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Battle of the Golden Wood by Marnie	14 Review(s)
halandleg4ever	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 12/30/2019
You wrote this forever ago, I know. I recently had the urge to seek out old LOTR fics from my past and as I did, I was dismayed by the number of old links that no longer worked and old favorites that have since disappeared from the internet. But along with that, as I searched old archives and used the wayback machine to find links that worked, I found a ton of new (lol OLD) recommendations. Your fic was one of them, having been listed on the Mithril awards page. I never read it back in the day, though your penname is so familiar that I will have to look through your works to see if anything strikes a chord. This is getting away from me and entirely way too much info you don't care about but, this story is so breathtakingly beautiful. So very detailed, so very elegantly laid out. I read it all in one sitting, eyes glued to my screen. You may not even still visit this archive or get notifications of reviews, but I figured I'd still write a little something. Thank you very much for writing this story and thank you even more for sharing it with the world :) Author Reply: Thank you for reviewing it! It's true, I haven't been on SoA for years, but it was nice to come back and find out it's still here and as bafflingly laid out as ever ;) I'm really glad you enjoyed the fic. You might know me from Fanfic.net? I have works up there from Pirates of the Caribbean, Stargate Universe, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Loki fandoms. Nowadays I'm writing either under the name Galadhir or Potboy. (Potboy on Ao3). It's been a while since I wrote Tolkien fanfic, but I'm always glad to be reminded of it. Thanks again!

Steel	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 9/4/2018
I would just like to say... That this is the best LotR fanfic I have ever read, and it broke my heart. So yeah, thanks for that.

Whatevah	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 1/2/2012
Well met! I take issue with a few points in your argument. First, a differing point of view does not mean there is no objective truth. Every side in every conflict has a differing point of view and that’s all very interesting, but the Nazis were definitely in the wrong. You get my drift. (And, yes, I realize not all situations are as black and white. But consider Aragorn's answer to Eomer's question "'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. ‘Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.’" That's JRRT's rebuke of the moral relativism right there.) Second, the Silmarillion is from the Noldor “POV” only in the sense that it tells the story of what happened to the Noldor. It is written from an omniscient third person POV. And the Noldor often don’t come across looking good. In fact, the sections about Doriath make clear the anti-Noldor position. Third, this whiny hatred of the Valar is so ridiculous. I’m sorry. I’ve got to say this. Please don’t take offense. Let’s take this argument apart. Your Celeborn is bitter because the Valar didn’t do enough to help those left behind. This is patently absurd – actually it’s offensively absurd. It’s so absurd that I think he’s an adolescent moron for thinking it. Let’s make an analogy. Let’s say a large family has been gifted with a new home by a great and mighty Benefactor. But the Benefactor learns to his horror that the new home has a terrible cockroach infestation problem. He comes to the family right away and says, “Oh dear. Big problem. It might not seem bad now, but it’s going to become unbearable. Don’t worry though. I have a plan. You can move into my own palatial mansion where you will want for nothing. In fact, heck, you can have my mansion. It’s yours. I’ll just hang around to serve you and answer your questions. Just pack up your things and follow me.” Most of the family members pack up and follow right away and thank him profusely for his kindness. But a couple of wiseacres say, “I call bullsht! There’s no cockroaches! I don’t want any mansion. I like it here. This is my home. I’m staying put.” And in time the cockroaches come, and it’s really bad. In fact, the cockroaches temporarily invade the palatial mansion, and some of the family members who had been living in the mansion decide to come back to the old house in order to get rid of the cockroach nest once and for all. The whole thing gets very complicated and out of control until finally the dear old Benefactor himself comes back to the old house rips out the cockroach nest and drags it all away. The house is still a disgusting mess after all this turmoil. He offers a safe haven to anyone who wants to come to his mansion. But some of them still want to stay. Now, how bloody absurd is it for the people who decided to stay to complain that the Benefactor doesn’t love them and left them in a cockroach infested and destroyed house? Are you kidding me? What more do they want from the man? He gave them the house in the first place. He gave them his own mansion as a substitute. He got rid of the cockroach nest. And he even welcomed them back to his mansion…. and* he kept the door open should they change their minds. Anyone complaining about the Benefactor has got to be the most ungrateful pathetic midget-brained jackass I’ve ever encountered. This is what I mean when I say Celeborn is missing his Job moment where he realizes the wisdom of those who are infinitely wiser than he is. Oh and this complaint about the Noldor invasion is just as stupid. Middle-earth “belonged” to them just as much as it did to the ones who never went to Aman. Their ancestors awoke there too. Lest you think I’m taking their side, let me make clear that their manner of coming back to Middle-earth and their arrogance and doom put them in the wrong, and you’ll notice that the omniscient third person narrator of the Silmarillion also doesn’t pull any punches in expressing this objective truth. This whiny petulant rebel-pose you give Celeborn is so sad. And after taking a gander at some of the other stories on this site, I think this silly notion about the “uncaring” Valar has infected other writers. I enjoy reading stories in which characters make these arguments, but I’m looking for a story arch that shows the fallacy of them. Also, I found it strange that Celeborn was crying about acid rain on the one hand and yet complaining about Aman being too pristine on the other. Can he make up his mind? Of course, you had and have every right to interpret the story as you want, and your interpretation was certainly enjoyable. But an honest review is an honest review, and I saw these holes in your arguments. There was a reason why Tolkien kept re-writing endlessly. It takes many drafts. You should keep writing! All the best on a happy new year. And please don’t take my criticism as anything other than an opinionated reader who enjoyed the story and is hoping to encourage discussion. Author Reply: OK, you have a very strong belief that your opinion is the right one. This is nice for you, but makes it impossible to talk to you in any meaningful way, because discussion involves a willingness to understand the other person's point of view and to come to some sort of compromise. And to be fair to you, I am equally obdurate on my own side, so the position is hopeless. Here is my position: I have thought about this story. It is an expression of my thoughts, and nothing about either the thoughts or the story is now going to be changed by you telling me that you found my characters whiny or ungrateful, or that my take on the Valar is that of an ungrateful pathetic midget-brained jackass. Ten years ago (or however long ago it was that I was involved in this fandom) I might have been interested in answering your points individually, and getting into a long discussion. These days, I do not have the time or enthusiasm for that, particularly since your style of discussion seems to involve calling me names. I have grown old enough to realise that I am never going to make the whole world agree with me, and that perhaps it would be a poorer place if I could. You can rest happy in the knowledge that your reading of the text is the orthodox one, and that mine is just a perverse misunderstanding, shared by some people, perhaps, but ultimately still completely wrong. I can live with that, and I have no interest in continuing the discussion.

Whatevah	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 12/31/2011
Whoa there, missy. Let's sit back, pull out the pipeweed, and chillax. I liked your stories quite a lot actually. I didn't think anyone was still reading these reviews or I would have written a lot more. The two reviews I did write were sort of spontaneous eruptions (like shouting at the television set while watching the news or a ball game). But now that I know you're reading this, I'll give you a proper review. First off, yes, of course, I've read the Silmarillion and HoME. Here's the problem: HoME is essentially a collection of notebook entries showing an author trying to piece together his opus. They show the evolution of an idea and the struggle to work out complex themes. They often don't show the resolution of that struggle or reveal a concrete conclusion. The Silmarillion is also unfinished, and ironically the final issue giving Tolkien the most trouble was the story of Galadriel and Celeborn. Tolkien really loved the character of Galadriel and was especially attached to the chapters from LOTR on Lothlorien. His attempts at the end of his life to reconcile the back story of Celeborn and Galadriel with LOTR was important to him not only because he wanted to give Celeborn a heritage and role worthy of being the husband to Galadriel, but also – and more importantly to Tolkien – he was, in the words of one writer, "trying to eradicate the sinful pride with which he had originally endowed [Galadriel], for he was much taken with the notion that Galadriel resembled the Virgin Mary." Go read the letters where he makes this comparison explicitly. I realize this might be shocking to a lot of people, but Tolkien's legendarium is profoundly Catholic (and intentionally so). One of the reasons why he was so moved by the Lothlorien passages in LOTR is because they were so achingly spiritual. After all, "fighting the long defeat" is essentially the struggle of Fallen Man in a Fallen World. I personally loved those chapters because I was touched by the wisdom and grace Tolkien instilled in Galadriel and Celeborn. I was re-reading LOTR and the Silmarillion this past month, as I try to do every so often, and was taken again by the unresolved nature of Celeborn and Galadriel's story. Someone recommended your stories to me. I read "Oak and Willow," "The Battle of the Golden Wood," and "Seeds of Old Trees." I enjoyed every one of them. Truly. Do not get me wrong. I mean no slight to your accomplishments. There were passages that were so lovely I was tempted to search for them in my Kindle version of LOTR and the Silmarillion because I thought they must have been written by JRRT himself. (Ah yes, I'm reading Tolkien on an iPad. The poor technologically reactionary Tolkien would be horrified! But my print copies are dusty, musty, and heavy.) I commend you and thank you for an enjoyable read. Your depictions of Celeborn and Galadriel are very interesting and consistent with your vision of them, but in the end I found that your Celeborn and Galadriel were not quite consistent with Tolkien's. This isn't meant as a criticism, just an observation. You obviously see them differently than Tolkien did. You said yourself you don't really like Galadriel, and that would seem to be where you and JRRT part ways dramatically. Interestingly, in fleshing out their stories, you chose to move precisely in the direction that Tolkien was trying to avoid and was working to re-write. Instead of making Celeborn one of the High Elves, you make him not only a "dark elf" but defiantly one to the point of practically flipping the bird at the Valar (which makes him rather like Feanor actually). Instead of removing (or lessening) the suggestion of the Noldor's sinful pride in Galadriel, you ramp it up to make her as proud and ambitious as Lucifer (though that might be too harsh. You do try to make her sympathetic at times). Consequently, when you try to rein it in in order to make them fit the canonical mold Tolkien set for them, it kind of feels like you’re fitting a square peg into a round hole. Which leads me to my next thought... Your depiction of Galadriel and Celeborn in the opening chapters of "The Battle of the Golden Wood" (hereafter abbreviated to "BOTGW") just didn't seem to jive for me with Tolkien's depiction of them in LOTR. But your characterization of them in "BOTGW" was consistent with "Oak and Willow" ("OAW" from now on), so there was an internal logic to your work. I tried to figure out why they seemed so different from Tolkien's characters, and I think it's because they're deficient (though not entirely lacking) in that wisdom and grace so apparent in LOTR. The depiction of them in OAW was not as much at odds with Tolkien's depiction because they were younger in OAW, and youth is an excuse. But the character arch from OAW to BOTGW was still deficient in showing their growth in wisdom and grace. It's as if they didn't grow in patience or understanding from the time of OAW to the "Seeds of Old Trees." Becoming world weary isn't the same as becoming wise. Nowhere is this more true than your depiction of Celeborn. His attitude towards Aman and the Valar is alarmingly arrogant, irreverent, and eerily like Feanor. It would have been fascinating if you had him grow in understanding of the ways of the Valar (in a sort of Job-like spiritual awakening through long hardship), but he doesn't really. Though I'm probably being too harsh here. There are moments in BOTGW were he is wonderful (loved the part where he says Sauron will answer to Ilúvatar and will fall to the same fate as his master regardless of whether he reclaims the Ring). Your take on the dark vs. light elves thing in "Oak and Willow" was very interesting. It was true to the Silmarillion (especially in the contempt the sons of Feanor have in throwing that term around) though you might have pushed it to the limits for dramatic effect (which is your right to do and very smart of you since every story needs dramatic tension) by having Galadriel disgusted with Celeborn's "darkness" (though it was ingenious how you tied it in with Celeborn's disgust with the kinslaying. Very well done!) Personally, I think the origin of the light vs. dark elf thing had more to do with Tolkien's interest in languages and Icelandic myth. I think after he figured out what "dark elves" were, he went, "hmm, this could be interesting." There was, however, no question that the calaquendi were in fact stronger than the moriquendi – just as there was no question that the elves of Doriath were stronger because of Melian. ("In those days Elves and Men were of like stature and strength of body, but the Elves had greater wisdom, and skill, and beauty; and those who had dwelt in Valinor and looked upon the Powers as much surpassed the Dark Elves in these things as they in turn surpassed the people of mortal race. Only in the realm of Doriath, whose queen Melian was of the kindred of Valar, did the Sindar come near to match the Calaquendi of the Blessed Realm." The Silmarillion, pp. 117-118). And there was no question that there was something "off" with the Avari for being totally unwilling to listen to the Valar. Getting lost or dawdling is one thing (and very forgivable), but being totally unwilling to listen to the Archangels (which is essentially what the Valar are) is a character flaw. That's not to say that future generations of Avari are to blame for what their fathers did, but still. It was clear that JRRT intended for them to be different in a not good sort of way. Though he never quite definitively worked out the origin of the Orcs, his latest iteration seems to have been that Orcs might have been some twisting of men and elves. Those elves would have no doubt been Avari. Having said that, I thought your chapter where Celeborn shows Galadriel the stone knife to make a point (no pun intended) about Avari skill was very clever. Loved it. However, I was waiting for the obvious comeback: "In a knife fight against Morgoth, would you rather have a stone knife or a steel one? 'Nuff said." However, none of this is to suggest that Tolkien was insensitive to those who were regarded by conventional wisdom as "lowly." In fact, the recurring theme throughout LOTR is that those who are considered lowly and grubby are in fact the most heroic (i.e. hobbits, Strider, the Rohirrim, Eowyn and Merry slaying the Witch-king, etc.). Tolkien gives the best overall description of Galadriel to dear Samwise. And Sam saves the best part for last when he says, "as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime." That simplest part of her was what she was in essence when she "diminished," but it was the best of her – merry, wise, kind, gracious. Those qualities of merry simplicity are a hallmark of Tolkien's wisest and most noble characters. And he also valued humility in his characters. One of the reasons why I love Celeborn is because he's humble enough to admit to a dwarf (!) that he was wrong ("Let Gimli forget my harsh words..."). Now, as to my questions and your answers regarding the rings of the Ringwraiths... oh come on! You know you made it up, and Tolkien didn't intend it. And there's no need to apologize for it. It was a great plot twist, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But, of course, the Witch-king's ring didn't remain behind. Tolkien was very specific about what did remain behind when Eowyn killed him. I figured your answered would be that the reason why Khamûl's ring remained behind was because Celeborn cut it from his finger before killing him. Makes sense, right? I was wondering why you didn't explain it that way in the story. It would explain why the ring of the Nazgûl Galadriel killed didn't remain. As for Celeborn and Galadriel being able to bag some Nazgûl baddies... I see your point. In LOTR, Gandalf tells Frodo: "[The Eldar] do not fear the Ringwraiths, for those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power." This, btw, makes Merry and Eowyn's accomplishment all the more remarkable. They bagged the top dog who even Glorfindel couldn't take down. As for the issue of the "weakness" of those who took the Three Rings, I still think you harp on it too much. Círdan didn't give up Narya out of some noble sense of "It's evil! We mustn't use it! I refuse to use it! Take it, Gandalf!" No, no. Here's what the LOTR says about his decision: "Círdan later surrendered his to Mithrandir. For Círdan saw further and deeper than any other in Middle-earth, and he welcomed Mithrandir at the Grey Havens, knowing whence he came and whither he would return. 'Take this ring, Master,' he said, 'for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill. But as for me, my heart is with the Sea, and I will dwell by the grey shores until the last ship sails. I will await you.'" He simply gave it to the person who could put it to best use. Ditto Gil-galad giving Vilya to Elrond. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed your stories. Thank you so much for sharing them. Though I personally think you diverged from Tolkien in your depiction of his characters, I think you still crafted some great stories in the spirit of Tolkien. I certainly don't hold it against you that you haven't been able to capture them the way Tolkien did because I have yet to read any fan fiction writer who has completely captured that wisdom and grace that Tolkien instilled in Celeborn and Galadriel. In fact, I think you come closer than anyone else at capturing it. And I hope you will continue to write! All the best! P.S. Can I challenge you to write a version of Celeborn's story that makes him a Teleri from Aman the way Tolkien had finally wanted to make him? If anyone could do it, you could. (But you have to start liking Galadriel more to do it.) :) Author Reply: Thanks for getting back to me on this, and without the automatic hurt feelings that my responses invited. I'm sorry that I did react with kneejerk aggression, but as your reviews didn't mention that you'd liked anything about the story, I had the impression that they were just the kind of mean-spirited rules-lawyering that some people seem to do, hunting through stories entirely so they can nitpick their canonical purity. And as I left Tolkien fandom nigh on ten years ago, to suddenly be asked to justify my choices in a story I'd so thoroughly left behind seemed hard to bear. You're quite right to say that HoME is Tolkien's workings-out, and that Tolkien struggled with Galadriel and Celeborn all his life, changing his mind about them frequently. My problem is that I much prefer the proud, flawed, dynamic Galadriel of his early invention to the sad, resigned, passive "saintly" Galadriel of the later take. He revised her again and again to make her more perfect, and each time she became less interesting to me. I am not a Catholic (though I am a Christian, and am aware that Tolkien's world is profoundly shaped by Catholicism,) and I feel that I have the right to use the material Tolkien provided to examine the issues that interest me, rather than the issues that interested him. I am not trying to be him, I'm trying to show what I understand from the things he showed me. So, having said that, I felt I was within my rights as a fanficcer to take the hints I found in HoME, the early versions of the characters and their histories, and develop them as I saw fit. I am aware that my take on Galadriel is not Tolkien's take, but then I'm not him and I feel entitled to my own point of view. Tolkien created a world and a history which supported many different readings. He even gave us some of the alternate readings himself. If you mine things like (oh, what's it called? The dictionary of early elvish. Kwenta something or other - as I say, I've been away a long time and forgotten much) you see that the Noldor take on the history of Middle earth is just that, the perspective of one people. The words the other elves use give us tantalising glimpses into the way they saw the history of the world, and those ways are quite different. Tolkien wrote into HoME all the contradictions and inconsistencies of a real history, where there are more than one ways to look at events. This was a revelation to me, and opened up all kinds of interesting possibilities. What if the Noldor were wrong, for a start? If you tell the story of the world from the Sindar POV, you get a tale of Western Imperialism - technologically advanced people coming from the West to conquer the natives and annex their own lands. Of course those people would say they were superior. Of course their own heroic tales would show them as superior. But ought they really to be believed? My take on the entire history of Middle earth is different from Tolkien's, because I decided I would tell the story from the Sindar POV. And from the Sindar POV, the Valar and the Maia abandoned them, the Noldor patronised and killed them, and yet they were the elves who cared most about Ennor, and their history was overwritten by that of the Exiles. There didn't seem any point, to me, to try and tell Tolkien's story the way he would tell it - he's already done that so well it needs nothing more. But he left plenty of doubts that could be pulled on to tell the whole thing differently. I also, for example, take up the little seeds of doubt he left about Valinor, and suggest that the Valar were wrong to summon the elves there, and the Lindar and Avari elves were not somehow tainted for refusing the call. I think that Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman, the Balrogs and even Radagast prove the Valar and Maia were as capable of error as anyone else who isn't Illuvatar, and that forcing a race into a protected zone and then refusing to help anyone outside the borders is not, IMO, a right way of exercising a duty of care to everyone. So yes, basically, I tried not to do anything that can't be supported by some obscure footnote in HoME, but beneath that adherence to canon, I made a deliberate decision to write from a POV that would undermine much of the orthodox reading, and with it much of Tolkien's intent. (Except that his intent was that other hands should take up what he had left and continue the story, and I can't help but believe that he left those hints in there deliberately. He was too good a historian to believe that there could be only one right way of telling the story, and I admire him more for adding the possibility of other ways of seeing things. It seems very honest, very truthful.) I'm glad that you enjoyed the stories despite the places where I run up against Tolkien's intent :) I do like to think that I did so in the spirit of Tolkien. I have enormous respect for him and hope he wouldn't mind someone trying to tell the stories from a slightly different POV. It's been a very long time since I wrote Tolkien fanfic, and I don't really see myself coming back to it. And I have a certain antipathy for Valinor, so I can't see myself ever writing that story, though I will admit that it would be an interesting challenge to see what I could make of a Telerin Celeborn. He would be almost literally a fish out of water in middle earth. Thanks again for getting back to me and turning what seemed to be an attack into a pleasent conversation :)

Aiwen	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 11/25/2010
Very well done.

Mandy	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 3/26/2006
Wow, this was amazing. You must be a professional author. I thought I was reading Tolkien himself!

Fyre	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 10/2/2004
The more I read your fanfiction, the more intrigued I am coming by Celeborn. While I can readily admit I am not the best at following the lines of the Eldar from the other books, I admite the different representation you use for the Sindar and Noldor, in spite of times that have past and unions that have taken place. The interaction with the Rohir, especially on Celeborn's part, is so beautifully managed and I especially like the family relationships you have throughout the story, be they human or Elven. I wish I could rovide a more coherent review, but I am simply no good at trying to express how impressed I was by this story and the detail and imagery provided. Thank you for sharing it with us. Author Reply: "The more I read your fanfiction, the more intrigued I am coming by Celeborn." Hurray! My evil and nefarious plan is working then! I started writing in the fandom because he seemed an intreguing character who was largely overlooked - that's rather changed now that Bodkin and Sphinx and Bejai and Nilmandra have written such wonderful stories with him in; but at the beginning I thought I was the only one who liked him. This story was much like everything else - I wished Tolkien had told the story of what happened in Lorien during the ring war, but he hadn't, so eventually I gave in and did it myself! I'm very glad you liked it! Thanks very much for the reviews :) Marnie :-)

Bodkin	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 9/2/2004
I just read this (last chapter) on HASA - it is just soooooooo beautiful, that I have tears in my eyes. They are so important to each other - but she cannot stay and he cannot go. They must have been reunited in their own time - they love each other too much. I might have to go back and reread the whole thing. In a minute.

daw the minstrel	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 2/27/2004
All I can say is "wow." This was a painfully truthful portrayal of married people. They love and hate and want one another and feel smothered by one another. Their bodies and their spirits take part. And no one can hurt them like they hurt one another. This was just wonderful, Marnie.

Sphinx	Reviewed Chapter: 24 on 2/27/2004
Do I have praise left? :) Nope. You know, throughout the duration of this story, I have wondered just exactly why I seem to like your Celeborn so much. Certainly because he's hunky. Certainly because he's articulate. Certainly because he doesnt allow himself to be tied to a local mallorn by the Queen Bee and is made to entertain the local maidens. Yup, all those things. :) But it could also be because he's just so bloody human. Sure he's an elf. But he's an elf that doesnt forget to have a heart. And that's the main thing I love about this story. Not Galadriel, not Calandil (sob), not Oswy. There have been beautiful images throughout here, and I need not point each and every one out here, because then we'll be at the keyboard all night, preciousss. I'm so glad you continued with it. And I'd just like to say a heart felt 'Thank you' for all the help and plot bunnies and writing that you've given me. ~~prods you to head towards another incomplete epic~~ Lovely, Marnie. And you know it.

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