The Bitter Gift of Compassion

by Soledad

Chapter 4: Learning Curve

(Author’s reflections upon the added Chapter 3 of ’’The Bitter Gift of Compassion’’.)

First and foremost let me tell you how grateful I am for all the positive feedback I have received from you. It is highly appreciated.

And yet, I can’t help being sorely disappointed, for I have come to the conclusion that – in spite of my best efforts – I most obviously failed to bring over the very ’’message’’ (yes, this story actually had one) the whole scene was added for.

And that, exactly, had been the reason why I hesitated for a while to post the scene at all. It was written for some time before I decided to risk posting it, and in the aftermath I think I probably shouldn’t have.

There were three reasons why I wrote this particular scene – at least one of which seems to have gone totally unnoticed. Unfortunaltely, that was the most important one, and since I was unable to deliver it indirectly (which says much about my writing abilities, I’m afraid), I feel the need to point it out more blatantly.

First, I wanted to show what Elladan had seen in Boromir. After all, he dragged the man in his bed after they had know each other for less than an hour – and ended up in undying love with him, after a few weeks only, most of which they were even separated (and mad at each other). This was the part that actually seems to have got through.

On the other hand, I wanted to correct a potential misinterpretation of what had been said in Chapter Two: that Boromir would have led a virgin’s life previously to his meeting with Elladan. I never literally stated that, nor did I ever belive such a thing, despite his unfulfilled (and forbidden) love for his brother.

They say, no man is monogamous during wartime. And Boromir, a strong, virile man in his best years, knew nothing else in all his adult life. I wanted him as far as possible removed from that ’’crazed sex machine/ mad rapist/ mad villain’’ image that keeps popping up on this site, but I also wanted him to be a very real person, of flesh and blood, with very real needs and faults.

So I decided to give a few glimpses of how his life might have been before he met Elladan. I also wanted to show the back side of Gondor’s bravery that Boromir so proudly would refere to at Elrond’s Council – what constant warfare could do to people, especially to women, whose potential mates keep falling in battle.

I could have written long and whiny flashback scenes with feministic overtones that would stand out of the context like a sore thumb; or I could have written long, boring dialogues where Boromir is whining to someone about the same topic, for, in my imagination he is a very compassionate man. That is what makes him such a good match for Elladan, who certainly does have his own demons to fight.

Instead, I chose to write a sexually intense scene and let Boromir’s past encounters shoot through his memory, compared with the first truly satisfying situation at hand (hand being relative, of course), which he considered an unexpected gift he would not deserve.

I wanted to draw a very dark picture, that shows, without making too many words or getting overly pathetic about the whole topic, that no matter how justified the case and how necessary the fight is, war is never glorious.

Not for the footfolk or the civilians, anyway.

But not for the soldiers, either.

Not even for the rulers of armies, no matter what they might believe.

War is horrible and inhuman, and it cripples every one who gets touched by it. Some wounds are more visible, like a missing limb, some are in the inside, but they are there, nonetheless.

When Boromir says at the Council:

’’By the blood of my people are your lands kept safe!’’, it is a very real thing – and not only for the soldiers. All people in Gondor had paid the price of the safety of other lands.

But more than anything else I wanted to portray Boromir as a soldier. Not a warrior, who chooses his own fights, but a soldier, who goes where he is sent. He might be the Captain-general of Gondor’s forces, he might be the Heir of the Steward of Minas Tirith, but ultimately, he is a soldier.

One who spent most of his adult life on various battlefields, following the orders of his father.

A ruler, who shares the life of his Mens and knows the horrors of war from first-hand experience.

One who learnt long ago, that on the battlefield only the basic needs still do exist – and that satisfying them might be the only way to survive one more day among all those terrors.

And as a true leader, he is willing to give his Men – and himself – what they need.

But as their leader, he never had the luxury to take. To accept the same comfort he was giving others. This is his only choice to lay down his responsibilities and let himself go, to give in to all that pent-up passion and desire that had been surpressed too long.

And Elladan understands this perfectly.

As Deborah pointed out to me, however, there is a diversity in how they see their encounter. Elladan interprets it as a start from something new and wonderful – and, having found his soul-mate after three thousand years of searching, for him, it’s probably true, even if his affections are only partially requited – for the time being, anyway.

For Boromir, it is also an end. He allowed himself to surrender control in this narrow frame of time, to someone who is neither his Lord, nor his subject, but once he leaves Rivendell, he would never do such a thing again.

In the outside Word, he’ll have to be the strong one again. He is a born ruler, no matter how legally justified Aragorn’s claim is.

He doesn’t care for the quest, not really. He only cares for his land and his people, who had already suffered enough.

That is his strength.

And that is, also, his greatest weakness.

Unfortunately, almost nothing from all this seems to have come through, or else I wouldn’t be writing this lengthy and boring essay now. For a while I was seriously tempted to delete the whole chapter, and were it not so important for character development and as the fuel for later events, I’d still do it.

Retrospectively, I regret having it written in the frame of a sex scene, no mater how well the dramatic effects seemed to work. At the end, I have lost more than I have gained, for the context had clearly overshadowed the true reason for writing the scene at all.

And when that’s so, it is my fault and my failure.

That is exactly why I usually keep things under the PG-13 limit, and that is what I intend to do in the future.

Thanks again to those who took the time to put up a constructive review – and don’t worry, I will not write an essay to all my stories.

This is something, however, I simply had to say.

Lots of love,

Soledad