News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
| About Us News Resources
Login
Become a member
Help
Search
|
|
|
| Sundering by Nesta | 6 Review(s) |
|---|---|
| Linda Hoyland | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/31/2009 |
| Just heartrending. Author Reply: Yes, a sad moment. I wonder which brother JRRT thought had made the better choice? | |
| Vilwarin | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/24/2009 |
| I liked this a lot. My heart aches for Elrond. But one thing bothered me (remember that I'm not criticising you - it's your interpretation; this is just an impression I got): The Númenorean kings had the gift to lay down their lives when they chose and did so before they became decrepit (at least until they became corrupted and longed for immortality). So why would Elros of all people decide to linger until he was in this state? I, of course, realise that you used the element of age to physically separate him from his twin, but I think it's a bit much. Author Reply: That's a very forcible objection, Vilwarin. From what I've read in the 'History of Middle Earth' volumes it seems that the early Númenoreans remained vigorous until shortly before their deaths and then aged very rapidly. This gave them a powerful hint that it was time to go, and they could then choose the moment of their deaths, as you say, and die with dignity. If they clung on after that they could become senile ('unmanned and witless', as Aragorn puts it). Elros isn't senile, but he is definitely ready to die. And five hundred years' accumulated decrepitude would be quite dramatic, I think, once it took hold. | |
| utfrog | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/24/2009 |
| Very powerful writing! Author Reply: Yes, this story sort of hit me! I wondered why Elros should choose mortality: the only man to do so in the stories, I think. In the case of Lúthien and Arwen they did it for love. I suppose Elros did it for love of the Edain, but maybe there was more to it than that - he had a faint adumbration of human immortality beyond death. | |
| Jay of Lasgalen | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/24/2009 |
| *Sob* Beautifully written - but so very sad. Like you, I believe that Elrond saw his brother one last time before Elros died, but it must have been a torment for him. Of course, it was just the first in a long list of losses for him :( Jay Author Reply: Yes, Elrond lived a long and splendid life, but there was always sorrow in it. Same goes for Celeborn: however many thousand years he lived with Galadriel, it didn't make the parting any easier. (Question: why did he not go with her?) | |
| Cairistiona | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/23/2009 |
| What a poignant portait of the end of Elros life... I've often wondered about that final scene between Elros and Elrond, what they might have said to one another, how each felt. You've captured it beautifully. Author Reply: Thank you, Cairistioina! I always wondered why Elros chose to remain mortal. Why would anybody do that when they could be immortal, and live in an earthly paradise if they wanted to? I think Tolkien considered that Eru's apparently cruel 'gift' to men was the Christian salvation that lay so far in the future it couldn't even be guessed at, but the greatest of these early mortals might have some mysterious sense that death was the key to something better. | |
| Larner | Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/23/2009 |
| Poignant indeed. So many losses Elrond will know in the ages to come--so very many. Elros in the end knew the better way for himself, I think. Lovely! Author Reply: There are quite a few stories about immortality that make it out to be a bad thing in the end: Rider Haggard's 'Ayesha', Mary Shelley's 'The Mortal Immortal', Borges's 'The Immortal'. I sometimes think that's sour grapes, but would one really want to live forever and never escape from all the sorrows and disappointments? And will going over Sea really heal Elrond's grief? I wonder. | |