Comments for: A Mortal Life
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3 Comments
A Mortal Life
ziggy - 08 Apr 12 - 2:38 AM
Ch. 26: A Stranger Passes Through
Aiwendiel - this is too sad and I cant write anything now. Everything has gone. I hate the man for killing the badgers. Would Orli really have married such a nasty man? And everything that was Mithrandir and Corli seems to have left, and the magic all gone.
I am really left with this sense of devastation and loss. Mithrandir returning only 87 years after - of course it wouldn't be the same but somehow the badger cull is worse than anything else. I have such a sense of anger at the man who did this and I really wnated the Grey Man who would have stopped it- or punished it, back. Instead Mithrandir meekly accepts that everything has gone and almost turns his back on it. This interlude has changed him - and he needed to know what it was like but oh, it's so bleak in fact.
What you have done is make the sense of time exquisitely painful. The loss he bears is immense and you made me share in it in a painful and emotional way. You write beautifully- every word perfect and accurate and I can only admire. It doesn't feel like I am reading- but experiencing everything as if I am there. I wish the ending had been less distressing but I also know you needed to show that nothing was left- and you did.
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A Mortal Life
Aiwendiel - 08 Apr 12 - 4:09 PM
Ch. 26: A Stranger Passes Through
Ah my dear faithful reader, Ziggy! So glad that you found this first before any others. Your comments are truly truly awesome to me. Thank you so very much.
I set out to try to capture a Gandalf who was sort of innocent of loss and who had to go through this crucible to be able to really understand what he would ask of others--especially Frodo--in the future. He had to experience it all: friendship, betrayal, anger, love, supreme joy, devastating loss, and feel it like a real mortal would, because he was living like one. And I particularly wished to present a character who was riven with doubts but kept on going --- like all of us, like me. I am glad I seemed to capture some of what I set out to do, and despite the sadness I think it couldn't have ended any other way, or the Gandalf of the future, some 2000 years later, couldn't have become the apparently detached, irascible, impatient old man whose heart of compassion was always just beneath the surface. Thank you again!
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A Mortal Life
Aiwendiel - 08 Apr 12 - 4:15 PM
Ch. 26: A Stranger Passes Through
Oh, and by the way, sorry about the badger. I think nothing is more infuriating to me as well as when a human heartlessly destroys another living creature just because he can... And as to whether a descendent of Corli would have been foolish enough to marry a boor like him, well, sometimes we make awful mistakes that we can't easily escape. At first I wrote that Olorin's eldest daughter would inherit that beryl necklace, but when the scene with 'Corli-II' of 87 years later popped into view, I had to give it back to Mithrandir, so he could 'pay it forward' and give his great-great-great-granddaughter a way out! Wonder where that necklace ended up? I am sure it provided her with the help she needed to get the heck out of there. 
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