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Old 10-13-2002, 08:14 PM   #73
Nar
Wight
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 228
Nar has just left Hobbiton.
Sting

Thank you very much, LMP. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Davem: I can understand what bothers you about these books – I can’t say if they hold anything for you that you’re missing or not. I’ve always done my best analysis with books that triggered fear and loathing in me—I’ve NEVER written a good paper on a favorite book! Whether a character’s struggle is unwound and expanded into a fantasic landscape with scope for movement or confined explicitly to his/her own mind defines a completely different type of story.

Gandalf the Grey! * shimmers politely * Thank you kindly for the greeting and agreeable agreement! The song of Arda is a lovely idea, don’t you think? I’m not surprised we all respond to it so strongly. I like your thoughts about the mirror … it’s a wonderful idea.
Quote:
sweeping around to create a whirlpool of alternate pasts, presents, and futures … The whole of Time Itself converged as well ... now bent, now straightening, now a flickering chimera, now solid reality.
I’ve always loved the whirlpool archetype, it’s very powerful in all its manifestations. I love your notion of ‘the whole of time converging’ –very nicely phrased. A wonderful image!

Luthien also used water for magic … I think it was the Lay of Lethien from HoME 3 that was the clearest. Bother. I can’t find the book to quote it, but when she grows her hair for her dark cloak that hides her and puts enemies to sleep, singing, pouring out water from a pitcher and moonlight are all involved. This seems to me to be a precurser to the magic Galadriel uses in her mirror. Water-song; it’s an interesting theme. This ‘bonfire in the glade’ thread sounds lovely. I’ve looked once at the RPG threads, there’s some lovely writing there. Alas, my persona’s completely unsuited to join in.

Before you wander on, Gandalf the Grey, I have a small request … could you possibly blow one of your smoke-galleons for me? You see, being in a lexical frame of mind when I designed this persona … well … I’m not a dwarf or an elf or a hobbit, I’m an orcish interjection (Nar! is my full name and I was spoken by Snaga –I come from quite a bad paragraph, but I’m trying to better myself) --sigh—I’m really not very good for role playing and I’m not strictly canon – I’m a sub-created word-spirit about two inches high and there’s very little I can do other than inhale the foam off ale –one of my few pleasures in life-- and shout ‘Nar!’ very loudly in my enemies’ ears, --not entirely useless to comrades, but not as good as beheading an orc, obviously-- but I do feel I could sail a smoke-galleon about, and it would break the tedium of my days, so if you wouldn’t mind … Thank you!

Quote:
(The "Beth" comes from Sindarin for 'word'.)
That’s very interesting, as when I created the ‘Nar’ persona, I decided to be a word (I was very much inspired by Tolkien’s letter about the mote of dust in the beam of loving attention that was its guardian angel)

Quote:
Listen to the music of the current and catch its drift, for this is indeed a wild washing day.
That’s lovely! That’s the sense of ‘mastery’ or should I say ‘mistressy’ (or perhaps ‘mistress minstrelsy’) I was thinking of.
Quote:
Around about us sweeps the cold,
with watery arms and stunning gale;
But through the wind I sing my song,
calling to shore and sea.
I like those lines very much. Songs and ocean storms, how well they go together! A wave is such a strange thing, water rising/falling, propelling the image of that rise/fall forward onto fresh ocean—it’s an event, really, an event on water, an event that chains across the ocean, but it seems like a thing. If you can see your wave’s medium, as you can with water, you can see the event. If a force in motion pulses a more ephemeral medium, air say, then you can’t see it, though you may feel the wild wind on your face.
Quote:
"For the love of the Teleri and the Falathrim, quell the torrent even though the world be bent."
That’s a lovely line! I agree, the RPG has certainly unleashed something in you – strange all the things that can draw understanding out of you, so many things pulled together that you don’t know quite where it came from!

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]
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