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thekingofwinterblog · 3 months

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What were the "High Men" of Numenorians really? A Tolkien Theory

In the two towers, Faramir gives an overview of how the Gondorians measure the different "races' of men, High men(themselves, that is to say the Edain), the men of twilight/middle men(men who were related to the Edain, but didnt go to Valinor during the migration after the war of wrath) and the men of Darkness(Everyone else why by their definition must have served Morgoth.

There are a lot of problems with this catagorization of men.

The DruEdain that Gan-buri-ghan belongs to is, as the name implies amongst the High Men, for their ancestors joined the trip to Numenor and was presumably blessed with all the same gifts as the rest, before much later, seeing which way the wind was blowing, left back to join the kin on the mainland, and mixing with them, creating thw modern Druedain, who presumably still have all the same blessings as the numenorians, even if they long ago forgot much of the arts and lore they learned in Numenor.

This very close ethnic and cultural connection is forgotten by both Dunedain and Druedain, but they are far, far closer than any other people of numenorean connections, other than maybe the Black Numenorians.

Sinilarily, the accusation that anyone not related to the Edain are "Men of Darkness" who served Morgoth is blantantly false, as the Dunlendings fit neither criteria.

And finally the middle men is very much played loose with, as while there is a distant, distant relation between the Gondorians and the Rohirrim, it's way, way more distant than the Gondorians make it out to be.

However, while very, very faulty, there is one bit of truth to this artificial catagorization of how "important" people are deemed to be.

Namely that the Numenoreans were and still ARE different than other men.

The different peoples of the Edain, that mixed together on their new island to form the new ethnicity of Numenoreans(with only the Druedain remaining apart from the rest, despite there no doubt being intermarriages through the years) blessed with a masaive, stupidly tall height, enormous lifespans, a natural capacity for creating magical marvels unseen in any other race of men, and when they started out, a distinct non fear of death.

All of these are said to have been a direct blessing from Eonwe, Manwe's herald who defeated Morgoth at the end of the War of Wrath.

This is very much historical fact in Middle earth.

The Numenorians for their part was blessed with amazing capacity, and they got the island kingdom of Numenor raised from the bottom of the sea for them to live on as a reward for their loyalty.

It was certainpy not a paradise, as the men of Numenor were capable of misdeeds, anger and all the other bad sides of the human condition, long before they came back to middle earth, but there is also no denying that just on a mental level, during that early period the Numenorians had become something... Very different in temperment. More like the Elves mayhaps, and yet not quite, for they accepted that they had to die in those early days, and they knew when it came, and so got their affairs in order before time was up.

There was no mentions of massive civil wars or internal conflicts during that first period, instead they seemed to have gotten along incredibly well on the island, on the same level as the early Elves before war and kinstrife, or maybe even like the hobbits of the shire.

Not perfect maybe, but as close as one can reasonably have it on earth.

Then that began to change as the centuries moved past, and especially as they made contact eith the outside world again, upon which they once more began to grow leaner and meaner, and the fear of natural death began to creep back in.

What i find most interesting aboyt this though, is that their blessed powers began to wane... Not because they interbred together with the "lesser" men of middle earth, but rather because they began to decline as Numenoreans become mroe wicked and cruel.

In other words, the blessings were interconnected with the people who carried them being good people. It had nothing to do with race itself, though that is how the numenorian percieved it.

And we see this as Numenor fell, as the two different kingdoms went very different ways.

The Dunedain of Arnor eventually split into 3 distinct groups, but it's very telling that the bulk of the nation's numenorians, the people who made up the successor state of arthedain, and who would be the only survivers of the kingdom in the form of the rangers from the North, whom would eventually spawn Aragorn, are NOT "Pure blooded" numenorians, for all 3 of the Dunedain groups that made of Arnor's 3 successor states intermingled and mixed together with their respective native populations of Eriador, "Middle men" all.

And yet only Arthedain, who managed to keep the nobility of early Numenor alive, did they retain their enormous lifespans, they still had great capacity for magic both in healing and smith crafting that far surpassed Gondor, and their kings very much had that old supernatural force of will that Gondor's Kings eventually lost, which Aragorn would showcase many times during the course of Lotr.

This was best shown as the great plague ravished the entirety of western middle earth... Only for the Dunedain of Arthedain to stand left as the only kingdom the plague didnt really seem to get any sort of foothold inside.

Clearly the old blessings of long life and health had a massive hold yet in Arthedain, while it smashed through the other two successor states as well as Gondor.

Meanwhile, Gondor managed to retain a lot of those old Numenorian blessings, if nowhere near as well as Arthedain.

The Numenorians blamed the fact that many of their clans were losing these blessings, slowly but surely, on their bloolines becomingless "pure".

There is some truth to that... In the sense that once a family lost their noble character, their blessings did indeed begin to wane, and it would rarely return, except maybe if one intermarried with someone who had the blessings still.

The ultimate example of the fact that it was character, NOT race that determined wheter the Nomenorians would keep their inborn gifts, is showcased nowhere as clearly as with King Eldacar, who was the result of his father's marriage to a northern "barbarian" princess.

This marriage outside of Numenorian nobility would cause a horrible civil war that slaughtered a huge part of the numenorean nobility, but by all accounts Eldacar was as blessed as every other king who came before him, despite only being half numenorean. His father and(presumably) his mother were of good character, and so was he, and he lived for a whooping 235 years, proving that the idea of the Numenoreans blessings weaking because of intermarrying with "lesser" peoples were complete nonsense.

No, the Gondorians numenorean gifts would decline for a variety of reasons(the kinstrife wiping out a huge percentage of the numenorean descendant population, their genocidal actions against the men of Rhun during eastern campaigns, and them losing sight of their own living relations in favor of their ancestors), but intermarrying with the non gondorians of their realm was not one of them.

So with all of this in mind, we have established how the Numenorean's divinely granted gifts work.

With this in mind, what exactly the high men of numenor were are self explanatory. They are(or at least their ancestors were) divinely blessed bloodlines who managed to keep that spark of nobility that the Herald of Manwe managed to impart to the Edain, and so retained the gifts that the Valar bestowed upon them.

Case closed. Or it would be, if not for one, single conversation from from the first age, between and elf and a human woman.

In the book "Morgoth's Ring" we get the debate of Finrod and Andreth, where we get our one, and only glimpse into what Mankind was when they first awakened to the world. Before the fall. before the corruption of Morgoth twisted the entire race. before the first sin.

The debate is between Finrod, that famous king of Nargothrond, and Andreth, a Human wisewoman who knows some human lore of the first days of man, which Elves know not of.

And here we learn a lot.

We learn that Humanity at it's beginning, used to be greater, stronger, completely unafraid of death, seems to have had very long life(described as immortality, though that is probably just because none of the early pre corruption humans lived long enough in that state to die of old age), lacking fear and hatred, and with a capacity for creation that far, far surpassed even the elves and maybe even the Valar themselves, as they would surpass the vision that the Valar had been shown of the world's future during those first sets of music.

Fingon who has been blessed with the gift of sight, even managed to see what Humankind's purpose in the world was supposed to be. Namely healing Arda, that is to say undoing, or at least halting and stopping the marring of Arda, the process which Moegoth used to infuse the essence of Evil into every bit of the world.

In other words, preventing the decline of magic and wonders that would pass on as the ages moved on, only to meet it's final ending at the beginning of the fourth age when wonder and sorcery began the the road to being snuffed out once and for all.

The age of man was always going to supplant the age of the elves, but as Eru Illuvatar originally intended it, it was not necessarily meant to be a literal supplanting, where Elves were doomed to either leave for Valinor forever, or begin to eventually fade away in physical form due to the Marring of Arda.

Now, we dont know the exact details of what derailed this vision of the future, other than the fact that Morgoth corrupted the entire Human race and made them acknowledge him as God, and in the end, by rejecting Eru, they lost that incredible potential.

But lets go over what we know of unspoiled Humans.

They were stronger, their spirits greater, their capacity for creation surpassed everyone else, they were untouched by(but not immune to) the corrupting influences of Morgoth in a way that elves are not, they did not fear death, had long lives, and it was their destiny to become masters of the world.

Now this might just be me... But this sounds a LOT like like early Numenor.

The very long lives, the non fear of natural death, the greater strength and spirit compared to other men, the unmatched capacity for creation and making of wonders, somehow lacking a lot of the darker aspects of humanity, even if they are not non-existent, and a natural destiny to fight sauron and bring greatness to the world.

My theory then is this.

The blessing's Eonwe gave the Numenorians, were not so much a boon granted to them and them alone, as it was given them the capacity to reclaim their birthright. The birthright of ALL of humanity.

A birthright that was stolen from them, and yet at this point could seemingly still return, and if things went well, maybe Eru's original plan might play out yet in some form(though wheter or not that was Eonwe's intent or not who can say).

If so, the Numenoreans intended destiny in the second age, was to defeat sauron and the rest of Morgoth's forces, somehow halt the long defeat that was the marring of Arda, and begin a slow reversal of the corruption of man, the relaiming of the entire race's birthright, as they willingly shared their gifts, their technology and lore with the rest of the world, and and ushering in the Age of man, not as a heralding that the age of all otgers were over, but that it was time for mankind to spread it's wings and lead the way.

If that truly was the case, then that is certainly how it began. But alas, that was not how it ended.

The fall of Numenor, and the bending of the world signaled that one way or another, there was no turning back.

The poamssibility of an age of magic and wonders as Humanity took dominion of the world died with the great island.

Any true healing for the Marring of Arda would now need to wait until the end of the world, after which it would be remade withouth Melkor's influence.

However, there is one, final note i want to end on.

Because there is one people amongst the race of man, that seems to have avoided the shadow of Morgoth, and been untouched by the darkness that swalled the rest of the race.

That of course being the hobbits. The hobbits fit almost all of the traits seen amongst pre corruption humans, other than great strength and capacity for grand creations.

They lack a lot of the inborn brutal nature of the rest of mankind, even if it's not completely non existence, they are not immune to the corrupting shadow, but it lacks the natural bite it has on bigger humans, or the allways there pressure it has on elves. They have a remarkably relaxed attitude to the idea of their own natural deaths, they live relaticely long lives, and has a surprising apptitude dor courage in the face of adversity, and capacity for pushing through hardships and pain, and they have a natural kindness and love of peace about them, almost unseen anywhere else amongst the rest of the known race and peoples of men... Other than that brief moment of early numenoreans, before they let fear and greed seep back in.

#tolkien's legendarium #j r r tolkien #the silmarillion #lord of the rings #the hobbit #man #mankind #humanity #meta #elves #morgoth #first sin #corruption #numenoreans #theory

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