Comments on I Sit and Think of Times There Were Before

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I was on the edge of my seat!  You really had me right there crouched in the boat with the two of them.  And what interesting characters, both of them.  Really enjoying this & will definitely be interested if/when the next chapters emerge <333

Oh, this is so gripping! And already feels like canon to me. I'm really enjoying the detail and am very happy the fic has run amok on you! I'll look forward to learning more about these two.

Very interesting takes on Ohtar and his companion! I think it really is worth taking your time (and word count) to unfold the narrative more fully.

I felt for the two and their hazardous escape and was glad they made it across the river.

Thank you! And I certainly hope it's worth it, because Ohtar is by now 3300 words into telling me how he and Gileinas became friends and still hasn't finished the story, so the second chapter will be a rather lengthy digression from the original topic unless I do some heavy editing, and I think I'm too lazy to try to whittle that down into anything shorter once I've actually finished writing it ':D

I very much enjoyed learning how these two met and became friends, and getting a glimpse of life during the siege.  And also appreciated Ruinamacil's thoughts on the wisdom of the Valar "editing" the Gift of Men for only some of them, and the emotional suffering that results. 

I'm glad to hear you liked this! I didn't originally set out to write so much about life during the Siege of Barad-dûr, but it just kind of seemed to fit in. Like, just when you think about it, that was Ruinamacil's life for what, seven, eight years or so. There would've been a rhythm and a routine to it, there would've been ebb and flow in the intensity of action, there would've been a whole tangled web of social hierarchies, and it just felt natural for him to talk about it. (All this may also have led me down the path of thinking about military slang and the linguistic effects of the War of the Last Alliance, but uhhhhh that's not something I plan to go to in this fic. or any fic, probably, it goes a bit beyond my skill)

And yeah, I feel like in a lot of ways Ruinamacil's generation, broadly speaking, would probably have been forced to grapple with the reality of their long lives compared to other men, both in general and in terms of its potential contribution to what the Númenoreans became, and also with the overall isolation of Númenor from Middle-Earth and its ultimate consequences, in a way that even the Faithful of the previous generations who were born in Númenor didn't really have to, and then within a few generations after him, people would've gotten more used to life in Middle-Earth and just taken the way things were for granted. He's kind of in that gap where he's never known anything but life in Middle-Earth but a lot of his elders still remember Númenor well and have those traumas and have had to figure out how to adjust. I think it just gives a different kind of viewpoint to him where it's easy to go down that path and start realizing how the long lives and the solitude of Númenor worked to screw the dúnedain over in a way

I thought this threw a lot of additional light not just on Gileinas and Ohtar's relation to him, but also on Ohtar as a person and where he is coming from, including his relation to Isildur!

Gileinas's escape from slavery is a very moving story. 

It is sad that Ohtar is missing him so much as he writes. 

(Clearly, the Numenoreans did not entirely get to grips with that issue he detects, as it is partly what leads to the Kinstrife later.)

I'm glad you think it worked! (Honestly, I'm kind of tempted to write a fic about that thing with Ohtar's father betraying Isildur that Ohtar keeps referring to. I'd just have to figure out what actually happened and how to make it work as a story first, lol. But maybe someday...)

I don't know why exactly I landed on the backstory I did for Gileinas, it just came from somewhere while I was planning the fic, but I feel like it's worked out nicely. But yeah it did mean that a little ways into writing I went "oh wait he's gonna be significantly less long-lived than Ohtar and I already said Ohtar is writing this text in-universe as an old man, I should acknowledge that at some point..."

Oh, maybe! I've also toyed with the possibility of him being involved with Sauron's assault on Minas Ithil, or being in league with the Black Númenorean lords Herumor and Fuinur that the Silm mentions being in power in Harad somewhere around that time period... So that can be one more for the list of possibilities to pick from once I've got the time and energy to properly start figuring out a story

Oh my gosh, what an utter nightmare of a journey (and it's only just begun!) Poor Ruinamacil! He's brave and resilient, and incredibly fortunate to have equally brave and resilient Gileinas. What a beautiful bond of caring friendship these two have. 

And just btw, I for one am very happy with the increasing length of the chapters, I'm thoroughly enjoying this. I particularly appreciate your detailed descriptions which build such rich pictures in my mind.

Oh yeah, I'm certainly not letting them get out of this easily (but then, I am a horrible little angst gremlin, so dunno what anyone expects at this point ;P ) but they have each other, at least

Thank you so much for the comment! I'm very glad to hear you're enjoying the fic <3 

Oh my, they were so incredibly fortunate to find the pass over the mountains at last. What a godawful journey! But they certainly did have each other, thank goodness! And it was nice to learn what happened afterwards. I'm now curious about Estelmo's adventure. I guess he made it to Rivendell sooner, if he didn't have Orcs on his trail and so was able to take a more direct route. 

It really is sad that there is such a difference in lifespans, but I'm glad that they got to enjoy their time together in peace, after all the warring and travails.

This is a griping fic and I really enjoyed your characters!

Thank you! I'm very glad to hear you liked the fic and the characters! <3

Yeah, they had each other, at least. If you're in Middle-Earth and facing a long and perilous journey, the best thing for your survival often seems to be having a good friend you can trust at your side

As for Estelmo - I am making some assumptions in having him reach Rivendell ahead of time, but I think it's not too much of a stretch. The account in the Unfinished Tales says that he was discovered by Thranduil's folk (or possibly men living in the region who were friendly with Thranduil's folk, but either way) who came to the aid of Isildur's troop but arrived too late to do anything except drive the orcs away before they could desecrate the corpses, and that he was found lying under Elendur's body (which is where I took his comment to Ohtar that Elendur died protecting him from; it's not by any means certain, but it seemed to me like a possible reason Elendur's body would have fallen on top of him, and I liked the idea, so I went with that), unconscious but alive. Assuming that he was ultimately not very severely injured (which admittedly is a big assumption to make, given the circumstances) and only needed a few days to recover before being able to travel again, he could well have made it to Rivendell before the end of October and have spent over two months there before Ohtar and Gileinas turned up. In my head, Estelmo probably travelled to Rivendell with other messengers Thranduil sent to inform Elrond of the disaster of Gladden Fields (it's not said in canon that Thranduil would have sent messengers, but that's another assumption I'm making because it would be really strange for me if he didn't send any messengers; the disappearance of Isildur and the deaths of his three elder sons seems like the kind of thing you'd want to tell to the relevant people as quickly as possible).

Of course, that's just one possible chain of events, it's what I kind of had in mind as I wrote, I just didn't feel like it was relevant to go into in the fic proper. But it would also be very possible to create a scenario where Estelmo would only arrive in Rivendell after Ohtar and his companion, particularly if he had been more severely injured; according to the Unfinished Tales, at that time people in northern Middle-Earth typically avoided travelling long distances between the beginning of November and the end of February, so had Estelmo for one reason or another stayed with Thranduil's people for long enough that he couldn't have made it to Rivendell before the start of November, he would likely not have even set out again until after Ohtar and Gileinas reached Rivendell. But for this story, I felt that the most convenient option was for Estelmo to have reached Rivendell well ahead of Ohtar and Gileinas, so that's what I went with