Comments on Rings of Pride; Rings of Ruin

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Too many things I loved about this piece to list. Here are a few...

Celebrimbor running over the implications and action plan in his mind. Excellent characterisation :D

"I'm going to have to go there and tell them what's happened. Celebrimbor groaned." *Wince* That is not going to be an easy conversation... I feel for him there, I really do!

"He really ought to have been keeping it somewhere more accessible, but when was the last time he had had an accident here?" Hehehe! That's just so true to life, it made me giggle :D

Personally (and I'm being greedy), I'd love to see more of Celebrimbor's thought between: "It does not make any sense..." and "How dare he?". How dare he...what? Of course, your readers (probably) already know, but poor Celebrimbor must be upset - to put it mildly ;P

Now I will go off and wonder what it could be about activated charcoal that breaks the link - a nice touch :D



The little box Celebrimbor has is a rather general purpose box for accidents.  The charcoal is more for adsorbing small chemical spills than for dealing with magical hazards.  Lead is often used in this world for shielding radioactive materials, so perhaps if a little magic was used on lead it would also work for magical shielding.  I'm not sure how well these little boxes actually work to hide the Rings.  They can't be used to hide the one ring from Sauron, or Elrond would surely have ordered the One Ring placed in such a contraption during the fellowship's journey.  I'm afraid I'm still working this part out as I go along.

I'm glad you enjoyed it and there will hopefully be more fairly soon.  Thank you for your feedback; it encourages me to keep working on it.

What an entertaining chapter, just like the one before it!  Excellent use of humor -- the lead "isolation boxes' are a funny touch that appeals to this science-geek reader -- as well as the remark that Annatar in owl form was not just hunting rats and mice. :^D  Celebrimbor and Elcaran's characters are really well done.  You're capturing that feeling many technical types get when something spirals out of control.

Very nice, Aiwen!  I'm following this avidly.



I'm glad you're enjoying this.  There will be more, but it will probably be written fairly slowly.  I'm glad you like the lead isolation boxes - they are a bit of an in joke.  Annatar actually did hunt rats and mice (in my version of the story at any rate).  He has a tendency to violence which he was trying to keep from coming out at the wrong time.  'Oh dear, I just strangled my apprentice' wouldn't go down very well in Ost-in-Edhil.  Or even worse, 'I turned into a werewolf and started attacking Galadriel.'Thank you for the review.  I love getting feedback.

Helo Aiwen! I started reading this tonight and I have to say I am enjoying your take on these events. I like your Celebrimbor. The descriptions are well done, and I like the mental turmoil Celebrimbor experiences as he begins to realize something wrong. I also like what he did with the Elven Rings of Power. I like how he was a fast thinker and leapt into action. I look forward to reading more!

I also like Celebrimbor.  He made some pretty spectacular mistakes which had dire consequences, but my reading of the rather fragmentary material I can find about the discovery of the one ring suggests to me that when you realized he was wrong he did everything he could think of to fix it.  That doesn't make him a diplomat or make everything work out. Things worked out rather badly.  On the other hand, imagine if he had tried to hide Annatar's betrayal and the existence of the one ring in order to avoid looking like a fool. Imagine if he had succeeded. Things could have been so much worse. The next chapter will have some fun with him falling over his own feet verbally, as well as more serious things.  Thank you for your feedback; it is appreciated.

How can I not enjoy a story with toxic gas bubbles in mines and sketchy rings?  Although you've designated this as "drama," I see plenty of humor here, too, but the SWG doesn't have a...what...dramedy? Comic drama, I think.  Loves the funny little touches, the Dwarvish citizens trying to chat up Celebrimbor, Celebrimbor squeezing himself into a Dwarf-sized chair, and Durin's opining that the Elves were easily swayed by Morgoth.  The rings-as-information-gathering-devices is a cool concept!

This has been a great story to read! Thanks so much for posting it :D

I'm putting the review here because one of the bits I really like is the conversation between Galadriel and Celebrimbor. Some excellent characterisation and nice touched of humour! And a Galadriel who can say: "You do realize you've gotten all of us into an unbelievable mess?" certainly gets my vote of approval :D

The 'out-takes' at the end are hillarious - an inspired touch! And - given my own rather iffy experiences with voice recognition software - I'm very impressed you have written this using it!