Stories of Arda - Lord of the Rings Fan-Fiction Archive


	About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search

In the Garden by Bodkin	11 Review(s)
Rhyselle	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 6/25/2008
Oh, I don't know how I managed to miss this story before. Thank you for writing this. I just love redemption tales and this has me smiling and weeping at the same time. Excellent, excellent work!

SharonB	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/7/2004
Ah, it was nice to see redemption for Minastan. I am glad that Este took an interest in helping him understand where his life went wrong. It can be hard for any of us to admit to wrong and face up to responsibilites at times. Minastan has done quite a bit to have to face up to. And how nice to see that his father is helping his mother in Mandos come to terms with all her sorrows. In time as Elrond fears may happen Minastan and Nessariel may comeback together after they are both released. That will be hard for her family I'm sure. Great story!! Author Reply: I think, since this is Valinor and these are elves, there had to be redemption - not swift or easy, no 'halleluia, I'm a believer, now I'm saved'. The process was long and hard, and only complete honesty, understanding and true contrition enabled the process of healing to begin. I'm sure that having his mother healed is a part of what will enable him to be recreated as he should have been - and having his father is vital to that, too. Elves bond for ever - although the bond between Nessariel and Minastan was not formalised and he was not committed, she was - and so she would continue to be tied to him. It seems only fair - and part of his understanding that actions and consequences go together - that he should commit to her, so that, eventually when they are re-embodied he should give her the love she craved. Maybe, if he makes her happy, her family will come to terms with it in the end. I'm glad you enjoyed the story.

Lianna	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/4/2004
This is so good! It all makes sense, yet I would never have expected things to turn out this way. I have been following Reflections for quite a while, and I read all of Far Horizons as each chapter came out. Both stories were interesting, but they didn't blow me away. It's your shorter stories, like this one, that knock my socks off. I find myself reading them over and over again. I think you have a real knack for the shorter type of story. Thanks for posting this one. Author Reply: Thank you. I didn't originally mean it to become quite so introverted and philosophical, but it just insisted. And Valinor is about healing and redemption. It wouldn't seem right just to put him in a prison and leave him there. Reflections is just marshmallow - it's not intended to be anything other than light with an occasional tinge of remembrance. Far Horizons is the first time I've attempted anything longer, with anything resembling a plot. I find it easier to write short pieces, and I love doing them. I shall treasure the fact that you enjoy rereading them. I'm flattered.

lwarren	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/4/2004
Ah, Bodkin, you know I loved FAR HORIZONS, but there are some particularly strong, emotional lines in this very fine piece of writing you have offered as the continuation of Minastan's story. I suppose where punishment, reflection, and redemption are involved, that is not surprising! "...he had endured - unobserved, unwanted, untended, like a garden left to grow wild with brambles and horsetails. His loneliness, his abandonment, the complete absence of any love in his rearing had twined into his very soul, rooted deep within him. His bitterness had grown like a weed, tough, resistant, cut down only to grow again." So powerful...and bitterness is often the very root of so many other problems in a life, and the one most difficult to deal with...and he keeps the fire of hate and anger hot, all fueled by that same bitterness of a castoff child. You had me crying for this poor elf by the end of this first section! I'd call that some very successful imagery indeed, because I sure couldn't stand him in the other story! Finafin's solution - seemed merciful until Elrond's "isolation brought him to this pass; it will not now cure him" comment. Smart elf! And compassionate! But Finarfin has chosen the safest way, and now awaits an answer from the Valar. Finarfin's comment to Elrond that it might take them "somewhere between now and the end of time" was so appropriate...sounds like a saying I read somewhere about the wheels of justice grinding slowly...but exceedingly fine!) Or was that fate? Minastan's conversation with the burning wood was so sad as he came to a realization of his guilt, tho' perhaps not acceptance, and then the meeting with Este! Powerful (I seem to be lacking appropriate words beyond that one - maybe a thesaurus...). I cannot tell you how often I tell my students exactly what Este told him as he offered his "apology"...words, just words, and an insincere apology is almost insulting sometimes. Nessariel's offer of love...and the tiny ember of love she left...maybe she wasn't such a silly chit after all. You showed a strength of character here I think I missed before. "'You have come to me as fire', he reasoned, 'because the fire is what I need. To burn away what I am and start again.'" I think I liked the use of fire best as Minastan's and the Vala's final solution...fire is an refining medium that burns away the dross and leaves behind the pure. I suppose it didn't even occur to Macar that his daughter and Minastan were now together...g How kind of Finarfin not to spoil his little moment of revenge and release! Finally, I liked the beginnings of resolution between Minastan and his parents at the end, and the way you handled the differences in their forms (that was way cool, Bodkin! g) All in all, a wonderful piece of writing. Your handling of the characters (elf and Valar alike) was totally believable, and the depictions of the scenes from the island to Mandos most vivid. I stand amazed! :-) I don't suppose......naaaahhhh! linda Author Reply: Goodness - thank you. I'm glad it worked for you - I wasn't sure about it at all. It just grew from considering what the elves of Valinor could do to those who broke all the rules of society and most penalties seemed to rely on the person knowing what they did wrong. Minastan started out for me rather simplistically bad - but once you start to try to think about why, it becomes more difficult to be one-dimensional. And yet it is all too easy for someone to weep and say they are sorry without it having any depth - to be forgiven he had to go deep and accept responsibility. Nessariel is a bit of a silly chit, but her love for him was deep and genuine, and perhaps he needs to learn to accept love as much as to give it - and she is undergoing the refining of the Halls, too, to learn and rebuild her fea. Macar needs healing, too, and I hope that the supposed healing of Valinor will bring him acceptance before the re-embodiment of either Nessariel or Minastan. It somehow seems harder to picture healing in the spirits of the living, but it must happen (Celebrian). I'm glad you liked the last bit. I hoped it would come across. Thank you for reading and commenting.

Rose Sared	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/4/2004
Redemption tales always make me cry, and you managed it with the best baddy we have had for ages. sniffle. I wanna be an elf! Loved it, am in awe of your storytelling power,well done. Rose Author Reply: Elves rule! Short of killing him off during the chase he had to be redeemed - he is an elf in Valinor, but it shouldn't be easy or quick, which would seem a get out. So no St Paul on the road to Damascus moment, but a long and painful process of self-understanding and change. Thank you - I'm blushing.

Ellie	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/3/2004
This was so very well written! I loved the imagery and symbolism of the log falling apart in the flames like he was falling apart too. This was really exceptional! You made me like him and feel sorry for him and want him to be happy and healed again. Nice job on that after you worked so hard to make us hate him. I'm glad you portray Finarfin as being so very wise and I love the practical earthiness of Thraduil and Celeborn with Elrond stuck somewhere in between. Very well done! Kudos to you! Author Reply: Thank you! I ended up feeling sorry for him myself - it would have been easier to keep him black and white and polish him off during a chase, but, by then, it seemed a bit of a get out. But I didn't want it to be easy - all his pretensions needed to flake away, to leave a pure base which could be remade, without forgetting those he harmed. Finarfin has had a long time to become wise, and he is - and Thranduil does, I think, like to make himself seem a bit of a rough diamond around all the Valinorean elves. Celeborn is more practical, and sees no point in agonising over things, but Elrond feels guilty about anything that goes wrong.

Jay of Lasgalen	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/3/2004
'Thranduil is of the opinion that it is a shame that he did not try to escape – he says a well-aimed arrow would have solved the problem in an instant', I agree whole-heartedly with Thranduil here! However, I like the guard who admitted feeling sorry for him - and especially the ending with its promise of hope. Jay Author Reply: Well - it would have been a short cut to a situation that he ended up in anyway! But I can't see elves, especially those in Valinor, deliberately going for such a solution - although they might have welcomed it had it been offered. I think Minastan might have counted on his guards feeling sorry for him, so that he could escape - but what happened was probably a better long-term solution. I'm glad you liked the hopeful ending.

Nilmandra	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/3/2004
Beautifully done, Bodkin. Minastan's inward focus, going from hatred and anger to self reflection; the redemption by the Valar, eager to see his soul healed; forgiving and being forgiven, and now the process of purification. One can see that, in time, he will be ready to be reborn, with a new innocence and strength unencumbered by shadow. Hopefully the Valar work on those who are hurting yet still living too, like Macar. Author Reply: Thank you. I think the whole healing process for him would have taken a very long time - and the process was facilitated by specific requests for interests from the Valar - and required death as part of it. It must be much harder in some ways to deal with those who are alive. I hope the process of healing works with the grief of the living, but I can also see them not wanting to abandon grief because it seems like the betrayal of those lost. And healing, maybe, requires an abandonment of self? Dunno. It's a difficult concept.

daw the minstrel	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/3/2004
"He warded his anger carefully, blowing on it gently as on tinder, to keep the coals glowing within him, so that his own fire would not go out." This is both beautifully written and true. People do hoard their anger like this. But I have to tell you, you break my heart for Minastan. His gradual coming to truth was wonderful. I like the fact that he responded to natural forces when he didn't respond to people. That seems elfy. I think this is an interesting example of how when we treat our characters as real and try to get into their heads,it's hard to keep from understanding and forgiving them. Actually, it occurs to me that you wrestled with a difficult writer's problem there. How do you show the changing thoughts of someone who is alone and therefore has no one to talk to? His confession before the fire was nicely done. Thranduil's and Elrond's reflections on Valinor were interesting too. Thranduil is probably right that in ME, people would have seen the elfling Minastan's wounds more easily. Although, isn't everyone supposed to be healed in Valinor? I guess I don't understand how that works. Author Reply: They do, don't they! And Minastan lacked the core of love and self-worth to hoard, so that all he had to protect him was anger. He responded to people as something to fight and it wasn't until that was taken away that he was able to stop and think. And Valar-influenced natural forces seem a way through to someone who cannot reveal anything to people. I suppose it is one of the things about thinking up pasts for characters - they become real to you (if no-one else) and you mind about them. The fire starting talking before I realised it - and it seemed to work as a device. I think healing is a need you have to recognise, perhaps. Minastan didn't, because he knew no other way. He would have been better off left behind with other orphans of Dagorlad when his mother sailed, where he could have grown up with others like him. Everyone being healed seems to be one of those lovely ideas that you can't seem to work out in practice.

elliska	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 10/3/2004
Wow. I literally have tears streaming down my face. That was so powerful and so well written and so psychologically realistic. The imagery used to capture his emotional/psychological journey was perfect. I wish I could write a review that expressed clearly enough how absolutely brilliant I thought this was but I can't. There is a very popular piece of lit in Spain called Don Juan Tenorio. It is where the phrase 'he's such a Don Juan' comes from. Its a traditional piece of lit and they perform the play on the Catholic Holy Day the Day of the Dead every year. In the story, don Juan is a trickster and seducer of ladies. He seduces a novice nun right in the nunnery and then kills her father when he tries to avenge his daughter's honor. Don Juan is seen as a wholly unredeamable person but he escapes justice until one day he visits the grave of the father he killed and his ghost invites him to dinner and then tries to pull him into Hell for his crimes. At this point, Don Juan realizes he may have messed up in life and he is sincerely repentant but he says there is no hope for him and he resigns himself to Hell. Then the spirit of the nun he seduced (she died of a broken heart) comes to him and says God will forgive him if he just has one moment of true contrition (a Catholic belief--no matter how bad you've been, you can go to Purgatory instead of be condemned to Hell if you have one moment of true regret for your sins). Inspired by the fact that she still loves him after everything he's done, don Juan experiences his one moment of contrition in a very powerful monologue and he is saved. This piece of literature is considered the best in all of Spanish lit by many. Its themes are very similar to what you have written here but you wrote it one hundred times more powerfully than El Duque de Rivas did I am absolutely impressed by this. It is a terrible pity that this is written in Tolkien's world and you don't own the characters. It deserves to be published. Great job! Author Reply: Wow. Thank you. I am left speechless. I think I felt that to be healed and go through the Halls of Mandos, he needed that feeling of contrition - and to know that it meant much more than just saying he was sorry. He needed understanding of himself and others and to want to open himself humbly. (Should I hope that no devotees of Spanish Literature are reading to be offended by the comparison to El Duque de Rivas?) I am still speechless. I shall treasure this review!

First Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Last Page

Return to Chapter List