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A Healer's Tale  by Lindelea 7 Review(s)
LarnerReviewed Chapter: 13 on 5/18/2005
Lovely save by our favorite Brandybuck! Wonderfully written, including even colorblindness! Now, that's not one I'd have thought to include, as aware as I am of visual problems.

Mysterious JediReviewed Chapter: 13 on 4/25/2005
I remember this from "In the Greening of the Year," but it was still cool to see another side!


<>< Saved from sin through Christ,
MJ

Connie B.Reviewed Chapter: 13 on 4/25/2005
Glad that got resolved. I didn't even have time to go back and check the other story.

Oh, please keep this one coming. I don't know why, but I really like this story.

Thanks.

Connie B.

AndreaReviewed Chapter: 13 on 4/25/2005
It was the wrong well??? That's absolutely incredible!
I thought, Pippin might have managed to crawl out of the well on his own. But I was wrong - they were just in time to rescue him from the "right" well.
And it was Merry to rescue him. I really like your Merry, he would do anything for his little cousin! He's really brave - and smart.

And speaking of Merry and his endless struggles to keep Pippin save: In your "Interludes" he's not arrived yet. Maybe, that's a good sign! Well, we'll see ;-)

BodkinReviewed Chapter: 13 on 4/25/2005
Good thing Merry has a brain. Or poor little Pippin could have been perched on his branches for rather longer than his six-year-old resilience could take.

And nobody knew of the colour-blindness? And Folco didn't think that it might make a difference? Merry to the rescue again. (Not being able to see green and blue must be a real pain - so much of the world around us is in delicate shades of the two. Mind you, I've often wondered if everybody sees colours the same - we might both agree that a shade is, say, emerald green - but do we just have the same name for a colour that looks entirely different?)

And this celebration should be rather extra-special.

I like Paladin in these childhood stories. It would be interesting to see how he changed and turned against his old friends and - well, everyone really, except Eglantine.

Author Reply: Y'know, I have known colour-blind people and it was never really an issue, except when we made a joke of it, like when someone's college roommate made a garishly-coloured birthday cake--bright blue with intensely-green icing. What did my friend say? "What a lovely grey cake!" (as everyone in the room was giggling and shushing one another and saying, "Don't give it away!" because they wanted to make the birthday person guess the real colour.)

They might have known of the colour blindness and not really thought about it in the panic of the moment.

Yup, extra-special. What do you think Pippin was able to cadge "an extra piece of cake" out of just about everyone there until he collapsed in a sated heap and was borne off to his bed?

There have been hints of Paladin's change in several stories so far: "Pearl of Great Price", "A Took by Any Other Name", "Thain" (still under construction), and possible "A Healer's Tale" though that is still in draft form and might be changed in the editing and posting.

I don't know that I would devote an entire story focused on the change as it would be too depressing, I think.

Thanks!

DreamflowerReviewed Chapter: 13 on 4/25/2005
Poor Folco! He is going to be a *long* time living this one down. Not only was it his fault that Pip was in the well to begin with--a very silly dare to make to a little one like that after all, but then leading them back to the wrong well as well. I remember thinking that when I read the anecdote the first time in your Eglantine story. Your Folco sounds very nearly as clueless as mine, LOL!
Poor hobbit.

And poor Merry, so trying for him to think he was attempting to recover Pippin's body. He must have just barely been holding on to his sanity until they realized the truth.

And Bilbo's remark was just so *very* Bilboish--just the thing to break the tension and get everyone back into a better mood. You should do Bilbo more often, you really should, you do him well.

Author Reply: Ah, thank you!

It is funny, I'm not often drawn to write Bilbo except as he is interacting with the hobbits I find most interesting... namely the Travellers.

Perhaps if a "Hobbit" movie comes out with an engaging actor (I loved Ian Holmes but suspect he's probably too old--it should properly be someone thirtyish, do you think?) it might catch my imagination.

But then, on re-reading FOTR, it struck me that Ian Holmes was really too old to "be" Bilbo in the early scenes leading up to his leaving the Shire--and I remember how they taped the skin of his face to pull it taut, giving him a sort of "face-lift" during the "finding of the Ring" in the prologue. (Thinking of words and phrases like "well preserved" and "unchanged would be closer to the truth.) If he was fifty when he found the Ring, and it preserved him, and "fifty" in a hobbit is the equivalent of around "thirty" in us (as many seem to think), then he ought to have *appeared*, at the time of his Birthday Party, no older than Frodo was at the beginning of the Quest, though he might have developed the mannerisms of an older hobbit from long-living. Interesting, the thoughts that strike us when reading/researching/daydreaming...

BeruthielReviewed Chapter: 13 on 4/24/2005
Is this the right title for the chapter? "Pony of Another Colour" sounds more fitting for the stable fire incident than this.



Author Reply: Well, I admit it's a bit obscure. Was going to call it "All's Well that Ends Well" but that's been done before... and so this chapter title refers obliquely to the colour of the smial door, and Folco's colour-blindness, as well as foreshadowing the stable fire somewhat. (Did you notice that Ferumbras used the phrase in the naming-day chapter as well? It's a way of tying things together, or having a running theme, or something of the sort...)

Thanks!

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