B2MEM 2011, Day Twenty-five: Shards of Glass

[azalaisdep]

Today's Challenge:
She knelt on the floor, carefully picking up the shards of glass. Why did it have to be this one that broke?

Long Ago They Sailed Away

She knelt on the floor, carefully picking up the shards of glass. Why did it have to be this one that broke?  Of all the nursery items long-packed-away, brought out for each new royal generation?

Her

Comments

[curiouswombat]

I really can imagine how the poor woman would feel - this is a lovely, melancholy, glimpse of Middle Earth after the dwarf and the elf, left.

[azalaisdep]

It is always the irreplaceable things that break - and somehow it seemed to symbolise the irreplaceability of the Age that was gone, too.

I'm determined to try to write a few happier/more comic interludes with the remaining prompts, even if I have to twist them out of all recognition!

[engarian]

The breakage of irreplaceable things is so much a theme in Tolkien's writing. Just think about how many homes are abandoned without second thought. This is a tragedy because it can never be mended or remade.

- Erulisse (one L)

[azalaisdep]

That's so true - so much of the beauty of his work is shot through with melancholy because it's so aware of transience and fragility; what is most prized, certainly by the Third Age, is always what is passing away or is lost (Galadriel's line about "fighting the long defeat".) One reason, of course, why some critics/readers see him as so deeply conservative/reactionary, but also the wellspring of that profound sense of melancholy loveliness that pervades LoTR...

[wormwood_7]

Lovely and poignant.
Saw your above comment "determined to write a few happier interludes." Just to say that I quite appreciate melancholia - as you probably have noticed. Nothing wrong with wistfulness.

[azalaisdep]

So do I - but the overall arc of "Legolas And Gimli Go To Valinor" has turned out rather more melancholic than I was expecting! - I think a few more lighthearted moments may be needed for balance.

[azalaisdep]

It's terribly sad, isn't it? I would never have written it if it hadn't been for the prompt, but I think it would have been hard to get anything cheerful out of that one. And it does, at least, fit the series and the mood of the end of LoTR...

[espresso_addict]

I hadn't thought of these particular folks left behind. Lovely.

[azalaisdep]

I'm increasingly intrigued - though it does tend to induce melancholy - by thoughts of Fourth Age Gondor, and indeed M-E in general, and of how long it took for memory of the Third Age to fade. While Aragorn and Arwen were alive, of course, the link was direct; and for a long time after that there would have been members of Eldarion's line who remembered Legolas and Gimli, and possibly Celeborn and the Peredhil as well. Then it really depends on how long you think it was before Celeborn sailed, and when/whether Elrohir and Elladan did, and how much contact they continued to have with Gondor in the meantime, before all memory of the Elves is gone; and eventually the Dwarves and even the Hobbits die away too...

[espresso_addict]

I've always loved Fourth Age stories -- I think they can set the imagination free -- but I think these ideas resonate particularly for me at the moment because I'm trying to write the equivalent for Earthsea.

[azalaisdep]

Mmm, interesting! I find it slightly vertigo-inducing to be cut so loose from canon; oddly enough I tend to feel most creative when I've got restrictions (why I write fanfic rather than o-fic in the first place, I guess, and why JRRT in particular with his incredibly detailed world-building appeals), and panic a bit when cut loose from those foundations. How is it for Earthsea?