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Of Merry and Pippin  by GamgeeFest 1 Review(s)
DreamflowerReviewed Chapter: 3 on 6/29/2004
I love your description of the aftermath of Bilbo's disappearance. Merry and Sam frantically searching, Sam lending his jacket, and cheering Frodo up with the oliphaut poem. I especially love the way Merry instantly guessed why Frodo had been avoiding him and why, and the way Frodo was only too glad to unburden himself to his cousin. This is really nice, and very well thought out.

Author Reply: Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it, as this chapter gave me quite a lot of problems when I was writing it. First, it grew into a little mini-novella on me, and there was no real place to break it up into smaller parts. Then I had trouble getting the narrative to flow the way I wanted it to in some places. I did a final revision before I posted it here, and it works much better now.

I chose the Oliphaunt poem mostly because of Frodo's reaction to it in TTT. It was the first time he'd laughed in a long time, and it reminded him of younger, happier days. If it could cheer him up in Ithilien, there was no question it would cheer him up now.

Merry knows his cousin well, and Frodo was more than ready to let someone know about his worries after all those months of watching Bilbo planning to leave.

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