O-62: Review of "The Annals of Angmar" by Aliana

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

B2MeM Challenge: O-62: Review a story that you've read but not yet reviewed
Genre: Review
Warnings: Aliana's warnings for the story: "Violence, but no more intense than what Tolkien wrote. Mature themes, rather more intense than he probably would have preferred.
Summary: A review of "The Annals of Angmar" by aliana1
Aliana's Summary of "The Annals of Angmar": “High, she was, and fair": A love story, and an exercise in revisionist history.


This story, inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale "The Snow Queen", twists Tolkien's world in a way he never would imagined by envisioning a Witch-Queen of Angmar.

"High she was, and fair," is Aliana's opening, echoing Tolkien's description of the White Lady of Rohan, and the parallels are striking (and oh, can't I just imagine an AU-to-this-AU where Éowyn takes the Ring, and she and the Witch-Queen rule together). Aliana's prose, as always, is gorgeous, and in this story seems particularly Tolkeinesque, archaic in style and rhythm:
A winter monarch, draped in silk and furs,
and
her people crafted songs in her honor on the tautest strings of their harps.

Angmar's seduction by the Lord of Gifts is described in language which is at the same subtle and powerfully erotic:

And then came the One, brighter and fairer than all the others. His voice was rich and dark and unknowable fathoms-deep: he knew her. He promised the power after which she hungered in the recesses of her flesh and her soul. The ring He slipped over her finger was weighted all unnatural, and, to her, more full of delight than any bridal-charm upon her hand. He embraced her, and she fell, and was lost.

The Witch-Queen's hubris is fueled by a prophecy, Not by the hand of man will she fall.. For a man, or man-like or male creature in Tolkein's world, that prophecy is a good as a promise of immortality. More fools they. We women know better; we understand our own power, and know the fury and violence of which we can be capable. But the Witch-Queen has surrendered herself to the man's world, and forgotten what she ever knew of women's strength, until Éowyn's moment of triumph reminds her too late.

Comments

[blslarner.livejournal.com]

It sounds a fascinating tale. Now I'll have to find and read it.

[aliana1.livejournal.com]

Eeeeee! Thank you, Ann, for this lovely review.

...and oh, can't I just imagine an AU-to-this-AU where Éowyn takes the Ring, and she and the Witch-Queen rule together.

That would be so. Freakin.' Hot. (Provided, of course, that the Witch-Queen could abide by a co-ruler.) And femslashy! (I mean, not necessarily, but ideally it would be femslashy.)

I'm glad you like the style; I also like the observation that the Witch-Queen's hubris (much like the Witch-King's) comes from her neglect of the possibility of a woman like Éowyn existing,

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

And femslashy! (I mean, not necessarily, but ideally it would be femslashy.)
Femslashy is exactly what I had in mind. *glees*

I also like the observation that the Witch-Queen's hubris (much like the Witch-King's) comes from her neglect of the possibility of a woman like Éowyn existing.

We sure didn't see a whole lot of women like Eowyn existing in Tolkien's world. No wonder the Witch-King-Queen was surprised.

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

Bookmarked and saved. Thanks for the tip! :)

[just-ann-now.livejournal.com]

My pleasure! *bows*