The last days of numenor, a close on-the-street view: the king’s men in a frenzy over the upcoming launch of Ar-Pharazon’s fleet to invade Aman: a tautological, self-perpetuating bubble of paranoid self-generating grievance and superiority and fragile-masculinity-esque panic and wrath at the idea of being refused what their supremacy entitles them to as the heirs of Eärendil; and of genuine, haunting, deep-seated fear and grief and desperate longing fixation on ending death and never losing another loved one. Expresses itself in scenes of boiling-over persecution and mob violence and religious hatred toward the Faithful, each incident spurred by the same paranoia and desperation to find a justifiable outlet and scapegoat for the King’s Men’s frustration and fury with reality.

The POV is Amandil, who walks a knife’s edge of secret sabotage and delay and superficial compliance and obedience, as he tries to plan his son’s flight from numenor and his own voyage to aman to plead to the valar. His mind is full of fragments of banned numenorean history and theological analysis and first-hand stories he had heard long ago when he visited lindon in secret, from those elves who still remember what his ancestors had said and done in those first days – regarding Eärendil and Elros, the founding of Numenor, and pinning all his hopes ever tighter to his religious beliefs to give him some flicker of motivation in the face of crushing dread and despair.

He remembers his friendship with Ar-Pharazon when they both were young – how much more sincere and willing to listen and process and argue with, rather than crush and silence, other viewpoints young Pharazon used to be. Pharazon doesn’t seem to remember anything he himself said.