…I am, affected, by the knowledge that Elros almost certainly had the same kind of foresight Elrond had and that many Numenoreans down to Aragorn and Gilraen and Denethor and Faramir had, and probably did not in fact get to die blissfully clueless and untroubled by the future *_*
whyyy you made it so much worse :(((( What I had been just thinking was, he would have, some distinct worries? premonitions that there would SOME kind of trouble at some point in the future, stuff that wouldn’t necessarily be 100% a supernatural power but could mostly come from a smart guy putting 2 and 2 together about the issues about numenor’s/the numenoreans’ placement and form, and predicting that it was very likely to cause some kind of problems at some point…but still mostly at peace and trusting that whatever problems would come, his people would be able to handle them… >_>
BUT NOW I HAVE THE MUCH MORE HORRIBLE POSSIBILITY OF ACTUAL PROPHETIC DREAMS. THANKS.
I believe the closest implication that Elros did die at peace is actually just a vague implication that he died when he was tired of life, which suggests Aragorn’s death scene but doesn’t actually say anything about whether that was in fact all there was to it. From the UT: “he retained the chief characteristic of Men as opposed to the
Quendi: the “seeking else-whither,” as the Eldar called it, the “weariness” or
desire to depart from the world.” Which, like every fucking thing in the text about Elros, is utterly nondescript (Tolkien why) and can mean just about anything so I can’t even, like, argue against this.Anyway 1) YES THAT FIC NEEDS WRITING 2) God that is a great idea about what the Faithful might think about any surviving knowledge of any of that foresight if it occurred (also yes, good that this suggests he didn’t have any such strong premonitions because it makes me too sad even though I really want a fic about it now), and 3) okay that is the BEST idea about the parallels between the teleri + the sea and the numenoreans + the sea. Also stuff like, Uinen and Ossë’s relationship with both the Teleri and the Numenoreans…quite different in practice yet similar in spirit.
Honestly though I just want Numenor to have a…period of untarnished positivity and delight like pre-Annatar Eregion….
funny how the several dramatically bad ends to settlements of the second age were all due to sauron somebody hit him with a stick already (galadriel please)
Yessss the idea of news traveling from Valinor to ME and back via Numenor is so cool!!! I see a lot of, like, oh how would people in ME know that xyz thing happened in Valinor
? The only explanation is that it must’ve happened way back before the Darkening! Or before the end of the first age, so the elves who came in the war of wrath must’ve told them! But there’s a lot of exchange in the 2nd and even 3rd ages: Tol Eressea->Numenor->ME, Valinor->Glorfindel->ME, and ofc Valinor->Istari->ME (I guess the Istari aren’t supposed to talk about it but Gandalf was like ‘lol’ about that with his teasing Galadriel…)Since I hate this awesome and totally-AU-or-else idea I’m going to randomly attempt to claim a plothole, and insist that if Elros had such dreams, Elrond probably would’ve had them too at some point and, being not dead, the record of his memory of them wouldn’t have been quite so easy for later people to destroy. On the other hand, this just cycles back to “no wonder the King’s Men didn’t want people to interact with the elves of ME anymore after around the year 2000-ish″ so IDK how much help my bringing THAT point up is….
wow wiki: “…tried to compensate this by going eastward and colonizing large parts of Middle-earth, first in a friendly way, but later as tyrants” Friendly colonization mmmmm
But there’s a lot of exchange in the 2nd and even 3rd ages: Tol Eressea->Numenor->ME, Valinor->Glorfindel->ME, and ofc Valinor->Istari->ME
I love how narrow those channels are, though – either the lack of information drove the Numenoreans nuts, or or it was the excess of tantalizing tidbits FROM those sources – Glorfindel trying to share gossip/science development small talk and being wildly misinterpreted, given how few people would be privileged enough to zail off to Elrond’s halls to talk to him?
I also found this line “the Lords of Valinor forbade them to sail so far westward that the coasts of Númenor could no longer be seen” to be awfully easy circumvent – au where they improved their optics, their satellite reception? (H(a)i(l) earendil!) they might have developed drones/skype, and then every one of the reembodied in valinor could share in glorfindel’s glee at seeing a lack of mountains. (though having the palantirs didn’t seem to work)
skfdjhskhj yes and also the earth is flat at this point isn’t it. Like…how does this work for telescopes and satellites and things, if your line of sight is only limited by how good eyesight you have, or obstructions like mountains? …..now I’m wondering how people who were designed to see things on a Flat Earth would even be able to use their eyes properly on a Round Earth, but maybe that’s too blah “realism” to be relevant…otoh though, the mess that bending a stretch of land several hundred miles across like ME to fit the curve of an earth-sized sphere would cause….
Yes so much to the incomplete/gossipy/misinterpreted info too! And yeah, the limited number of individual people who would be able to talk directly to, Glorfindel, Elrond, Gil-galad, and any other elves – who controls the information, etc? I mean, I think it would make most sense that elves visited them a lot too, but still it’s, very unwieldy….also, with the Elrond-Numenoreans relationship, his over-personal view of them vs their over-historical view of him would be, such a mess once they started all their….later stuff? First like, countries always use their manipulated/fudged claims about history (and historical people and individuals – who lives who dies who tells your story, etc) to justify themselves and advance their agendas in the present, and it would be a huge inconvenience to have a still-living guy go “Ummm? I was there? that’s not what happened? that’s not what he said??” But then also, on the other side, there’s like…. Tar-Telperien/Minastir/whoever: “Hey, so YOU became immortal….why not us?” “Well, I remember Elros told me –” “OMFG ELROS DIED LIKE TEN GENERATIONS BEFORE I WAS BORN HE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. PERSONALLY.”
Also re: the ‘‘’’’friendly colonization’’‘’‘ stuff…if you go through an e-copy of the Unfinished Tales apart from the Mariner’s Wife while ctrl+F’ing for “númenor” and/or “númenórean” there’s a lot more where that came from…>_> anyway, I always use this copy, fwiw, but:
Aldarion had a great hunger for timber desiring to
make Númenor into a great naval power; his felling of trees in
Númenor had caused great dissensions. In voyages down the coasts he saw
with wonder the great forests, and he chose the estuary of the Gwathló for
the site of a new haven entirely under Númenórean control (Gondor of
course did not yet exist). There he began great works, that continued to be
extended after his days. This entry into Eriador later proved of great
importance in the war against Sauron (Second Age 1693-1701); but it was in
origin a timber-port and ship-building harbour. The native people were fairly
numerous and warlike, but they were forest-dwellers, scattered communities
without central leadership. They were in awe of the Númenóreans, but
they did not become hostile until the tree-felling became devastating. Then
they attacked and ambushed the Númenóreans when they could, and the
Númenóreans treated them as enemies, and became ruthless in their
fellings, giving no thought to husbandry or replanting [….] The devastation wrought by the Númenóreans was incalculable. For long
years these lands were their chief source of timber, not only for their
ship-yards at Lond Daer and elsewhere, but also for Númenor itself.
Shiploads innumerable passed west over the sea. The denuding of the lands was
increased during the war in Eriador; for the exiled natives welcomed Sauron and
hoped for his victory over the Men of the Sea. Sauron knew of the importance to
his enemies of the Great Haven and its ship-yards. and he used these haters of
Númenor as spies and guides for his raiders. (The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix D)
ephal ephalak idon hi-akallabeth 