Comments on Reflections

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This is terrific. First encounters make up one of my favorite tropes in almost any genre of literature. But the topic is particularly moving here. I am imagining that the line between the Avari as more of a hunter-gatherer society and The Noldor as the most technologically developed and politically complex of the Eldar might have seemed uncrossable. Yet how fascinating it is to consider that they are both of the Quendi--those who speak, not only with words, but also share the skill of osanwe-kenta. Love their characterizations each of the other. 



Thank you, Oshun! I've always found this meeting as a moment of great anthropological (quendilogical?) interest: how these two so different societies -hunter-gatherers versus complex and technologically advanced- met and recognized (or failed to recognize) their common origins and shared history. So glad you found this picture convincing!

This is a wonderfully evocative piece of fiction to go with your theoretical piece on Name-Calling. I'm glad that, although it makes some of the same points very forcefully, this piece has something like a happy-end, as I found the conclusions of the theoretical piece quite sobering and even saddening...



"Quendi and Eldar" caught my attention the first time I read it long before stumbling into fanfiction and that the Eldar confused the Avari with orcs when they first met was always an idea waiting to be explored. And, yes, you're right, this has a happier ending than Name Calling but I think that they must all have felt that though they might be one, they're definitely not the same. Thanks a lot for reviewing!

Copy of my MEFA review:

This is a wonderfully evocative piece of fiction to go with Angelica's theoretical piece on "Name-Calling". That piece demonstrates how Tolkien's essay "Quendi and Eldar", while primarily linguistic in intention, shows the elves as preoccupied with differences among themselves rather than unity, to an extent that it would be quite possible to speak of real xenophobia or even racism. I found the conclusions of the theoretical piece quite sobering and even saddening... So I'm glad that this piece, although it makes some of the same points very forcefully, has something like a happy-end: the Avari and the Noldor discover their unity once they actually meet, despite the differences that struck them so forcefully to begin with. Still, it takes a common enemy and danger of death on one side to bring them together, and even in the final scene they remain conscious of the difference in speech--despite their ability to communicate by osanwe. The story is powerfully written. The change of point-of-view is extremely effective. It is striking how strongly these elves each identify as groups rather than as individuals--the pronoun used throughout is "we" and "they" rather than "I" and "she" or "he". But what I also like about this story is its evenhandedness: both sides state their views and neither is too obviously favoured.