Fate Touched 25 backup
Added 2024-09-26 04:17:09 +0000 UTCI am not J.R.R Tolkien. I would never aspire to
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Here's my changes to Estel's thoughts on Numenor, guys: Hooded gazes they were, which saw the world around them through the lens of harsh experience, experience which had not broken them nor their ancestors. Proud they were, these men of the north and Estel knew they had a right to be so. Not just because they were descendants of Númenor, or Arnor, the northern kingdom created by Elendil himself and the three kingdoms Arnor was eventually broken into, but because of what they had, as a people, survived since the fall of those kingdoms during the wars with Angmar. Indeed, in reading the history of his folk, Estel often felt that their decline and fall could be told in three parts, all equally tragic. The first was simply a tail of man’s arrogance and slow decline. Long, long before the actual destruction of Númenor, it’s people had begun to turn away from the Valar, a process that had, it was felt, had begun in the ashes of the victory of Gil-Galad and King Tar-Minastir in the first war against Sauron in the Second Age. It was in defeating the fallen Maiar that the Númenóreans began to be arrogant, wishing to settle new lands. Instead of accepting the Gift of Men, they longed for eternal life like the Firstborn. Slowly, the Númenóreans turned their backs on the Valar, and even their relationship with the elves, their kings ceasing to take Quenya names. So the Númenóreans slowly split into two camps, the King’s Men, and the Faithful who retained their faith in the Valar and friendship with the folk of Gil-Galad. Second would be the ultimate fall of Númenor, which began before Ilúvatar actually sank the island. No, that fall began when Ar-Pharazôn usurped the kingship, captured Sauron and brought him back to Númenor. A mighty captain of men on land and at sea, Ar-Pharazôn had already claimed the kingship through evil means. The former king Tar Palantir had attempted to turn back the tide of his people’s slide into corruption and away from the Valar. He failed, and Ar-Pharazôn, his nephew, took his cousin as wife against her will. He then turned back the former king’s reforms, and returned to Middle Earth, capturing Sauron after forcing his armies to flee from the might of Númenor’s army. Sauron had realized he could not win through main force, and decided to use guile, as he had often before. His whisper’s in the Golden King’s ears poisoned his mind entirely against the Valar. So bad was it that Sauron convinced him that Ilúvatar was not real, a lie of the Valar, and that Melkor was the true God of the world. In this way, the Númenóreans who were not among the persecuted Faithful began to worship Morgoth and their religious practices soon included human sacrifice. The white tree, Nimloth, symbol of the royal family and the connecting to the elves and Valar both, was cut down, and all access to the holy mountain, Meneltarma, where of old the eagles of the Valar would come to roost, was closed. If not for Isildur, the last remaining connection to Telperion of the Two Trees of Aman, would have been lost. It was only due to his courage that a fruit of the tree survived, which was not the least but certainly not the greatest of Isildur’s deads. Only after Nimloth was cut down did Sauron convince an aging Ar-Pharazôn to launch a full attack on Aman. Since when Manwë asked the Creator for aid, as the Valar could not wage war on Men at Ilúvatar’s commands, he was wroth. Similar to his decree that the Valar could not war against Men, so too had Ilúvatar ordered that no force of mortal men could come to Aman. At Ilúvatar’s anger the seas rose, and both island and Ar-Pharazôn’s fleet was destroyed.
vimesenthusiast
2024-09-27 17:49:41 +0000 UTCSome good points there, I'm sure you're right about Estel/Ensel, I just wanted to bring it to attention. As far as Numenor is concerned I'm sure you're right about everyday inhabitants but Estel/Aragorn was educated in Rivendell & I'm sure he would have been made aware of the long complex history of Numenor & The Fall, not least because of Elronds history with it.
Peter Rubinstein
2024-09-26 12:33:21 +0000 UTCThe Estel thing is probably an auto correct that wasn't caught, since I'm pretty sure it was Estel in previous chapters. The fall of Numenor thing is an interesting one I think, because I agree with you about the fact that it is a long, drawn out process, but I would argue that all the events mentioned culminate in the fall, and aren't necessarily part of the event called the fall, since I believe most regular people living in Middle Earth would call only the reign of Ar Pharazon and his actions that lead directly into Numenor's destruction "The Fall of Numenor". We have the luxury of seeing everything from the outside, but we have to remember what these characters might know or believe is different then what we know and have read. And to take a real life example, most people think of the Fall of Rome as the last ten or so years that end with the destruction of the Western Roman Empire, but any historian would tell you that there were a series of events going back 150 years that all end up culminating in Rome's Fall, and I think that is a pretty good parallel with Numenor, and it's fall.
Owen Mendelaar
2024-09-26 11:41:30 +0000 UTCHi, much as i enjoy this story there are frequently a few basic mistakes in Tolkien lore. For example Aragorn's name is Estel not Ensel. The Fall of Numenor was a gradual process & started a long time before Ar-Pharazon. It became clear with Tar-Atanamir who denounce the ban of the Valar, his successor Tar Ancalimon saw the formation of the King's Men & The Faithful and then with Ar-Belzegar who was the first King who went by his Adunaic name. It gradually got worse, despite the attempt of Tar Palantir to reverse the process, & then with his death was when Ar Pharazon became King seizing the crown from the true Queen, his cousin, Tar Miriel & forcing her to marry him to give him some legitimacy. Pharazon was the culmination of a 1500 years or so development, it didn't start with him. Having said that I do thoroughly enjoy the story, just as a Tolkien fanatic I do like to point out mistakes when made.
Peter Rubinstein
2024-09-26 11:20:56 +0000 UTC
