#númenórean

[fixing-bad-posts]

ELF ME

[anghraine]

cressida-jayoungr replied to this post:

Wait, what's this about squirrels? That's one I haven't run across!

It's one of the many factoids from Tolkien's essay on Númenor in The Nature of Middle-earth! He talks about gender and relationships with animals there:

they [Númenórean women] were generally nearer to men than is the case with most races in stature and strength, and were agile and fleet of foot in youth. Their great delight was in dancing (in which many men also took part) at feasts or in leisure time ... But nearly all women could ride horses, treating them honourably, and housing them more nobly than any other of their domestic animals. The stables of a great man were often as large and as fair to look upon as his own house. Both men and women rode horses for pleasure ... and in ceremony of state both men and women of rank, even queens, would ride, on horseback amid their escorts or retinues ... The Númenóreans trained their horses to hear and understand calls (by voice or whistling) from great distances; and also, where there was great love between men or women and their favorite steeds, they could (or so it is said in ancient tales) summon them at need by their thought alone. So it was also with their dogs. For the Númenóreans kept dogs, especially in the country, partly by ancestral tradition, since they had few useful purposes any longer ... It was men rather than women who had a liking to keep dogs as "friends". Women loved more the wild (or "unowned") birds and beasts, and they were especially fond of squirrels, of which there were great numbers in the wooded country. ...The woods of Númenor abounded in squirrels, mostly red, but some dark brown or black. These were all unafraid, and readily tamed. The women of Númenor were specially fond of them. Often they would live in trees near a homestead, and would come when invited into the house. (NOME 325-326, 335-6)

Conclusion: a) Númenóreans were, as a people, significantly larger than other humans, b) Númenórean women were more similar in size and strength to the men of their people than is usual among humans, and c) these gigantic women liked to befriend normal squirrels.

[sauronnaise]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

—Eru Ilúvatar, whenever something happens.

[thefashbasher]

aldarion and erendis meeting for the first time

[brynnmclean]

Went sailing this morning, hoping the wind and the water will fix me!

[insufficient-earth-skills]

Númenórean colours: blue, red and gold (aka the colours of statecraft and the court of Armenelos.)

Part 6 in a series on the colours of Númenór.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bonus: the younger generation of apprentices and cadets in orange and blue.

[coffees-rainy-days]

Okay, after this massive disaster a.k.a. Amazon’s The Rings of Power, and 8 episodes of torture and boredom, I have finally figured out a way of making the pain sufferable. Kinda.

So, does anybody remember CATS 2019? Yeah, I'm in pain, too. BUT, some person (bless their genius) wrote a fanfic about a cat from the original universe who was magically transported into the absolutely ridiculous CATS 2019 universe. I haven’t laughed so much in ages.

Now, we need the same thing for RoP: 

Imagine, our Sauron working out his ingenious Annatar ploy and finally being ready to "befriend" the Elves in Eregion, only to end up in a place where his glorious waving long hair (into which he's put a lot of effort) seems to be completely behind the times, the famous lady Galadriel reminds him of toddler-Glaurung having a temper tantrum (frankly, Sauron still has no idea how Melkor has kept that beast from burning Angband to the ground) rather than one of the wisest and fairest beings around, and Celebrimbor (in his opinion the hottest Fëanorian to ever walk the Earth) turns out to look like what Men of later Ages call a Palpatine. Whatever a Palpatine is, attractive is not one of those things. So much for seducing Celebrimbor into his cause. 

And then, as if that hasn't been enough already, Sauron runs into some guy named Halbrand, who claims to be him. Please, as if he'd ever grow one of those obsolete beards! Not to mention that bearded Sauron seems to have something going on with Galadriel the Not So Wise. What happened to Celeborn, even he knows of that marriage?!?

And the Númenóreans seem, rather than to worship Melkor (also technically his personal effort), believe in the fact that the sea is always right. Is that Ulmo? Or Ossë? Do they even know Ossë?

Anyway, just a very confused Annatar/Sauron in an Arda that somebody ordered from Wish having one hell of a ride.

[nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui]

ppl keep talking about how the Amazon show can’t mention Feanor and the Silmarilli bc they don’t have the rights to the Silmarillion (only to the LotR appendices) as if Appendix A didn’t namedrop Feanor on the very first page like

What the hell are you talking about. What LotR appendices were you reading.

[bilbo-babe]

Númenor - the Kingdom of Men

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"THE MIGHT OF THE ELVES WAS STILL GREAT IN THOSE DAYS, AND THE NÚMENÓREANS... TERRIBLE IN THEIR WRATH."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the War of the Last Alliance, or more specifically, the Battle of Dagorlad, as depicted in the killer (yet still heavily abridged) prologue to "The Lord of the Rings" (2001), directed by Peter Jackson. New Line Cinema.

"Sauron gathered to him great strength of his servants out of the East and the South; and among them were not a few of the high race of Númenor.... But because of the power of Gil-galad these renegades, lords both mighty and evil, for the most part took up their abodes in the southlands far away; yet two there were, Herumor and Fuinur, who rose to power among the Haradrim, a great and cruel people that dwelt in the wide lands south of Mordor..."

-- "The Silmarillion," "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age," by J.R.R. Tolkien

Learn more about the Battle of Dagorlad here: http://www.henneth-annun.net/events_view.cfm?evid=12.

[anghraine]

Sparing a moment from BG3 to think about how nerve-wracking it must have been for Faramir to turn back and ride towards five Ringwraiths. I mean, yes, it was an incredibly cool thing to do, but also an incredibly frightening thing to do.

And it's not just an extrapolation—Pippin can tell he's been through the terror wringer and mastered it, just as one of a crowd seeing Faramir go by.

I think it's pretty important to his character that it's not that his specialness lies in not feeling the things anyone else would feel, tbh. I've argued before that he pretty clearly is tempted by the Ring in TTT for a moment, and his decision not to take it is bolstered by his previous promise (even though he didn't know he was talking about the One Ring when he made it). He's not uniquely immune and he takes care to keep it away from himself to avoid further temptation.

And he is scared of the Ringwraiths. Very scared, in fact. He just couldn't do what he felt he had to do without clawing his way through the terror and coming around the other side. And I do think that's a lot more impressive.

[verecunda]

Proving that Age of Sail brainrot is of a very specific, enduring kind: I burst out laughing at Elendil saying he’d been promoted to post-captain. He’s been made post!! He’s on the List!! You go, Elendil, just manage to stay alive and you’ll be an admiral some day. :DD

Yes, that was my main take-away from this episode. XD

I don’t know why I find this so funny, but I do. A fandom collision kind of thing: Aubreyad meets Middle-earth. Can we get a whole spin-off about the Númenórean navy - captains having to hang about the waiting-rooms of the Admiralty in Armenelos to beg for a command, being deeply miffed when peace breaks out with the Men of Middle-earth because then they’re all back on half-pay... and of course, prize-money *___*

[morwensteelsheen]

Also - I’m really obsessed with Harad lately and I’m trying to sketch out some internal politics to use across my writing. Just some thoughts for anyone who might be interested:

Sometime after the year 1250 of the Third Age, Rómendacil, nineteenth King of Gondor, sent his son Valacar north to act as an emissary to the King of Rhovanion. The King of Rhovanion was what could generously be called a tenuous title - the Northmen had rarely had permanent settlements, and tended to smaller nomadic groups rather than singular kingdoms. Nevertheless, one prince, Vidugavia, had taken to calling himself the King of Rhovanion, and after the substantial aid he supplied to Gondor in her fight against the Easterlings, his claim could not be casually dismissed. Valacar was therefore sent north, and there met and wed Vidugavia’s daughter Vidumavi, who bore him a son, named Eldacar.

Theoretically, no problem, except that the Northmen had never travelled to Númenor, did not participate in the war against Morgoth, and were therefore not availed of a longer lifespan. Upon Valacar’s return to Gondor and his ascension to the throne, there was much worry about the lesser blood status of his wife and son, and fear that the lengthened lifespan of the Kings of Gondor would be lessened by this blood mixing (yup).

When Valacar died and Eldacar prepared to take the throne, full blown civil war broke out. This is known as the Kin-strife. Eldacar, who dwelt in Osgiliath, was chased out of the city and kingdom (fleeing to Rhovanion), and a man named Castamir took the throne, executing Eldacar’s son.

Eventually Eldacar retook control of Gondor and had Castamir put to death, but Castamir’s sons successfully fled to Umbar, making that city a safe haven for all enemies of the King of Gondor.

By 2885 of the Third Age, Umbar - though ostensibly an independent city-state - supported Harad’s claim over the Gondorian realm of Harondor, which had at least once been named a land under dual claim between Gondor and Umbar. This, combined with other military allegiances between the Corsairs and the Haradrim, suggests an especially close relationship, and any extant divisions would have certainly been even more blurred by the time Sauron claimed dominion over them both.

So - we know that Castamir’s sons were instrumental in setting up Umbar as an antagonist to Gondor, but we don’t know how many sons Castamir had or if they all remained in Umbar.

We also know a few other things:

Castamir’s great-grandsons named themselves using Quenya (Sangahyando and Angamaitë) - this doesn’t imply a popular Umbarian usage of Quenya, but does suggest that Quenya itself was not a shunned language in Umbar, at least in TA 1630.

Gandalf’s name in Near Harad was Incánus, which was, despite several changes in gloss, almost always marked out by Tolkien as a Quenya term. So the Haradrim were also using variants of Quenya in the Third Age - which makes sense, because the Haradrim were actually colonised and oppressed by the Númenóreans in and after the reign of Tar-Ciryatan.

Given all that, I suggest the following recent history for Harad:

After the fall of the last descendants of Castamir in TA 1810, the tribes of Harad were dispersed, largely leaderless and prone to violent conflict with one another. Although there were myriad groups with myriad political allegiances and traditions, most could be grouped into one of two meta-traditions.

The first, comprising those tribes who were dominated by descendants of the Black Númenóreans and the Castamirionath, situated their opposition to Gondor in terms of the illegitimacy of its rulership. They hold that Eldacar’s return was illegitimate (as Castamir was the rightful king), and therefore all of Eldacar’s descendants, and the Ruling Stewards as empowered by Pelendur (through heritability), were false kings. Their interest lays in reunifying and strengthening Harad to reclaim Gondor and instal the rightful line of Kings.

The second, comprising those tribes of the “original” Haradrim - those who came direct from Hildórien and never continued to Númenor - who were suppressed during the rule of the Black Númenóreans and later during the rule of Castamir’s sons, have historically had no interest in the unification of Harad, and no interest in paying fealty to those who seek to invade and “reclaim” Gondor. Their hatred of Gondor is situated in their profound distaste of the Númenórean descendants as, essentially, imperialists and colonisers.

In TA 2036, they were all forcibly unified under one ruler, who invoked the name of Castamir and violently suppressed those tribes who opposed him. For eight hundred years the various tributes of Harad existed in something approaching peace, though it was a peace enforced with whips and chains. After the Battle of the Crossings of Poros in TA2885, the Castamiric rulers lost control of several substantial parts of Far Harad, and tightened their grip on the rest of Near Harad.

Ten years before the Ring War, a prince of the tribes of Far Harad began to declare that all the ills of the Haradrim were the ills of Númenor, that Gondor, as its heir, was a craven den of immorality, cruelty, and tyranny. He began to siphon off the tribes of Near Harad, turning those who supported the memory of Castamir against those who did not. In attempt to bring the Far Haradi tribesmen in line, the chieftain of the Near Haradi tribes (the Castamirite) sent his youngest child, a daughter away to marry the Far Haradi firebrand.

During the Ring War, they were effectively unified under Sauron’s banner - the Near Haradrim having been promised dominion over Gondor, and the Far Haradrim having been promised liberation from Near Harad. They were each handily defeated during the War, leaving Harad in ruination.

The sole son and heir of the Near Haradi leader died at the Pelennor Fields, leaving the Near Haradi Castarmirites without a future ruler. His daughter’s son would, therefore, be heir to both tribes, effectively forcing reunification. But her husband laid siege to her father’s lands, leaving Far Harad open to attack by the even more easterly Variags, who were pushed west by devastating droughts in the east.

And that, I think, basically gets me to the years that I’m interested in writing about.

[brynnmclean]

THE most petty pet peeve of mine currently-- when people whine about incorrect lore and/or get on their high horses about it for ROP AND YET consistently do not spell Númenóreans properly.

[catsvrsdogscatswin]

Underutilized bit in LOTR, I feel, is how deeply out of his depth Boromir is within the Fellowship.

And by that I don't mean that he's the weakest or the stupidest or any of that, but rather that –against all appearances– he is the sole member of the Fellowship who is a Regular Normal Human, and he would have such a shocker slowly figuring all that out over the course of their journey. I mean:

Age. Legolas and Gimli wouldn't surprise him, since the lifespan of elves and dwarves seems commonly known to be way longer than humans, but Gandalf? The hobbits? None of these ages work as advertised and when he goes down to sit and commiserate with Aragorn about being the only Men in the company and how weird this all must be for them both Aragorn has to cough into his fist and mutter "Eighty-seven." "WHAT?!" (Yes, I know that Gondor keeps records of their Númenórean ancestors and said ancestors' extended lifespans, but consider this: the blood has thinned so much in Gondor that practically nobody lives longer than regular humans nowadays, and Boromir is canonically the jock in a family of scholars. He had to look up what/where Rivendell was after he got Faramir's Prophecy Dream, for god's sake.)

Bilbo. The entire Fellowship except Boromir has a personal relationship with Bilbo, and Boromir has neither seen nor heard of this creature in his life. Everyone else is starting off this quest with significant background knowledge of Bilbo's life and The Hobbit, whether having been told by Bilbo himself or having had family members personally involved at the time it occurred, and Boromir, again, has no clue what they're all on about.

Moria. Dwarves presumably have some built-in sensory adaptions for living underground, elf eye physics are bullshit, hobbits are stated to be far more comfortable/better navigating underground than most races, Gandalf is an Istar, and Aragorn has been hunting and tracking in various ungodly locations for most of his eighty-seven years. This means that, once again, Boromir is the only Normal Person trying to Normally Navigate a mostly-pitch-black cave system while everyone else side-eyes him for bumping into walls all the time.

Elves can sleep with their eyes open. This is admittedly not the most common thing among the Fellowship, but please imagine Boromir, still struggling to understand the fact that he's surrounded by nonhuman beings who have no shared concept of the passing of time, rolling over at 2AM to see Legolas bluescreening contentedly up at the sky, and then everyone acts like he's the weird one when he starts freaking out about it because all of them are used to traveling with/know more about elves than he does.

Even just remembering stuff off the top of my head, Boromir must have had such a weird time adjusting to being the only normal human being among the Fellowship before he, y'know. Died.

(Plus I can totally imagine Merry and Pippin giving him shit for "Well, if you're the only normal one amongst nearly a dozen people, then that's not very 'normal', is it? Maybe Men are the odd ones out and everybody else is normal.")