September 1, 2025 • 30 mins
We’re bringing back one of our most popular journeys: our series on The Fall of Númenor! If you’ve ever been curious about the rise and tragic downfall of Tolkien’s greatest kingdom — and how it ties into the Rings of Power and the epic drama of the Second Age — you won’t want to miss this.
And here’s the really exciting part: I’ve got a brand-new book on the way, Tolkien’s Tragedy: Concerning Númenor, The Rings of Power, and the Second Age. It’s the culmination of years of study, and I believe it’ll change the way you look at Tolkien’s legendarium.
If you’re enjoying this series, make sure you head over to tolkienroad.substack.com and subscribe.
Read Tolkien's Tragedy: https://tolkienroad.substack.com/
That’s where you’ll get early chapters of Tolkien’s Tragedy and all the behind-the-scenes insights I only share with my readers.
Alright — let’s dive into Númenor’s epic story, and rediscover why it remains one of the most haunting legends Tolkien ever wrote.
Episode Link: https://www.tolkienroad.com/e0324/
To support our work here, please visit Patreon.com/TolkienRoad.
OTHER LINKS:
Video of this episode: https://youtu.be/Xz1MWsk7Epc
Watch AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/137735486
Listen AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/77884839
Buy Tolkien Road merch @ True Myths Press
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/support.
And here’s the really exciting part: I’ve got a brand-new book on the way, Tolkien’s Tragedy: Concerning Númenor, The Rings of Power, and the Second Age. It’s the culmination of years of study, and I believe it’ll change the way you look at Tolkien’s legendarium.
If you’re enjoying this series, make sure you head over to tolkienroad.substack.com and subscribe.
Read Tolkien's Tragedy: https://tolkienroad.substack.com/
That’s where you’ll get early chapters of Tolkien’s Tragedy and all the behind-the-scenes insights I only share with my readers.
Alright — let’s dive into Númenor’s epic story, and rediscover why it remains one of the most haunting legends Tolkien ever wrote.
Episode Link: https://www.tolkienroad.com/e0324/
To support our work here, please visit Patreon.com/TolkienRoad.
OTHER LINKS:
Video of this episode: https://youtu.be/Xz1MWsk7Epc
Watch AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/137735486
Listen AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/77884839
Buy Tolkien Road merch @ True Myths Press
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, fellow travelers, Welcome to the Tolkien Road. We're
bringing back one of our most popular journeys, our series
on the Fall of Numenor. If you've ever been curious
about the rise and tragic downfall of Tolkien's greatest kingdom
and how it ties in to the Rings of Power
and the epicdrama of the Second Age, you won't want
to miss this. And here's the really exciting part. I've
got a brand new book on the way Tolkien's tragedy
(00:22):
concerning Numenor, the Rings of Power and the Second Age.
It's the culmination of years of study, and I believe
it'll change the way you look at Tolkien's legendarium. If
you're enjoying this series, make sure you head over to
Tolkienroad dot substack dot com and subscribe. That's where you'll
get early chapters of Tolkien's tragedy and all the behind
the scenes insights I only share with my readers. All right,
(00:44):
let's dive into Neumenor's epic story and rediscover why it
remains one of the most haunting legends Tolkien ever wrote.
Hey there, fellow travelers, Welcome to the Tolkien Road. Episode three,
twenty four. In this episode, I'm beginning a new series
on the Fall of numinor the recently published compilation of
Tolkien's Second Age writings, and before we get started, I'd
(01:05):
like to give a double up air five to our
amazing fellowship. Get those hands up there, everybody kind of
down with me? Three two one woosht nice special thanks
to this episode's executive producers, John R. Caitlin of t
with Tolkien, Jacob Blockub, Jacob Lockham, John H and Aeru
(01:26):
twenty seven. Also a shout out to those celebrating their
Fellowship anniversary in January of twenty twenty three. Joe Bagelman,
David G. Cynthia C. Mike M, John R. Scott W,
Jason T, Elena Ve, Melanie and Tyler W. Thank you
all so much for sticking with us over the last
year and in some cases many years. Join the Fellowship
(01:50):
of the Road by visiting patreon dot com slash Tolkien Road.
When you join the Fellowship of the Road, it helps
us keep on everring on and land you some cool
perks along the way, like twenty percent off our merch
including Tolkien Road t shirts, the Coveted two Trees camper mug,
and signed copies of my books. Learn more at patreon
dot com, slash Tolkien Road YouTube, hit that like button,
(02:12):
don't forget to subscribe, and let us know what's on
your mind in the comments below. So right now, Tolkien
fandom is in a weird spot. Twenty twenty two was
in many ways a watershed year, but it was a
mixed bag. It was all about the Rings of Power, right,
all of the lead up excitement for many years leading
(02:33):
up to twenty twenty two, the first part of the year,
kind of the marketing churn right, but it was a
really polarizing reaction. We spent the signific number of episodes
on this podcast going through each episode reacting to different
aspects of it. And now here we are waiting for
season two, which isn't supposed to be released until twenty
(02:55):
twenty four. Also, War of the Row here to come
out that year. So twenty twenty four is looking like
it's going to be another pretty big year for Tolkien fandom.
I am very excited about the War of the Real Herom.
You know, I'm looking forward to seeing what Rings of
Power will do in season two. I know that your
mileage may vary. Some of you may be very excited.
(03:16):
Some of you, I know, just couldn't care less at
this point. But that's the That's what I mean by
that polarizing reaction. Right, But twenty twenty four is going
to be maybe an even bigger year in some sense.
But what about twenty twenty three, Well, this podcast is
in a similar spot. Last year our focus was on
a reread of this selmar Million, as well as a
(03:39):
lot of reaction to the Rings of Power, and it
was a really busy year for us. At the same time,
we've covered a lot of ground over the course of
three hundred plus episodes on this podcast, and our everyday
lives are busier than ever. And as I mentioned a
few episodes back, I'm trying to find some time to
exercise two unwritten Tolkien themed books that have been haunting
(04:01):
me for the last several years. So what's the plan. Well,
the plan is to keep it loose. The Tolkienian odds
and ends abound, and we'll be continuing to hit works
like Smith of Wotton Major, which we started on the
last episode, Farmer Giles of Ham, Roverandom author Beth Fenroda,
Andreth like. The list goes on, right, I know, some
(04:22):
of you all are like, want to want me to
get to the homecoming of Bayart nath Or Bart Bay.
I forget it anyway. I knew it, I've read it before,
but I forget the name anyway. There's tons of works, right,
There's tons of works that we still haven't gotten to,
and you know, so I want to get to some
of those this year. But man, I don't want to
(04:44):
overload myself, and I don't want to overload all of
you because we got to go back to the old
tree Beard mentality, right, Don't be hasty, don't be hasty.
It's worth taking our time with all of these Tolkienian things.
And the truth is, it's been several years since we've
Lord of the Rings and I'm really hungry to have
another go at it. But more on that in an
(05:05):
upcoming episode. I've I've got an idea that I'm going
to be exploring on that, So more on that in
an upcoming episode. There's the Children of Who in right now,
it's looking like we'll probably make the Children of whoin
a you know, something we'll focus on in twenty twenty four.
Maybe we'll get to it a little later this year,
but we're gonna keep it loose and we're gonna be
jumping around a lot. That's that's kind of the bottom line,
because there are so many things to cover. We've hit
(05:28):
like the really big stuff definitely already on this podcast,
and now it's just time to like just kind of
jump around and do some fun stuff over here, do
some fun stuff over here. And I'm gonna keep you
all kind of on your toes from week to week probably.
But as for the Fall of New Minor, let me
cut to the chase. This year, I'd like to intihally
(05:49):
make our way through the Fall of Neumnor. So let's
get started. So what is the Fall of Newminor? This
bad boy right here? Okay, Well, it came out last year,
late last year, and undoubtedly it came out to kind
of capitalize synergize on the hoop law surrounding The Rings
of Power Season one, because the Fall of Numenor is
(06:12):
all about the Second Age. It's the story that The
Rings of Power is attempting to tell, is attempting to adapt.
But the problem is that it's not really a story
that Tolkien completely wrote himself, and so this book came
about is the idea to basically compile all of these
disparate writings which come from all of these so many
(06:34):
different sources, and organize them into one one work that's
cohesive and tells the story of Numnor in the Second
Age from start to finish. So the key in this
is the organization. It's organized around the Second Age timeline
from the Lord of the Rings appendices, which is in
other words, the Tale of Years otherwise known as the
(06:56):
Tale of Years. Also, it includes a lot of really
great new illustrations by the douay in of Tolkien art.
Now this is not my word. This is a word
that came from the dust jacket that I have. What
is that word? So, Alan Lee, that's who it's referring to.
Many of you have probably heard of violently, I'm sure
if you, if you're at all familiar with Tolkien artwork,
(07:18):
you've seen his artwork before. His style was very influential
on the movies Peter Jackson's films. But what is a
doi in? I had to look this up. Okay, the
doyen d o y e n is the most respected
or prominent person in a particular field. There's the dictionary.
So you come to the Tolkien road, you're gonna learn
(07:39):
new words sometimes. All right, Hey, that's what Tolkien was
all about, right, just philologists lover of words. All right,
So let's let's look at some of the contents. But
let's start with the cover here. Let's start with the cover, Okay,
So there you go. There's the Fall of Numanor. Very
sort of dark image, I would say, right, like kind
of a kind of a haunting. Even what's there? There's
(08:03):
a word on the tip of my tongue that I
can't come up with, but it is a it is
an image that's kind of frightening, right. You see this
wave coming over what appears to be a city. And
so if you know anything about the story of the
fall of Numenor, you know what this is depicting. It's
literally depicting the destruction of Numenor. So it is an
(08:23):
illustration by Alan Lee. And if you have the hard
copy like I do here, you can see that it
kind of wraps around. It's a really rather large image
and it's also depicted on the inside front cover. So yeah,
this is this is, you know, simply put, depicting the
(08:44):
fall of Numenor. And it's a it's a pretty pretty
amazing image, you know, very beautiful. I kind of wonder,
you know, if we can, if we can actually go
in and pick it apart and find different aspects of it.
I have to imagine that maybe here in the middle,
or I guess down here at the bottom, can you
all see my cursor. I don't think you can anyway
(09:05):
down at the bottom where it's a little red, where
it's seems to have some glowing light going on. I
have to imagine that maybe that's the temple that Sauron
constructs towards the end of the Second Age, because there's
some burning that goes on there. Without me going into
too much detail right now, so that's this the first
image we see from Allen Lee. As I go through
(09:27):
these works, I'm going to be talking about the different
images that are associated because he's created a lot of
new illustrations for this work for the Fall of New Minor.
So we get to get we explore the cover, and
the first thing we're going to see when we open
up the book is this quote from the Lord of
(09:50):
the Rings. This is a quote from the Council of
l Ron, the chapter the Council of Elrond, and it
really kind of gets to the heart of what this
book is all about, So I'm to go ahead and
read this whole thing. Then all listened while Elrond and
his clear voice spoke of Sauron and the Rings of Power,
and their forging in the second age of the world
long ago. A part of his tale was known to
(10:12):
some there, but the full tale to none, And many
eyes were turned to Elrond in fear and wonder as
he told of the elvinsmiths of Aregion, and their friendship
with Moria, and their eagerness for knowledge, by which Souran
ensnared them. For in that time he was not yet
evil till behold, and they received his aid and grew
mighty in craft. Whereas he learned all their secrets and
(10:33):
betrayed them, and forged secretly in the Mountain of Fire,
the one Ring to be their master. But Klibrimbor was
aware of him and hid the three which he had made,
and there was war, and the land was laid waste,
and the gate of Moria was shut. Then through all
the years that followed he traced the Ring. But since
that history is elsewhere recounted, even as Elrond himself set
(10:54):
it down, in his books of Lore. It is not
here recalled for it is a long tale full of
deeds great and terrible, and briefly though el Ron spoke,
the sun rowed up the sky and the morning was passing.
Ere he ceased. Of nu Minor, he spoke its glory
and its fall, and the return of the kings of
men to Middle Earth out of the deeps of the sea,
(11:14):
born upon the wings of storm. Yeah, so there you go.
That's that's the kind of introduction in Tolkien's own words,
I guess you could say, to this volume, to this
particular work. What this really gets at is that the
story of Numenor, even though it takes place thousands of
(11:35):
years before Lord of the Rings, it very much is
a companion story to the Lord of the Rings. It
gives a ton of background about how we got to
where the Lord of the Rings takes place. It is
the mental and spiritual background of emotion, even emotional background
of the participants in the story, whether you have suron
(11:58):
el Rond, even those who weren't alive at the time,
like Adra Gorn and Bordemir. Right, these characters they know
from their own from the lore that's been passed down
to them. They know this story of Neumanor. So you
can kind of think about any story that's like culturally
significant to you, right, and to whatever culture it is
(12:19):
that you're coming from, it's like one of those stories, right,
you know, you could you could say for Tolkien. In
the case of Tolkien, it would be like, on one hand,
maybe it's like, you know, the story of Israel, because
he was is a is a Catholic, that would have
been a story he knew well from going to Mass
(12:39):
and hearing the different readings at Mass, and you know,
just from his own you know, cultural upbringing as a
as a man of England, right, he would have known
like some of the stories of mythology, right of the
European various European mythologies, and these would have been important
stories to him. So this is something that for the
(12:59):
character at the Council of l Rond, it's a very
meaning they know what Numenor was, right, They they know
these stories, they know different aspects of them, maybe not
in every detail, but they probably know more than what's
written here. Right, You can kind of think about it
in those terms. So, yeah, this sets the stage for
that and really what we need to understand is even
as Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings, he
(13:21):
was developing the story of numenor kind of on the
at the same time. Right, so, while he's working over here,
he's creating this ancient history over here in order to
make the Lord of the Rings seem that much more real.
It was just the way he operated, right. If you've
listened to other episodes where we talk about the different
(13:41):
like kind of Tolkien's creative method and his theory of
creativity and those sorts of things, you deeply understand why
he would operate this way because it was important to
him that there was this thing in the background that
made the real times, that made the story he was
telling seem that much more real. Okay, so, uh so
this story, this quote helps set the stage for why
(14:04):
the Fall of Newman or uh why what's the point
of telling the story and how it all connects to
the Lord of the Rings. All right, So well let's
look real quick at the contents of this story. So
I'm gonna skip through some of the pages here, all right,
So we've hit the cover, we you know, we skipped
(14:24):
over a few of these things which are a little
less interesting. I did I do want to mention real
quick this is this was compiled. This is the We've
mentioned Alan Lee the illustrator, but we should definitely mention
that it was edited by Brian Sibley, so he's the
one who put all of this together. I've done a
review of the book when it first came out. It's
a you know, shorter just kind of like book review, right,
(14:44):
it's not really like an exploration of it, but it's
just kind of a book review, and talked about his
background a little bit and that. So I encourage you
to go find that video. Uh, go find that audio
if you're listening to this and check it out. Okay,
So as far as the contents themselves, the thing to
(15:06):
understand is that this is organized around the Tale of Years,
and it's organized chronologically. So what we've done here is
we've pulled a bunch of writings from various sources, and
that it's already been published. So this is all as
far as Tolkien's writing goes. This is all previously published writing,
(15:26):
but we've pulled it all together and organized it in
such a way that it follows along a chronological sort
of development. And this is a three thousand year history right,
nu Minor, it's actually closer to thirty five hundred years.
That is a vast period of time. And so Neumanor
this story is told and pulls all those things together
so that they mention them in the appropriate year. And
(15:48):
so it's easier that way to really understand the flow
of the story of Numanor. Instead of having to read
these different sources that you don't really that are kind
of isolated and out of context, we actually get the
full context because of the tale of years and the
organization here. So for example, you know, we have the
foundation of the Gray Havens and of lean Don, and
(16:10):
I believe that's from a Kalabeth. We have the Adine
reaching Numenor, again probably from a Kalabath as well. And
then we have some writings that actually come from the
Nature of Middle Earth, which is a work that was
published in late twenty twenty one, which was edited by
Carl Hastedter. So that's kind of the main part of
(16:35):
the contents of the Fall of Numenor. And it's worth
noting too that there are a couple of interesting things
at the end. First, in the appendices, first of all,
we have a brief chronicle of the Third Age of
Middle Earth. We'll get to that when we get to it,
but that gives a little bit of how the story
(16:57):
of Numenor connects to the Lord of the Rings through
the second period of three thousand years that separates the
end of Newmanor the end of the Second Age, from
the start of the Lord of the Rings, and so
it kind of connects the dots and gets us to
the Lord of the Rings. And then Appendic B Appendix
B is the New Minorian chapters from the Lost Road. Now,
(17:17):
the Lost Road is something you'll find in volume five
of the History of Middle Earth. This is a very
obscure writing. The Lost Road, though, is the original version
of the New Manorian legend. Briefly, the story of the
Lost Road is that Tolkien and his good friend C. S.
Lewis sort of had a gentleman's agreement in the late
(17:40):
thirties that they were going to each write a sign
kind of a work of speculative fiction. Lewis's job was
to write the space travel story and Tolkien's job was
to write the time travel story. Lewis was much more successful,
at least at the time, and he wrote the space
(18:01):
travel story, which ended up becoming out of the Silent
Planet ended up becoming the Space Trilogy. Out of the
Silent Planet Perilandra and that Hideous Strength. Tolkien wrote attempted
to write the time travel story, and that was the
Lost Road. Now, this was not sort of what we
think of in terms of many time travel stories where
you have a machine necessarily, like you know, everybody, like
(18:23):
my generation always thinks of back to the future. When
you think of time travel stories, maybe you think of
like Terminator or something like that. But this was more
like kind of a almost like kind of a psychological
time travel story or kind of like you just kind
of surprise find yourself, you know it. It was a
really interesting approach and we'll go into it more when
(18:44):
we cover this much later on in the appendices, but
suffice it to say it was where the original kind
of version of the New Minorian story came from, the
New Minorian legend came from. So definitely interesting stuff. One
thing we don't find in the appendices, but maybe we'll.
Maybe we'll hit this when we do kind of get
(19:06):
to the end of doing it, which could take us
a really long time, because I said, my mantra here
is don't be hasty. We're gonna take a really long
walk through this. But there is something called the Notion
Club Papers, which was kind of a second attempt to
tell the story of the Lost Road, but was also
never published, and that's not found here, so maybe we'll
come back to that. But the important thing to know
(19:28):
is that the Lost Road contains kind of the early
version of the story of Numanor. Okay, now, last thing
I want to hit in in this episode about the
fall of Numenor is this early kind of the first chapter.
It's not really a chapter, but the introduction, the pre introduction,
(19:49):
if you will, maybe the prologue about this book. I
believe this is in This is Siby writing, Brian Sibley writing,
and he's talking about kind of his intent for the
book and what are the sources for these things? So
a word on his intent. He says, the intention is
not to supplant these works as each already stands as
the definitive presentation of jero Er Tolkien's writings with peerless
(20:12):
insightful commentary and analysis by Christopher Tolkien, but rather to
provide extracts from the above with as few editorial interventions
as possible that illustrate, in the author's own words, the
rich and tumultuous events of the Second Age, as summarized
by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the tale of years. Okay,
So he's juxtaposing with Christopher Tolkien's approach here. And I
(20:34):
know Sibley would be the first to just laud Christopher
Tolkien and hold him up, but he is juxtaposing here,
and he's saying that Christopher Tolkien's approach with Unfinished Tales
and then the history of the twelve volume History of
Middle Earth was to basically give these different things that
(20:55):
he had found of his father's writing, early versions, things
that have been left out, sorts of miscellaneous writings, and
it was to give a lot of commentary, his own
commentary on like kind of the background of these things.
It's an approach that makes those works particularly challenging at times.
(21:15):
Unfinished Tales somewhat challenging. There's parts of the History of
Middle Earth where it's extremely challenging to figure out who's
actually writing. Is it Christopher or is it jer R. Tolkien?
And that can be a little bit frustrating at times,
especially if you're not an academic reader, because you have
to spend a lot of time understanding, Oh, this is
(21:36):
Christopher talking over here, and this is what he was
referring to. And this is when jer R. Tolkien jumps
in and has things to say. And so I really
appreciate this approach by Sibley because you've kind of for
everyday readers like I consider myself and probably most of
you all consider yourselves. It's a little bit more accessible
this way because you don't have this kind of constant
(21:58):
interjection of different editorial comments into writings that are already
challenging enough as it is. So so Sibley's intent here
is to give us these incredible writings which are found
else found in all these disparate places, and oftentimes with
a lot of editorial contextual contextualizing, and it's to give
(22:19):
it to us in a well ordered, easy to understand
the flow of it. Weigh, I think it's hugely valuable
to do that. So that's that was Sibley's approach here.
As far as kind of the sources for all these things,
So we mentioned the timeline. The main source for the
timeline is the Tale of Years, which is Appendix B
(22:40):
of The Lord of the Rings. The Tale of Years
is really fascinating, and it's super helpful. Actually it's really
fascinating too when it comes to some of the stuff
it says about the Third Age. Also, he does pull
a little bit. He says from Appendix A the Annals
of the Kings and Rulers, as well as some of
the material and Unfinished Tales, which contains a chronological listing
(23:02):
of the Kings of numenor the kings and actually a
few queens of numenor so the sources, the sources for
kind of the longer portions of the content, not just
the years when things happen, but actually the things that
kind of tell the story of that particular period. Those
sources very quite quite heavily. The key one, obviously is
(23:26):
a Kalabeth a Kalabath is the story of the downfall
of Numenor it's found in the Silmarillion. You also have
the story of al Darion and Herendis, which is found
in Unfinished Tales. It's actually the longest, I guess you
would say, kind of in the story like kind of
you know, if you will like the story of the
Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings, Right, these are
(23:47):
stories that tell kind of up close and personal stories
of people living in those times in Middle Earth. Right,
Al Daarion and Horrenduz is the only story we have
of that nature. Right, This kind of up close and
personal story that takes place in the Second Age about Numenor,
(24:10):
so al Dalrean and Herrendez is found there. It will
be interesting when we get to that one. We have
the genealogical table that's also found in Unfinished Tales. There
is the material found in the History of a Kalabath,
which is in the Peoples of Middle Earth, Volume twelve
of the History of Middle Earth, the Early History of
the Legend and the Fall of Numenor, which are both
(24:30):
in the Lost Road and other writings, and the out
and the Drowning of Anna Dune, which is in Sauron Defeated,
which is volume nine, I believe of the Lord of
the Rings. I'm sorry of the History of Middle Earth.
There's also, as I mentioned before, there's a significant passages
from the Nature of Middle Earth, and that's really great
because that's a that is a wonderful work. But there's
(24:52):
a good portion. There's a lot of that that covers
so many different things about about Middle Earth, and it's
nice that the portions that apply to Numanor are actually
given to us here, so we can kind of appreciate
them within the context of the rest of the story.
So we also have the yeah, so various writings the
(25:14):
land and Beasts of new Minor, the lives of the Neumanorians,
the aging of Numanorians. Those all come from the nature
of Middle Earth. So so you know what you see here.
It again, like it's really kind of cool, like we
were getting we're getting a clear, put together picture of
the mind of Tolkien when it came to all when
it comes to all these different aspects of the story
(25:36):
of the Second Age and the story of the fall
of Numenor, Right, we're getting all of these things put
together so that it really looks like if you know,
it's it's the book that Tolkien never wrote about Numenor. Now.
You know, if he had written it, it probably would have
been quite different. It probably would have been something like
you know, it's interesting to kind of speculate, like what
what would that story have looked like? Right, Unfortunately we'll
(25:58):
never know, but you know, I could imagine him telling
like just volumes and volumes, like you know, it could
have been three whole Lord of the Rings stories. I
feel like about this about the story of Numenor itself,
and I talk I talk some about that in my
reaction videos to Rings of Power, like how I would
have done it and that kind of thing. Anyway, Uh,
(26:20):
And the result is of pulling all these different sources
together like this is we get one really good, uh
compilation of that that kind of gives us Tolkien's mind,
at least what he left us about this story, about
the whole history of Numenor. Finally, there are there is
a little bit that comes from Lord of the Rings.
(26:42):
I'm sorry, we also I'm sorry I should also mention
we have the Rings of Power in the Third Age,
which is in the Silmarillion, and the history of Galadriel
and Keliborne in Unfinished Tales and glad and uh and
then Gladriel and Keliborne and the nature of Middle Earth,
and and there are a few things from the letters
of Jerror Tolkien and Lord of the Rings itself that
apply to the story of the Second Age. So that's
(27:04):
in here as well. Finally, he says a little bit about,
you know, kind of his editorial approach. So we mentioned before,
like he's trying to not do a lot of editorializing,
but there is some editorializing you have you have to
in order to really contextualize and make these things easier
to understand. So he has provided some of that editorializing,
(27:27):
and it kind of clearly said this is when it's
going to be happening. So the editorial inventions are interventions
are in a smaller font size and indented. Explanatory immendations
by the editor to introduce passages or within the body
of an extract are shown in square brackets. So that's
that's that. Well, as I said, we're taking a long,
(27:48):
slow walk through this, and so that's going to wrap
it up for this episode. Right when we come back
to the Fall of Numanor, we're going to discuss this
next portion with'll be the introduction the Saga of a
Dark Age. We might make it to the next portion
as well, which kind of gives the history of the
First Age leading up to that, but we're gonna hit
(28:11):
this introduction next time we do the Fall of Numenor.
So I'm excited about this, you guys. I think we're
gonna have a lot of fun going through this, taking
our time really understanding all these different aspects of the
Fall of Numenor. I know that many people kind of hardcore,
longtime Tolkien fans were maybe a little bit skeptical when
they saw this coming out, because it's not like a
lot of new publications. But I think at the end
(28:31):
of the day, it's really it's really cool to see
this happening because and it's a really valuable work because
it does pull together all these different sources into one
cohesive book about Numanor and the Second Age. I think
that is an extremely valuable thing, and I'm excited to
dive into this with you guys. All right, well, hey, subscribe, rate,
(28:53):
and review us on iTunes or the platform of your choice.
Please leave us that five star rating if you enjoyed
this episode, if you enjoy the Tolkien Road, if you've
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on over and make that happen. When you do that,
it puts the win in our sales and helps us
to keep on evering on. All right, and hey, don't
forget correspondence. I promise we're gonna be doing more correspondence.
Been It's just been a busy beginning to the new year,
(29:15):
kind of figuring out what we're gonna be doing this year,
the game plan, keeping it loose, but I want to
do the correspondence and it's gonna be fun to hear
from you guys as far as the Fall of Newminer goes,
and hopefully, and I'm looking forward, hopefully I'm going to
be able to hit some correspondents at the end of
each one of these episodes as well. Kind of saved
time at the end. All right, So YouTube, Tolkienoad dot com, email,
(29:37):
Tolkienpodcast at gmail dot com, Twitter at Tolkien Road, wherever
you can find us. We'll do our best to respond
to you somehow and at some point. Okay, Well, that's
all for this episode, you guys. Thanks to our amazing patrons,
especially the following. John R. Caitlin of t with Tolkien,
Jacob Blockham, John H. Aeru twenty seven, Emilio P, Jonathan D,
(29:57):
Mike M, Robert H. Paul D, Julia Werty, Joe Bagelman, Jacobs,
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SHAWNA Supreme mis Anonymous, Andrew T. Redhawk, Shannoness, Brian o
zeke F, James L. Chris L. Chuck f Azya ve
(30:20):
Ish of The Hammer, Teresa C. David of Pines with Jack,
Eric B and Johanna t all Right. Thank you all
so much for watching and or listening. We will talk
at you next time. Bye bye
Hey there, fellow travelers, Welcome to the Tolkien Road. We're
bringing back one of our most popular journeys, our series
on the Fall of Numenor. If you've ever been curious
about the rise and tragic downfall of Tolkien's greatest kingdom
and how it ties in to the Rings of Power
and the epicdrama of the Second Age, you won't want
to miss this. And here's the really exciting part. I've
got a brand new book on the way Tolkien's tragedy
(00:22):
concerning Numenor, the Rings of Power and the Second Age.
It's the culmination of years of study, and I believe
it'll change the way you look at Tolkien's legendarium. If
you're enjoying this series, make sure you head over to
Tolkienroad dot substack dot com and subscribe. That's where you'll
get early chapters of Tolkien's tragedy and all the behind
the scenes insights I only share with my readers. All right,
(00:44):
let's dive into Neumenor's epic story and rediscover why it
remains one of the most haunting legends Tolkien ever wrote.
Hey there, fellow travelers, Welcome to the Tolkien Road. Episode three,
twenty four. In this episode, I'm beginning a new series
on the Fall of numinor the recently published compilation of
Tolkien's Second Age writings, and before we get started, I'd
(01:05):
like to give a double up air five to our
amazing fellowship. Get those hands up there, everybody kind of
down with me? Three two one woosht nice special thanks
to this episode's executive producers, John R. Caitlin of t
with Tolkien, Jacob Blockub, Jacob Lockham, John H and Aeru
(01:26):
twenty seven. Also a shout out to those celebrating their
Fellowship anniversary in January of twenty twenty three. Joe Bagelman,
David G. Cynthia C. Mike M, John R. Scott W,
Jason T, Elena Ve, Melanie and Tyler W. Thank you
all so much for sticking with us over the last
year and in some cases many years. Join the Fellowship
(01:50):
of the Road by visiting patreon dot com slash Tolkien Road.
When you join the Fellowship of the Road, it helps
us keep on everring on and land you some cool
perks along the way, like twenty percent off our merch
including Tolkien Road t shirts, the Coveted two Trees camper mug,
and signed copies of my books. Learn more at patreon
dot com, slash Tolkien Road YouTube, hit that like button,
(02:12):
don't forget to subscribe, and let us know what's on
your mind in the comments below. So right now, Tolkien
fandom is in a weird spot. Twenty twenty two was
in many ways a watershed year, but it was a
mixed bag. It was all about the Rings of Power, right,
all of the lead up excitement for many years leading
(02:33):
up to twenty twenty two, the first part of the year,
kind of the marketing churn right, but it was a
really polarizing reaction. We spent the signific number of episodes
on this podcast going through each episode reacting to different
aspects of it. And now here we are waiting for
season two, which isn't supposed to be released until twenty
(02:55):
twenty four. Also, War of the Row here to come
out that year. So twenty twenty four is looking like
it's going to be another pretty big year for Tolkien fandom.
I am very excited about the War of the Real Herom.
You know, I'm looking forward to seeing what Rings of
Power will do in season two. I know that your
mileage may vary. Some of you may be very excited.
(03:16):
Some of you, I know, just couldn't care less at
this point. But that's the That's what I mean by
that polarizing reaction. Right, But twenty twenty four is going
to be maybe an even bigger year in some sense.
But what about twenty twenty three, Well, this podcast is
in a similar spot. Last year our focus was on
a reread of this selmar Million, as well as a
(03:39):
lot of reaction to the Rings of Power, and it
was a really busy year for us. At the same time,
we've covered a lot of ground over the course of
three hundred plus episodes on this podcast, and our everyday
lives are busier than ever. And as I mentioned a
few episodes back, I'm trying to find some time to
exercise two unwritten Tolkien themed books that have been haunting
(04:01):
me for the last several years. So what's the plan. Well,
the plan is to keep it loose. The Tolkienian odds
and ends abound, and we'll be continuing to hit works
like Smith of Wotton Major, which we started on the
last episode, Farmer Giles of Ham, Roverandom author Beth Fenroda,
Andreth like. The list goes on, right, I know, some
(04:22):
of you all are like, want to want me to
get to the homecoming of Bayart nath Or Bart Bay.
I forget it anyway. I knew it, I've read it before,
but I forget the name anyway. There's tons of works, right,
There's tons of works that we still haven't gotten to,
and you know, so I want to get to some
of those this year. But man, I don't want to
(04:44):
overload myself, and I don't want to overload all of
you because we got to go back to the old
tree Beard mentality, right, Don't be hasty, don't be hasty.
It's worth taking our time with all of these Tolkienian things.
And the truth is, it's been several years since we've
Lord of the Rings and I'm really hungry to have
another go at it. But more on that in an
(05:05):
upcoming episode. I've I've got an idea that I'm going
to be exploring on that, So more on that in
an upcoming episode. There's the Children of Who in right now,
it's looking like we'll probably make the Children of whoin
a you know, something we'll focus on in twenty twenty four.
Maybe we'll get to it a little later this year,
but we're gonna keep it loose and we're gonna be
jumping around a lot. That's that's kind of the bottom line,
because there are so many things to cover. We've hit
(05:28):
like the really big stuff definitely already on this podcast,
and now it's just time to like just kind of
jump around and do some fun stuff over here, do
some fun stuff over here. And I'm gonna keep you
all kind of on your toes from week to week probably.
But as for the Fall of New Minor, let me
cut to the chase. This year, I'd like to intihally
(05:49):
make our way through the Fall of Neumnor. So let's
get started. So what is the Fall of Newminor? This
bad boy right here? Okay, Well, it came out last year,
late last year, and undoubtedly it came out to kind
of capitalize synergize on the hoop law surrounding The Rings
of Power Season one, because the Fall of Numenor is
(06:12):
all about the Second Age. It's the story that The
Rings of Power is attempting to tell, is attempting to adapt.
But the problem is that it's not really a story
that Tolkien completely wrote himself, and so this book came
about is the idea to basically compile all of these
disparate writings which come from all of these so many
(06:34):
different sources, and organize them into one one work that's
cohesive and tells the story of Numnor in the Second
Age from start to finish. So the key in this
is the organization. It's organized around the Second Age timeline
from the Lord of the Rings appendices, which is in
other words, the Tale of Years otherwise known as the
(06:56):
Tale of Years. Also, it includes a lot of really
great new illustrations by the douay in of Tolkien art.
Now this is not my word. This is a word
that came from the dust jacket that I have. What
is that word? So, Alan Lee, that's who it's referring to.
Many of you have probably heard of violently, I'm sure
if you, if you're at all familiar with Tolkien artwork,
(07:18):
you've seen his artwork before. His style was very influential
on the movies Peter Jackson's films. But what is a
doi in? I had to look this up. Okay, the
doyen d o y e n is the most respected
or prominent person in a particular field. There's the dictionary.
So you come to the Tolkien road, you're gonna learn
(07:39):
new words sometimes. All right, Hey, that's what Tolkien was
all about, right, just philologists lover of words. All right,
So let's let's look at some of the contents. But
let's start with the cover here. Let's start with the cover, Okay,
So there you go. There's the Fall of Numanor. Very
sort of dark image, I would say, right, like kind
of a kind of a haunting. Even what's there? There's
(08:03):
a word on the tip of my tongue that I
can't come up with, but it is a it is
an image that's kind of frightening, right. You see this
wave coming over what appears to be a city. And
so if you know anything about the story of the
fall of Numenor, you know what this is depicting. It's
literally depicting the destruction of Numenor. So it is an
(08:23):
illustration by Alan Lee. And if you have the hard
copy like I do here, you can see that it
kind of wraps around. It's a really rather large image
and it's also depicted on the inside front cover. So yeah,
this is this is, you know, simply put, depicting the
(08:44):
fall of Numenor. And it's a it's a pretty pretty
amazing image, you know, very beautiful. I kind of wonder,
you know, if we can, if we can actually go
in and pick it apart and find different aspects of it.
I have to imagine that maybe here in the middle,
or I guess down here at the bottom, can you
all see my cursor. I don't think you can anyway
(09:05):
down at the bottom where it's a little red, where
it's seems to have some glowing light going on. I
have to imagine that maybe that's the temple that Sauron
constructs towards the end of the Second Age, because there's
some burning that goes on there. Without me going into
too much detail right now, so that's this the first
image we see from Allen Lee. As I go through
(09:27):
these works, I'm going to be talking about the different
images that are associated because he's created a lot of
new illustrations for this work for the Fall of New Minor.
So we get to get we explore the cover, and
the first thing we're going to see when we open
up the book is this quote from the Lord of
(09:50):
the Rings. This is a quote from the Council of
l Ron, the chapter the Council of Elrond, and it
really kind of gets to the heart of what this
book is all about, So I'm to go ahead and
read this whole thing. Then all listened while Elrond and
his clear voice spoke of Sauron and the Rings of Power,
and their forging in the second age of the world
long ago. A part of his tale was known to
(10:12):
some there, but the full tale to none, And many
eyes were turned to Elrond in fear and wonder as
he told of the elvinsmiths of Aregion, and their friendship
with Moria, and their eagerness for knowledge, by which Souran
ensnared them. For in that time he was not yet
evil till behold, and they received his aid and grew
mighty in craft. Whereas he learned all their secrets and
(10:33):
betrayed them, and forged secretly in the Mountain of Fire,
the one Ring to be their master. But Klibrimbor was
aware of him and hid the three which he had made,
and there was war, and the land was laid waste,
and the gate of Moria was shut. Then through all
the years that followed he traced the Ring. But since
that history is elsewhere recounted, even as Elrond himself set
(10:54):
it down, in his books of Lore. It is not
here recalled for it is a long tale full of
deeds great and terrible, and briefly though el Ron spoke,
the sun rowed up the sky and the morning was passing.
Ere he ceased. Of nu Minor, he spoke its glory
and its fall, and the return of the kings of
men to Middle Earth out of the deeps of the sea,
(11:14):
born upon the wings of storm. Yeah, so there you go.
That's that's the kind of introduction in Tolkien's own words,
I guess you could say, to this volume, to this
particular work. What this really gets at is that the
story of Numenor, even though it takes place thousands of
(11:35):
years before Lord of the Rings, it very much is
a companion story to the Lord of the Rings. It
gives a ton of background about how we got to
where the Lord of the Rings takes place. It is
the mental and spiritual background of emotion, even emotional background
of the participants in the story, whether you have suron
(11:58):
el Rond, even those who weren't alive at the time,
like Adra Gorn and Bordemir. Right, these characters they know
from their own from the lore that's been passed down
to them. They know this story of Neumanor. So you
can kind of think about any story that's like culturally
significant to you, right, and to whatever culture it is
(12:19):
that you're coming from, it's like one of those stories, right,
you know, you could you could say for Tolkien. In
the case of Tolkien, it would be like, on one hand,
maybe it's like, you know, the story of Israel, because
he was is a is a Catholic, that would have
been a story he knew well from going to Mass
(12:39):
and hearing the different readings at Mass, and you know,
just from his own you know, cultural upbringing as a
as a man of England, right, he would have known
like some of the stories of mythology, right of the
European various European mythologies, and these would have been important
stories to him. So this is something that for the
(12:59):
character at the Council of l Rond, it's a very
meaning they know what Numenor was, right, They they know
these stories, they know different aspects of them, maybe not
in every detail, but they probably know more than what's
written here. Right, You can kind of think about it
in those terms. So, yeah, this sets the stage for
that and really what we need to understand is even
as Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings, he
(13:21):
was developing the story of numenor kind of on the
at the same time. Right, so, while he's working over here,
he's creating this ancient history over here in order to
make the Lord of the Rings seem that much more real.
It was just the way he operated, right. If you've
listened to other episodes where we talk about the different
(13:41):
like kind of Tolkien's creative method and his theory of
creativity and those sorts of things, you deeply understand why
he would operate this way because it was important to
him that there was this thing in the background that
made the real times, that made the story he was
telling seem that much more real. Okay, so, uh so
this story, this quote helps set the stage for why
(14:04):
the Fall of Newman or uh why what's the point
of telling the story and how it all connects to
the Lord of the Rings. All right, So well let's
look real quick at the contents of this story. So
I'm gonna skip through some of the pages here, all right,
So we've hit the cover, we you know, we skipped
(14:24):
over a few of these things which are a little
less interesting. I did I do want to mention real
quick this is this was compiled. This is the We've
mentioned Alan Lee the illustrator, but we should definitely mention
that it was edited by Brian Sibley, so he's the
one who put all of this together. I've done a
review of the book when it first came out. It's
a you know, shorter just kind of like book review, right,
(14:44):
it's not really like an exploration of it, but it's
just kind of a book review, and talked about his
background a little bit and that. So I encourage you
to go find that video. Uh, go find that audio
if you're listening to this and check it out. Okay,
So as far as the contents themselves, the thing to
(15:06):
understand is that this is organized around the Tale of Years,
and it's organized chronologically. So what we've done here is
we've pulled a bunch of writings from various sources, and
that it's already been published. So this is all as
far as Tolkien's writing goes. This is all previously published writing,
(15:26):
but we've pulled it all together and organized it in
such a way that it follows along a chronological sort
of development. And this is a three thousand year history right,
nu Minor, it's actually closer to thirty five hundred years.
That is a vast period of time. And so Neumanor
this story is told and pulls all those things together
so that they mention them in the appropriate year. And
(15:48):
so it's easier that way to really understand the flow
of the story of Numanor. Instead of having to read
these different sources that you don't really that are kind
of isolated and out of context, we actually get the
full context because of the tale of years and the
organization here. So for example, you know, we have the
foundation of the Gray Havens and of lean Don, and
(16:10):
I believe that's from a Kalabeth. We have the Adine
reaching Numenor, again probably from a Kalabath as well. And
then we have some writings that actually come from the
Nature of Middle Earth, which is a work that was
published in late twenty twenty one, which was edited by
Carl Hastedter. So that's kind of the main part of
(16:35):
the contents of the Fall of Numenor. And it's worth
noting too that there are a couple of interesting things
at the end. First, in the appendices, first of all,
we have a brief chronicle of the Third Age of
Middle Earth. We'll get to that when we get to it,
but that gives a little bit of how the story
(16:57):
of Numenor connects to the Lord of the Rings through
the second period of three thousand years that separates the
end of Newmanor the end of the Second Age, from
the start of the Lord of the Rings, and so
it kind of connects the dots and gets us to
the Lord of the Rings. And then Appendic B Appendix
B is the New Minorian chapters from the Lost Road. Now,
(17:17):
the Lost Road is something you'll find in volume five
of the History of Middle Earth. This is a very
obscure writing. The Lost Road, though, is the original version
of the New Manorian legend. Briefly, the story of the
Lost Road is that Tolkien and his good friend C. S.
Lewis sort of had a gentleman's agreement in the late
(17:40):
thirties that they were going to each write a sign
kind of a work of speculative fiction. Lewis's job was
to write the space travel story and Tolkien's job was
to write the time travel story. Lewis was much more successful,
at least at the time, and he wrote the space
(18:01):
travel story, which ended up becoming out of the Silent
Planet ended up becoming the Space Trilogy. Out of the
Silent Planet Perilandra and that Hideous Strength. Tolkien wrote attempted
to write the time travel story, and that was the
Lost Road. Now, this was not sort of what we
think of in terms of many time travel stories where
you have a machine necessarily, like you know, everybody, like
(18:23):
my generation always thinks of back to the future. When
you think of time travel stories, maybe you think of
like Terminator or something like that. But this was more
like kind of a almost like kind of a psychological
time travel story or kind of like you just kind
of surprise find yourself, you know it. It was a
really interesting approach and we'll go into it more when
(18:44):
we cover this much later on in the appendices, but
suffice it to say it was where the original kind
of version of the New Minorian story came from, the
New Minorian legend came from. So definitely interesting stuff. One
thing we don't find in the appendices, but maybe we'll.
Maybe we'll hit this when we do kind of get
(19:06):
to the end of doing it, which could take us
a really long time, because I said, my mantra here
is don't be hasty. We're gonna take a really long
walk through this. But there is something called the Notion
Club Papers, which was kind of a second attempt to
tell the story of the Lost Road, but was also
never published, and that's not found here, so maybe we'll
come back to that. But the important thing to know
(19:28):
is that the Lost Road contains kind of the early
version of the story of Numanor. Okay, now, last thing
I want to hit in in this episode about the
fall of Numenor is this early kind of the first chapter.
It's not really a chapter, but the introduction, the pre introduction,
(19:49):
if you will, maybe the prologue about this book. I
believe this is in This is Siby writing, Brian Sibley writing,
and he's talking about kind of his intent for the
book and what are the sources for these things? So
a word on his intent. He says, the intention is
not to supplant these works as each already stands as
the definitive presentation of jero Er Tolkien's writings with peerless
(20:12):
insightful commentary and analysis by Christopher Tolkien, but rather to
provide extracts from the above with as few editorial interventions
as possible that illustrate, in the author's own words, the
rich and tumultuous events of the Second Age, as summarized
by J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the tale of years. Okay,
So he's juxtaposing with Christopher Tolkien's approach here. And I
(20:34):
know Sibley would be the first to just laud Christopher
Tolkien and hold him up, but he is juxtaposing here,
and he's saying that Christopher Tolkien's approach with Unfinished Tales
and then the history of the twelve volume History of
Middle Earth was to basically give these different things that
(20:55):
he had found of his father's writing, early versions, things
that have been left out, sorts of miscellaneous writings, and
it was to give a lot of commentary, his own
commentary on like kind of the background of these things.
It's an approach that makes those works particularly challenging at times.
(21:15):
Unfinished Tales somewhat challenging. There's parts of the History of
Middle Earth where it's extremely challenging to figure out who's
actually writing. Is it Christopher or is it jer R. Tolkien?
And that can be a little bit frustrating at times,
especially if you're not an academic reader, because you have
to spend a lot of time understanding, Oh, this is
(21:36):
Christopher talking over here, and this is what he was
referring to. And this is when jer R. Tolkien jumps
in and has things to say. And so I really
appreciate this approach by Sibley because you've kind of for
everyday readers like I consider myself and probably most of
you all consider yourselves. It's a little bit more accessible
this way because you don't have this kind of constant
(21:58):
interjection of different editorial comments into writings that are already
challenging enough as it is. So so Sibley's intent here
is to give us these incredible writings which are found
else found in all these disparate places, and oftentimes with
a lot of editorial contextual contextualizing, and it's to give
(22:19):
it to us in a well ordered, easy to understand
the flow of it. Weigh, I think it's hugely valuable
to do that. So that's that was Sibley's approach here.
As far as kind of the sources for all these things,
So we mentioned the timeline. The main source for the
timeline is the Tale of Years, which is Appendix B
(22:40):
of The Lord of the Rings. The Tale of Years
is really fascinating, and it's super helpful. Actually it's really
fascinating too when it comes to some of the stuff
it says about the Third Age. Also, he does pull
a little bit. He says from Appendix A the Annals
of the Kings and Rulers, as well as some of
the material and Unfinished Tales, which contains a chronological listing
(23:02):
of the Kings of numenor the kings and actually a
few queens of numenor so the sources, the sources for
kind of the longer portions of the content, not just
the years when things happen, but actually the things that
kind of tell the story of that particular period. Those
sources very quite quite heavily. The key one, obviously is
(23:26):
a Kalabeth a Kalabath is the story of the downfall
of Numenor it's found in the Silmarillion. You also have
the story of al Darion and Herendis, which is found
in Unfinished Tales. It's actually the longest, I guess you
would say, kind of in the story like kind of
you know, if you will like the story of the
Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings, Right, these are
(23:47):
stories that tell kind of up close and personal stories
of people living in those times in Middle Earth. Right,
Al Daarion and Horrenduz is the only story we have
of that nature. Right, This kind of up close and
personal story that takes place in the Second Age about Numenor,
(24:10):
so al Dalrean and Herrendez is found there. It will
be interesting when we get to that one. We have
the genealogical table that's also found in Unfinished Tales. There
is the material found in the History of a Kalabath,
which is in the Peoples of Middle Earth, Volume twelve
of the History of Middle Earth, the Early History of
the Legend and the Fall of Numenor, which are both
(24:30):
in the Lost Road and other writings, and the out
and the Drowning of Anna Dune, which is in Sauron Defeated,
which is volume nine, I believe of the Lord of
the Rings. I'm sorry of the History of Middle Earth.
There's also, as I mentioned before, there's a significant passages
from the Nature of Middle Earth, and that's really great
because that's a that is a wonderful work. But there's
(24:52):
a good portion. There's a lot of that that covers
so many different things about about Middle Earth, and it's
nice that the portions that apply to Numanor are actually
given to us here, so we can kind of appreciate
them within the context of the rest of the story.
So we also have the yeah, so various writings the
(25:14):
land and Beasts of new Minor, the lives of the Neumanorians,
the aging of Numanorians. Those all come from the nature
of Middle Earth. So so you know what you see here.
It again, like it's really kind of cool, like we
were getting we're getting a clear, put together picture of
the mind of Tolkien when it came to all when
it comes to all these different aspects of the story
(25:36):
of the Second Age and the story of the fall
of Numenor, Right, we're getting all of these things put
together so that it really looks like if you know,
it's it's the book that Tolkien never wrote about Numenor. Now.
You know, if he had written it, it probably would have
been quite different. It probably would have been something like
you know, it's interesting to kind of speculate, like what
what would that story have looked like? Right, Unfortunately we'll
(25:58):
never know, but you know, I could imagine him telling
like just volumes and volumes, like you know, it could
have been three whole Lord of the Rings stories. I
feel like about this about the story of Numenor itself,
and I talk I talk some about that in my
reaction videos to Rings of Power, like how I would
have done it and that kind of thing. Anyway, Uh,
(26:20):
And the result is of pulling all these different sources
together like this is we get one really good, uh
compilation of that that kind of gives us Tolkien's mind,
at least what he left us about this story, about
the whole history of Numenor. Finally, there are there is
a little bit that comes from Lord of the Rings.
(26:42):
I'm sorry, we also I'm sorry I should also mention
we have the Rings of Power in the Third Age,
which is in the Silmarillion, and the history of Galadriel
and Keliborne in Unfinished Tales and glad and uh and
then Gladriel and Keliborne and the nature of Middle Earth,
and and there are a few things from the letters
of Jerror Tolkien and Lord of the Rings itself that
apply to the story of the Second Age. So that's
(27:04):
in here as well. Finally, he says a little bit about,
you know, kind of his editorial approach. So we mentioned before,
like he's trying to not do a lot of editorializing,
but there is some editorializing you have you have to
in order to really contextualize and make these things easier
to understand. So he has provided some of that editorializing,
(27:27):
and it kind of clearly said this is when it's
going to be happening. So the editorial inventions are interventions
are in a smaller font size and indented. Explanatory immendations
by the editor to introduce passages or within the body
of an extract are shown in square brackets. So that's
that's that. Well, as I said, we're taking a long,
(27:48):
slow walk through this, and so that's going to wrap
it up for this episode. Right when we come back
to the Fall of Numanor, we're going to discuss this
next portion with'll be the introduction the Saga of a
Dark Age. We might make it to the next portion
as well, which kind of gives the history of the
First Age leading up to that, but we're gonna hit
(28:11):
this introduction next time we do the Fall of Numenor.
So I'm excited about this, you guys. I think we're
gonna have a lot of fun going through this, taking
our time really understanding all these different aspects of the
Fall of Numenor. I know that many people kind of hardcore,
longtime Tolkien fans were maybe a little bit skeptical when
they saw this coming out, because it's not like a
lot of new publications. But I think at the end
(28:31):
of the day, it's really it's really cool to see
this happening because and it's a really valuable work because
it does pull together all these different sources into one
cohesive book about Numanor and the Second Age. I think
that is an extremely valuable thing, and I'm excited to
dive into this with you guys. All right, well, hey, subscribe, rate,
(28:53):
and review us on iTunes or the platform of your choice.
Please leave us that five star rating if you enjoyed
this episode, if you enjoy the Tolkien Road, if you've
been listening to multiple episodes, hey it's time to head
on over and make that happen. When you do that,
it puts the win in our sales and helps us
to keep on evering on. All right, and hey, don't
forget correspondence. I promise we're gonna be doing more correspondence.
Been It's just been a busy beginning to the new year,
(29:15):
kind of figuring out what we're gonna be doing this year,
the game plan, keeping it loose, but I want to
do the correspondence and it's gonna be fun to hear
from you guys as far as the Fall of Newminer goes,
and hopefully, and I'm looking forward, hopefully I'm going to
be able to hit some correspondents at the end of
each one of these episodes as well. Kind of saved
time at the end. All right, So YouTube, Tolkienoad dot com, email,
(29:37):
Tolkienpodcast at gmail dot com, Twitter at Tolkien Road, wherever
you can find us. We'll do our best to respond
to you somehow and at some point. Okay, Well, that's
all for this episode, you guys. Thanks to our amazing patrons,
especially the following. John R. Caitlin of t with Tolkien,
Jacob Blockham, John H. Aeru twenty seven, Emilio P, Jonathan D,
(29:57):
Mike M, Robert H. Paul D, Julia Werty, Joe Bagelman, Jacobs,
Richard K, Matt R. Matthew W. Garrett P, Chris K,
John W, Eugene D, Chris B. Daniel S, seb M,
SHAWNA Supreme mis Anonymous, Andrew T. Redhawk, Shannoness, Brian o
zeke F, James L. Chris L. Chuck f Azya ve
(30:20):
Ish of The Hammer, Teresa C. David of Pines with Jack,
Eric B and Johanna t all Right. Thank you all
so much for watching and or listening. We will talk
at you next time. Bye bye
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