Comments on My Blood, Your Blood

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What a gripping story you have written, Robinka!  You successfully inhabited the mind of Carcharoth.  In doing so, you created a fearsome creature yet a vulnerable one, too.  Carcharoth's pain and subsequent frenzy are readily apparent.   You describe the fight between Carcharoth and Huan vividly - you write action so well.   And as horrific as Carcharoth might be and with all the devastation that the animal caused at his master's behest, I have to say I kind of feel badly for the creature in that he would have had a happier and less eventful life out hunting aurochs* in the eastern steppes of Middle-earth than as Morgoth's lupine slave.  That your story elicted this flicker of sympathy speaks to your ability to "see" the tale from the wolf's perspective.  Well done!

*I love, love, love the detail of the auroch!  Tolkien had an interest in paleontology, and his "kine of Araw" surely sound like they were aurochs.  It makes eminent sense to me that some fauna from the Pleistocene would still exist in the First Age. 



Wow! Thank you so very much for the review :D

I have to say that this story gave me a headache, because I wrote in Polish first and I struggled then with the translation. It wouldn't have been as tough if I'd written just in English, but the challenge meant the challenge ;)

Oh, and the aurochs -- I wondered what animal might be a challenge for Carcharoth and I thought that it should be one mightier that an European buffalo. I'm so glad that my idea worked. :D

Thank you tons! 

Tak sobie pomyślałam, że będzie miło jeśli ktoś zostawi recenzję w języku polskim, więc postanowiłam, że tym "kimś" będę ja. :)

Bardzo dobrze napisana historia! Ciężko jest napisać coś z punktu widzenia zwierzaka (choćby nie wiem jak bardzo była to interesująca postać) na tyle znaków i na takim poziomie. Przyczyna jest prosta - ludzie nie "czują" tak jak zwierzęta. Hmm, no może czasami.... ;) Ale nie odbiegając od tematu, chcę powiedzieć, że genialnie oddałaś charakter tego polowania. Posłużyłaś się instynktami wilka i na potrzeby tej historii wyciągnęłaś z niego to, co najlepsze. To, że go ścigają, nie oznacza, że jest ofiarą. ;) Wstawienie rozmów "istot dwunożnych" sprawiło, że całość jest jeszcze bardziej interesująca i "żyje". :) A teraz przejdźmy do wersji angielskiej... pod wersją angielską. :)))



Dzięki serdeczne za przeczytanie i za komentarz. :) No, było z tym opowiadaniem trochę problemów, poza tym chyba jednak wolę pisać po angielsku. Jakoś lepiej brzmi ;) Chociaż po polsku też nieźle, ale to nie jest to jednak. Chyba się odzwyczaiłam ;) za te wszystkie lata. Ale przejdźmy do wersji angielskiej...

Dzięki raz jeszcze :D

As I said under the Polish version - the story is brilliant! Firstly, a few words about translation - it's really good. I'm giving you my bow to this part of your work. I know how difficult it was, because it required a change of thinking. Great job! Both versions are wonderful, but I think that the English version is the one that I like more. Maybe it's because of the fact that for me all Tolkien stories sounds better in English than in Polish, though it is my native language. ;) Yeah, I know it's weird.

Secondly, something about the wolf - I know he was a bad, bad animal ;), but as long as I was reading your story there were some moments that I felt sorry for him. This never-ending pain that was growing inside him was cruel. After all, he was an animal, a wolf. And I like wolves very much. ;)

Thank you for the story. I enjoyed reading it!

 



Again, thanks a million for reading and reviewing :) I appreciate your kind words very much. I too, at some point, felt sorry for Carcharoth, and I wanted to show that he was meant to be cruel and an ultimate baddie, he was still an animal, with no say upon the ways in which he'd been bred and trained. I'm glad that my idea somehow worked.

Thank you once again! You made my day. 

I know I reviewed this elsewhere, but still the re-read is fabulous! I don't think its easy to crawl under the skin of such a beast and yet, as you write, make me as a reader still feel sympathy for him. The fight with Huan is just... wow and just to think that you wrote it in Polish first, then in English: deepest respect here. Well done, what a ride (again!).