[Saxony Tarn]

Nar, that comment about Lorien and peril was deep, and all i can say is, great minds think alike. It'll be interesting to see how you interpret some of the levels that extrapolated themselves in my story as you read on, and i'm looking forward to it!! (having a little thread developing in my guestbook or something)

w/ regards to the squire, Lila, i vote you go w/ Nar's assessment -- as i'd have probably told you the same thing!

w/ regards to characters becoming beauty as they develop, i found the best example of this in a graphic novel (the Incal, Moebius was the artist, i can't recall the writer's name at present) and the main character was drawn fairer or uglier according to his actions at the time (high-minded & noble or base & immoral) -- symbolically, i found it extremely effective. With kudos to PJ & crew, i noticed the same effect in the movie w/ regards to a certain painfully human member of the Fellowship (when he went after Frodo in that rage, he really got UGLY)

oh, and we've started a good one about faith and magic, so let me toss in a quote from the tale i mentioned in an earlier post with my garage-band rock group caught up in a pre-Armageddon war-game exercise:

"My faith predisposes me to believe in magic" (says Kameron Schiller, leader of the band, in an interview somewhere in the book) "and my magic draws its strength from my beliefs. So when I see my best friend gleefully singing away to the eight-headed monster that he can't see perched over the drum kit but I clearly can, you'll understand why I get just a little bit nervous..."

|_|) <-- but as long as he's drunk, he can convince the beast that it's a figment of his imagination, and it leaves him alone. When he sobers up and it's still there, then he has to deal with it. "Ady, buddy, pal, comrade, about this new lyric of yours -- we need to talk..."

s.t.