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Dúnedain

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Witch-King
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« Reply #15 on: November 21, 2014, 02:38:17 am »

The Númenóreans were extremely skilled in many arts, but in later centuries their chief industries were shipbuilding and sea-craft. They became great mariners, exploring the world in all directions save for the west, where the Ban of the Valar was in force. They often travelled to the shores of Middle-earth, teaching the men there the arts and crafts, and they introduced farming to improve their everyday lives.

The Númenóreans, too, became skilled in husbandry, breeding great horses that roamed the open plains of Mittalmar.
Traditions

Before the coming of the Shadow, the Númenóreans maintained several traditions connected with the worship of Ilúvatar and respect to the Valar. Among them are recorded the setting a bough of oiolairë upon the prow of a departing ship,[15] the ceremonies concerned with the passing of the Sceptre, and laying down one's life.

The most famous traditions were the Three Prayers, during which a great concourse of Men ascended to the summit of Meneltarma and the King praised Eru Ilúvatar. These were:

    Erukyermë, held at the beginning of spring, the prayer for a good year;
    Erulaitalë in the middle of summer, the prayer for a good harvest;
    Eruhantalë in the autumn, the thanksgiving for a good harvest.[17]

Politics

During the history of Númenor, several political factions arose.
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Witch-King
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« Reply #16 on: November 21, 2014, 02:38:37 am »

Lords of Andúnië

The rulers of a noble house of Númenor, the Lords of Andúnië — named for their ancestral home of Andúnië — were descended from Silmariën, daughter and oldest child of Tar-Elendil the fourth King of Númenor. The laws of Númenor at that time would not allow her to rule as queen, so she wedded Elatan of Andúnië and took up residence there. Their son Valandil would be named the first Lord of Andúnië.

Throughout the Second Age, the Lords of Andúnië became leaders of the Elendili, or Elf-friends, who remained faithful to the Valar. Their continued importance is reflected by the Lords' ownership of two of Númenor's most precious heirlooms — Narsil and the Ring of Barahir. This was despite opposition and eventually persecution from the King's Men. The names of most of the Lords of Andúnië are not known, though Eärendur is mentioned at one point.

At the end of the Second Age, Númenor's estrangement from the Elves and the Valar under the evil guidance of Sauron corrupted Númenórean society. Seeking pardon of the Valar for the wickedness of the Númenóreans, Amandil the Faithful (son of Númendil), the last Lord of Andúnië, sailed into the west but was never heard of again. His son Elendil, the heir to the Andúnië Line, did not join Ar-Pharazôn's grand armada to attack Valinor, and instead fled with his sons Isildur and Anárion and many of the Faithful (Elendili) to Middle-earth.
Elendili

Also called the Elf-friends, the Elendili were a faction of Númenóreans who advocated continued friendship with the Elves. They were also called the Faithful for their continued devotion and obedience to the Valar. This name was given to them in the time of Elendil, Lord of Andúnië, who later founded the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor in Middle-earth.

By the close of the Second Age Númenóreans had become split between the Elendili and the King's Men — a faction centred around the King that strove to assert Númenórean supremacy over other peoples, and to overcome the mortality placed on Men. With Númenor reaching the apex of its might, the King's Men eventually espoused open defiance of the Valar. This split would eventually precipitate the Fall of Númenor. The Elendili, however, not only preserved their ancient friendship with the Elves, they also regarded the burgeoning arrogance of the King's Men as blasphemy. But the King's Men became more powerful and Númenor with them. By the end of the Second Age the King's Men had begun to persecute the Elendili as rebels and 'spies of the Valar.' Fearing their influence early on, the King's Men secured the Faithful's deportation from their strongholds in the western regions, notably around the western port city of Andúnië, and relocated to them to the eastern port city of Rómenna. There many departed to the Hither Lands (Middle-earth) and founded settlements that would later become part of the faithful Kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor. Many others would remain until the downfall of Númenor.

The Elendili enjoyed a brief respite when Elf-friend Tar-Palantir assumed kingship and began to turn Númenor back to the ways of the Faithful. But after Tar-Palantir died, his nephew Ar-Pharazôn usurped the throne and the Elendili were more vigorously oppressed, this time with the help of the Dark Lord Sauron, who had established an evil cult on the island to corrupt and eventually destroy Númenórean society. The Eldar tongue was forbidden. When Sauron corrupted Ar-Pharazôn, the last King of Númenor, some of Elendili were murdered and burned as sacrifices to Melkor. Burned too was Nimloth the Fair, the White Tree of the King that was the ancestor to the White Tree of Gondor, and the tree for which it was foretold to be bound to the fate of the Kings. Isildur, son of Elendil and one of the Elendili obtained perilously a seedling from Nimloth the Fair and thus bound the fate of the Tree to the fate of the Heirs of Elendil.

As Ar-Pharazôn led his grand armada to Aman to challenge the Ban of the Valar, Elendil was warned by his father Amandil, Lord of Andúnië, not to interfere in the upcoming war, but to expect, and prepare for, a forced departure from the island. Amandil then sailed to Aman to beg the Valar for forgiveness, but was never heard from again. Elendil and his sons, Isildur and Anárion, heeded Amandil's advice and prepared nine ships laden with goods and their Elendili followers. They were thus spared the downfall of Númenor when, as punishment for an attempt to defy the Ban of the Valar, Ilúvatar sank the island kingdom into the sea. The Elendili, under the leadership of Elendil and his sons, were carried to Middle-earth by great winds and great waves, sparing them from the cataclysm (their boats were waiting on the shore of the island when it sank). This implied that the Valar sympathized with Amandil's pleas, or that Ilúvatar himself saved them, knowing that the Elendili had always remained faithful. They eventually made their way to refuge in Middle-earth where they were welcomed by the Elves. There they established the Dúnedain kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor, Elendil creating Arnor in the north, and Isildur and Anárion creating (and jointly ruling) Gondor further south (although Elendil was seen as High King of both Arnor and Gondor).
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« Reply #17 on: November 21, 2014, 02:38:59 am »

King's Men

The King's Men were a Númenórean royalist faction. They rebelled against the angelic Valar because of their desire for immortality. As the power and knowledge of the Númenóreans had grown throughout the course of the Second Age, all had become increasingly preoccupied with the limits placed on their contentment—and eventually their power—by mortality, the purpose of which they began to question. This growing wish to escape death, known as 'the doom of Men', also made most of the Númenóreans envious of the immortal elves, or Eldar, who they had come to physically resemble as part of their reward from Ilúvatar for having been their allies. The Eldar sought ever to remind the men of Númenor however, that death was a Gift from Ilúvatar to all men, and to lose faith in Ilúvatar would be heretical. Nevertheless, after S.A. 2221, when Tar-Ancalimon became King of Númenor;

    ...the people of Númenor became divided. On the one hand was the greater party, and they were called the King's Men, and they grew proud and were estranged from the Valar and the Eldar. ('Akallabêth' ~ The Silmarillion)

The 'King's Men' therefore became increasingly predisposed to the corruption of Sauron, who in Númenor's last years seduced the elderly King Ar-Pharazôn;

    ...back to the worship of the Dark, and of Melkor the Lord thereof, at first in secret, but ere long openly and in the face of his people. ('Akallabêth' ~ The Silmarillion)

Within Númenor, the majority immediately followed suit, and this worship quickly passed across the ocean to most of Númenor's colonies in Middle-earth;

    ...for in the days of the sojourn of Sauron in that land the hearts of well nigh all its people had been turned towards darkness. Therefore many of those who sailed east in that time and made fortresses and dwellings upon the coasts were already bent to his will... ('Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age' ~ The Silmarillion)

Their corruption led the King's Men to disaster as they followed Ar-Pharazôn in his suicidal invasion of Aman, in consequence of which Númenor, the mightiest realm of men that had ever been, was destroyed and swallowed up into the sea. Royalist survivors remaining in Middle-earth failed to learn from their example, continuing to serve Sauron as the Black Númenóreans.
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« Reply #18 on: November 21, 2014, 02:39:17 am »

Númenórean descendants in The Lord of the Rings

Descendants of the various Númenórean factions appear in some chapters of The Lord of the Rings. In Chapter 5 of Book Four, Sam says to Faramir soon after their first meeting: "You have an air, sir, that reminds me of, of — well, wizards, of Gandalf". To which Faramir responds: "Maybe you discern from afar the air of Númenor". Throughout this chapter, Faramir tells Frodo and Sam much of the history of Númenor and of its descendants, his ancestors.

Later in the book, in "The Black Gate Opens", there appears a representative of the opposite faction, The Black Númenóreans.

    The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dûr was he; he had entered the service of the Black Tower when it arose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord's favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc. ( ~ The Return of the King)

In Appendix A at the end of The Return of the King, Tolkien recounts the death of Aragorn, when he tells Arwen "I am the last of the Númenóreans, and to me has been given not only a span thrice that of Men of Middle-earth, but also the grace to go at my will and give back the gift". But the grieving Arwen, unreconciled to the impending death of her beloved — however long his life had been by normal human standards — responds: "But I say to you, King of the Númenóreans, not till now have I understood the tale of your people and their fall. As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last".
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« Reply #19 on: November 21, 2014, 02:40:07 am »

The many names of Númenor
   
At the end of Númenor's tragic story, the painstaking philologist Tolkien provides the list of names by which the lost land was known during its existence and after its loss:

    (...) Even the name of that land perished, and Men spoke thereafter not of Elenna, nor of Andor the Gift that was taken away, nor of Númenórë on the confines of the world; but the exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen, Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue.

The reference to "Atalantë", saved until the last, provides the direct link between Tolkien's Númenor which sunk under the waves and the Atlantis which had the same fate in a millennia-old myth — which the reader may have suspected already, but could not be sure of until this moment. (Earlier depictions, from Plato onwards, assumed that "Atlantis" was the name used by the people of the lost island already in its time of glory; however, given the long passage of time to be assumed between its sinking and the writing down of the myth by Plato, Tolkien's linguistic interpretation is entirely plausible).
Other literature

    C. S. Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength makes reference to "Numinor and the True West", which Lewis credits as a then-unpublished creation of J. R. R. Tolkien. According to the novel, Merlin of the Arthurian Legend was the last in a long line of wizards familiar with the magic of Middle-earth, brought to the shores of prehistoric Britain by refugees from the sunken continent. Merlin's body was preserved for 1,500 years until the N.I.C.E. established an excavation in Bragdon Wood of Edgestow, England searching for the body in the mid-twentieth century. This is one of many examples of cross-overs between the novels of Lewis and Tolkien, both of whom were members of The Inklings, a literary discussion group at Oxford University and often shared with each other their literary work in progress.
    In the Marvel 1602 limited series comic book 1602: Fantastick Four Númenor is the name of the 1602 world analogue of Namor; Namor the Sub-Mariner is the ruler of Atlantis in the mainstream Marvel Universe.
    Pauwels and Bergier talk about Numinor and its relevance in both Celtic myths and the history of European and Indo-European culture in their book: De eeuwige mens which is Dutch for The everlasting/eternal human. There is also a reference to the works of both C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and a mentioning of Atlantis.
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« Reply #20 on: November 21, 2014, 02:42:48 am »

http://sdgeard.customer.netspace.net.au/hccnum.html
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