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That One Time You Saved My Life by Celeritas	10 Review(s)
Antane	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/30/2009
Replying to your reply - this is exactly why you should do a sequel - to catch that wide-open-mouth, don't-know-how-in-the-Shire-to-reply response that Frodo had! :) Namarie, God bless, Antane :) Author Reply: Nope. Best to leave it to the reader's imagination.

Socrates399	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/29/2009
I have to review again in order to forever close the discussion on Sam's accent. Sam sounded like William Nighy. And as a corollary to this, "In Western lands beneath the sun" sounded much like a song written by Stephen Oliver. Any questions? :-) Author Reply: What did Sam sound like before 1981?

Antane	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/29/2009
I'm very pleased to see the old old Frodo is back - praise Iluvatar and the healing He and His angels gave! - and that Sam can see it and I love the teasing here and Gandalf's words. But that line must have caught Frodo off guard. :) You must continue this! I would love to hear his response. Namarie, God bless, Antane :) Author Reply: Well, he's not back necessarily--the old old Frodo had a bit of lovable irritability and displayed all of those odd qualities that Sam now feels are smoothed away (and which thus makes him feel uncomfortable: he was expecting a slightly more recognizable Frodo). Anyhow, continuing the fic would ruin all the punch of the punchline. I honestly don't think Frodo knew how to respond to that unexpected bit of cheek! Thank you!

6336	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/29/2009
Sam is Sam no matter what his accent! Lynda Author Reply: Thanks; I agree!

curiouswombat	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/29/2009
I had no problem with Sam's speech, and I liked your description of the Frodo Sam finds in the West. And, of course, the last line is just perfect. Author Reply: Thanks; I was trying at something that would still fit Frodo but make people think. And really, this whole fic was written for the last line. snerk

shirebound	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/29/2009
This is absolutely delightful. And I love the idea that Sam, too, had a bit of 'smoothing out' and healing to be done in the West. :) Author Reply: Thank you! There are a couple of theories behind what happened when Sam sailed; one is that he was there to see Frodo and then let both of them pass on together and the other allows them to stay for a little bit. Since I'm going with the latter (though I don't keep Rosie waiting terribly long) I think that Sam would have learned all that he could from the West until he and Frodo were ready to leave it.

Dreamflower	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/29/2009
I loved this. Gandalf was perfectly correct, of course. And I love the idea that Frodo has to re-learn what it means to jest and to joke with another hobbit after all those years among the Elves. As to the "Sam voice" question, I didn't see anything amiss. JRRT did not use "dialect" (in the way many people mean the word) for Sam, except very rarely. In canon, even the Gaffer did not drop his "g"s. Sam's "voice" was shown mostly through grammar and word choice. In this ficlet, nothing is said aloud that would need to reflect that. A simple declarative sentence or a plain question, is the same for anyone. As for his "internal voice", I think the word choice was very "Sammish". The metaphor about the "sanded block of wood" was quite homely and hobbity, as was his thinking "nary a word" and "beholden". I much prefer that to authors who overuse dialect and spelling changes to reflect Sam's "accent". Author Reply: Since I've had to deal with separations and then reunions a lot in my life, I've always found interesting that there's always that short period in which you have to readjust to the other person. Even though (or maybe especially because) Frodo and Sam were really really close, it's been decades and for most of that time Frodo has been surrounded by elves. So what was originally supposed to be a simple joke (with Sam delivering the punchline!) turned into a bit of that awkward phase. I can't see Frodo passing on without relearning how to be a hobbit. Thanks for the feedback on Sam's speech/word choice. Since so many people do write him with dialect, at all ages, I was starting to wonder if I'd gone too far.

eiluj	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/29/2009
An intriguing and original take on the two of them. "the great shining being that used to be Gandalf" -- oh yes! Your treatment of Sam's speech was fine, though I think you were right to add an A/N: such insights should be shared. It's interesting how we tend to forget the huge difference in the books between Sam's speech and the Gaffer's; someone besides his father -- Bell, Bilbo, Frodo, whoever -- must have influenced how Sam talked. [At this point, I don't remember how PJ treated Sam's accent, so I don't have any idea how much we're thinking of film-Sam.] Author Reply: I think Sam would have been a little shocked when he first met Olorin in the West! I do try for "intriguing and original," as long as "original" still makes sense within the bounds of pure canon, which I hope this does. All of the reunion fics out there I've encountered suggest that everything was simply perfect except possibly for some residual healing Sam had to go through. But really, one of them has been living with the divine for how many years now? So Sam has a bit of catching up to do and Frodo has to re-hobbit a little bit, at least in my conception. Thanks for your feedback on the Sam issue. As far as I can tell, movieverse has had a huge impact on Sam accents, as if we were relying purely on the book there's no evidence that he dropped his g's at the end of -ing. Though I think that as far as Sam's accent in the films goes that was heavily influenced by the BBC audio adaptation (which I tend to trust much more than I do the films). But even more than the differences between fanon Sam accents and canon ones, I'm shocked when I see Mayor!Sam or Eressea!Sam speaking as if he were still fresh from the garden. There must have been at least some hobbits who wouldn't accept him until he started speaking according to his new class, though I don't think he ever lost his common sense mannerisms.

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/28/2009
Ah--very good indeed! Yes--"Which one?" The perfect answer! Love it! Author Reply: Heh heh heh... I think that once Sam got over that barrier he'd be able to give as good as he'd got!

Socrates399	Reviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/28/2009
:-) I think Sam was fine! Some people write Sam's accent well, but I don't think anyone has to do it. (And my mostest-favoritest fanfiction writer, jodancingtree doesn't do it! :-) ) Tolkien primarily characterizes Sam by diction, not dialect. Sam's grammar is occasionally bad, his idiom is colloquial, and his conversation is almost always unsophisticated. He cannot best Frodo or anyone in an argument. He is inarticulate. But I'm nearly certain that Tolkien never wrote Sam's dialogue in dialect (as he did for the orcs' conversation)...and I've been reading and rereading and re-re-reading Sam's dialogue for months now! Author Reply: I'm in agreement with you on the Sam issue, but I wanted to do a little bit of polling. IMO since we all have our own ideas (usually colored by William Nighy and/or Sean Astin) of what Sam sounds like, I think a fanauthor does better in underdoing Sammisms and not overdoing it--at least in the area of pure sound. Since he's an already established character, people will hear his voice the way they want to. And, yeah, if you're talking about only verbal indicators, Tolkien doesn't give any.

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