's letting go of a grudge, letting go of the past, letting go of a person who has grown or otherwise gone away from you, letting go of an identity that no longer functions for you, or letting go of cherished illusions, it is always difficult. But living is an active verb and requires that we move on, which we can't do unless we let things go. While I was reading Lord Námo's explanation to Glorfindel of what he had lost and had relearned I was reminded of the bit in the film Labyrinth where the old woman in the dump was carrying everything around on her back and loading things on the heroine who finally realised the necessity of leaving things behind so she could move on unencumbered. It is always good to remember but we shouldn't drag our pasts around with us to the point that we cannot move forward. We need to remember in our own lives that everyone learns in their own time and that it doesn't matter if you take a longer or shorter time to learn the lesson than someone else. There are some lessons you spend your entire life learning! The image in my mind of Olórin carrying Glorfindel's sleeping fëa through the tapestry reminded me of some of the words of the refrain of a song I sing with my church's choir: "Your love brings us through death into Life." Like Tolkien, I am a Roman Catholic, and I cannot help but see the Christian (or at least theist) subtext that exists throughout the entire canon. I freely admit that I tend to read and analyze LOTR fanfic through the filter of my belief system. But I think that is part why I enjoy your LOTR-fic writing. Your image of Valinor is not that of an atheist. I don't think it's possible to write good LOTR-fic (or for that matter, Narnia-fic) that has the same flavour as the canon writings unless the author accepts that Arda is a world where Godhead exists and is interested and involved (whether directly or through agents) in his creation. This doesn't mean that I don't think someone who is an atheist is incapable of writing good LOTR-fic, but that they need to have an understanding of what Tolkien believed in order to make it really work and have the same voice (as I had to try to imagine what it would be like to not believe in God and extropolate how that would chage my worldview in order to write a piece in the style and manner of an atheist author for a college English Lit assignment several years ago...it was the hardest piece of writing I ever had to do). Now on to Chapter six and Glorfindel's new lessons. I do love this story both because it is an excellent read as well as an interesting take on a period of Glorfindel's history that we know nothing about. You have written a thinking person's fic, mellon-nin, something that is incredibly rare. I would like to think that the good Professor is pleased with your work. May your lived blessed, Edlyn P.S. BTW, thanks for the recommendation on where I can learn Old English online. I've begun looking at the website and it doesn't seem to be any more difficult than the classical Latin that I'm learning. Author Reply: "People develop their identities around their job and they fear that if that job is taken away from them, they will lose themselves." I remember when a great-aunt died and I attended her funeral, seeing cousins from California for the first time. After the funeral we got together as is typical. At this time I was "working" fulltime as my mother's primary caregiver and did not work outside of the home. One of my cousins asked me what I did (an inevitable question in a society that ties up people's identities and intrinsic worth in their jobs). So I said, "I'm my mother's primary caregiver and household manager." (That sounded a lot better than saying "I don't work".) My cousin just stared at me and said, "Yes, but what do you do?" I don't think he ever truly understood and it took me a long time for me to realize that intrinsic worth has nothing to do with what you do, but with who you are as a human being. The idea of letting go is one of the main themes of this story that is explored in greater detail in later chapters. Glorfindel is beginning to take the first steps towards "letting go" that is necessary for any of us to move on. I suspect that Judgment (even for us Secondborn) involves the necessary "surgery" needed to allow us to let go of things to which we aren't even aware we're clinging as well as the things we stubbornly hold on to for fear that if we let go we will lose some part of our identity. Probably we will, but it will be a part that we really can do without, being negative. It's very easy for me to write within the Christian or theist subtext of Tolkien's works, since, I too am Roman Catholic and in fact well remember the Latin Mass of which Tolkien himself was so fond. My writing is therefore colored by my own belief system (which so neatly dovetails with Tolkien's). I think that what is difficult is for non-Catholic Christian LOTR-fic writers to fully understand all the nuances of Tolkien's Catholicism, so they miss much of the subtext, which differs to some degree from what they know is "true" within Christianity. I can sometimes detect this in the writings of others, though I do not disparage it, for I recognize it for what it is and allow for it. But certainly a non-theist would have an even harder time of it. I'm glad you are enjoying this story both for it's entertainment value and for making you think. The best stories, I find, do both. Whether the Professor is pleased or not, I'm sure I'll find out someday. grin

Rhyselle	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 3/1/2007
This chapter and the last totally captured my heart. Glorfindel's relationship with the twins reaches something inside and it doesn't matter how many times I read over these chapters, it makes me feel all warm and good inside to watch their interaction and the love that developes between the three of them. When the time comes for parting, even though it is needful, it hurts. The lesson was necessary for Glorfindel to learn, just as it is for us all to learn. Not easy, but necessary. I loved how he had grown to the point that he was able to put his own desires to keep Elured and Elurin close to him behind their needs to grow up to be what Eru had planned for them. I thought it interesting that, unlike when Finrod left, this time, he didn't ask if he would see them again. I like to interpret this as him knowing that one day he will, even if it isn't a knowledge that he can articulate at this time. This sequence is what inspired a plot bunny to bite me today--Glorfi in Rivendell, remembering coming to accept his separation from Elured and Elurin emotionally. Like I said above, these two chapters really got to me! His fear at leaving the comfort of the Mardi Envinyato to return to life was deftly handled, both in the writing, and in how Lord Namo comforted him and reassured him. :) I like it very much that Olorin asked to be Glorfindel's attendant for his re-embodiement. I do wonder, though, how much of this part of Olorin's life as a Maia Gandalf remembers in Middle-earth? :) Hmmm. Oh dear, not another plot bunny! I found the mental image of Olorin carrying Glorfindel through the tapestry of his death to be very intriguing. There's all sorts of symbolism one could attribute to that single action--the need to accept the death in order to move beyond it into life renewed is one of the strongest in my mind. This overall story is so very rich in emotion and character development, it can't help but inspire other what if's in my mind. :) And it just keeps getting better as it goes along. Author Reply: There are a lot of emotions being generated in this and the previous chapter (not to mention the rest of the story) so it's no wonder that something of it resonates with you (and other readers). And there is a great deal of symbolism in this story, though I leave it to individual readers to find their own meaning. Your own interpretation of the meaning behind Olórin carrying Glorfindel through the tapestry of his death is excellent. I don't know how much of "Olórin" Gandalf remembers, but I find it hard to imagine him not remembering his part in helping Glorfindel during that time. That ellon is too memorable to forget! LOL

Aglarendis	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 12/10/2006
Ai! Now I'm crying too. I'm glad the twins and Glorfindel were mature enough to move on, but it's hard to think that they might not see one another until beyond the ending of Arda. I did not like the word "blubbered". I have heard this word used too often in an insulting manner. The word "sobbed" or "wept" would have conveyed the same idea without seeming to put down the one doing it. It's interesting to compare the way you see Namo's halls with the way I see them. For the most part our views are very similar, though I see the Mardi Envenyato and the Mardi Winiron as being one in the same. I think it would be heartening to hear the voices and laughter of children. I really like the names you have given to those halls, by the way. It's wonderful that we can agree on so many details, yet still have the freedom to play in Tolkien's world! Author Reply: The verb "to blubber" means "to weep loudly" and children tend to do that quite well. While there may be some negative connotations to the word I used it deliberately at this point (and frankly I was tired of saying "sobbed" or "wept" all the time). I decided that there would be separate Halls for the adults and children because the chlldren have their own spiritual needs that are best provided for in their own place. And the adult elves are children enough in their innocence that they provide all the laughter necessary. Keep the reviews coming. I enjoy them even when we don't agree on all the details. That's what makes it fun.

Ellie	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 11/24/2006
I am thoroughly enjoying this story. I love your concept of the spirits being as children again learning what they will need to know in order to survive in Life again. The twins being cared for by Glorfy are so sweet. I worry baout him going back into life though. I hope he really is ready. I pity Finrod and am glad that he will have his friend back again. Wonderful story. Please keep up the good work! Author Reply: Thanks Ellie. The process of reintegration to Life, as you will see, is not easy and not done all in an instant. The elves remain in Mandos for centuries before being released and even after that the process towards spiritual and emotional maturation continues for some time. Glad you are enjoying the story so far.

Bodkin	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 11/23/2006
I do like the thought of the healing fear playing in the halls as they recover - and of Glorfindel playing with and protecting Dior's little sons. This is a most interesting and enjoyable story - and I am looking forward to reading more. Author Reply: Thanks Bodkin. I'm glad you are enjoying the story so far. I hope to post a couple of chapters at a time, maybe once or twice a week as my schedule allows.

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