September 8, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, we continue our journey through The Fall of Númenor with the volume's introduction, titled "The Saga of a Dark Age".
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/e0325/
To support our work here, please visit Patreon.com/TolkienRoad.
OTHER LINKS:
Video of this episode: https://youtu.be/FTP5KNJG9xI
Watch AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/137887613
Listen AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/78236180
Buy Tolkien Road merch @ True Myths Press
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/support.
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/e0325/
To support our work here, please visit Patreon.com/TolkienRoad.
OTHER LINKS:
Video of this episode: https://youtu.be/FTP5KNJG9xI
Watch AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/137887613
Listen AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/78236180
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. In
this episode, we continue our journey through the fall of
Numenor with the volume's introduction titled The Saga of a
Dark Age. 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 epi drama
of the Second Age, you won't want to miss this.
And here's the really exciting part. I've got a brand
(00:21):
new book on the way Tolkien's tragedy 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, let's dive in
(00:44):
to the Saga of a Dark Age. Hey there, fellow travelers,
Welcome to the Tolkien Road. Episode three twenty five. In
this episode, we'll be exploring the Saga of a Dark Age,
Brian Sibley's introduction to the Fall of numenor before we
get started, I'd like to give a double up AAR
five to are Amazing Fellowship three two one OOPSHT nice
(01:07):
special thanks to this episode's executive producers, John R. Caitlin
f T with Tolkien, Jacob Blockhom, John H, and AERW.
Twenty seven. Also a shout out to those celebrating their
Fellowship anniversary in February of twenty twenty three Ish of
the Hammer, Jacob Blockhom, Robert h az Yavi, Eric B,
John R, Andrew M, Shane Wise, Lucas W, Sean S,
(01:32):
Sarah W, John R, David Bigwood, kat El, Sarah M,
and Eric B. February is a big month for our
patrons for our fellowship. Thank you all so much for
sticking with us over the last year and in many
cases years. Hey join the Fellowship of the Road by
visiting Patreon dot com slash Tolkien Road. When you join
(01:52):
the Fellowship of the Road, it helps us to keep
on evering on and lands 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 Moore at patreon dot com,
slash Tolkien Road YouTube, hit that like button, don't forget
subscribe and let us know what's on your mind in
the comments below. All right, So, this is the second
(02:16):
episode in my series exploring the Fall of Numanor the
recently published collection of Second Age writings edited by Brian Sibley.
This is what we're talking about, right here, The Fall
of Neumanor. Yes, beautiful, beautiful volume right there. Sibley's introduction
is titled The Saga of a Dark Age. Tolkien himself
(02:38):
termed the Second Age of dark Age in an important letter,
the Waldman Letter for those of you who are familiar.
Why did he do so? After all? The Second Age
begins with the aftermath of more God's defeat and the
seeming absence of any strong evil from Middle Earth. Furthermore,
it's a time of new beginnings, of great possibilities, with
(02:58):
the founding of newmenor and all that this entails. People
are living longer. The Neumonorians have somewhere between three and
four times the normal lifespan of regular men. You know,
everything's kind of looking up, especially for mankind. However, for
all of the hope and glory of its beginning, the
(03:18):
Second Age is nearly thirty five hundred years is a
time that progresses towards and ends in catastrophe and unfathomable ruin.
It seems to prove that mankind is naturally disposed to
collectively choose evil rather than good. And boy, does it
choose evil. We'll see this especially toward the end of
(03:38):
Numenor's history, where evils we'd rather not imagine become common practice. Thus,
the Second Age is a dark age, one inclined toward
tragedy rather than the happy ending. In his introduction The
Fall of Numenor, editor Brian Sibley begins by this begins
by referencing the stories of the Second Age to the
Greater Middle Earth Legendarium. To quote him. In nineteen fifty one,
(04:04):
Tolkien was seeking a publisher who was willing to not
only consider the newly minted The Lord of the Rings,
but who was also prepared to commit to simultaneously publishing
The Silmarillion, a project on which he had by then
been intermittently engaged for some thirty seven years. To promote
his cause, Tolkien wrote out what he referred to as
a brief sketch, although it ran to more than seventy
(04:25):
five hundred words to serve as a resume of both
The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, and which
took pains to detail the codependency of the two projects.
He first outlined the making of Middle Earth, a creation
myth of considerable literary power and beauty, followed by opulently
crafted to histories of its different races, and the mighty
deeds that wrought, and great they wrought in great tragedies
(04:47):
that befell them across the generations that comprised what he
referred to as the First Age. Then turning to the
events of the age that followed, Tolkien wrote, the next
cycle deals or would deal with the Second Age. But
it is on Earth a dark age, and not very
much of its history is or in need or need
be told. So Tolkien, you know this, This letter, the
(05:11):
Waldman Letter that Sibley refers to here is a very pivotal,
very pivotal writing, just in terms of understanding how all
of the stories of Middle Earth are connected. Go read that.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend it it. There's
a good snippet of it at the beginning of the Summarillion,
(05:31):
the portions that pertain to the First Age and the
Second Age. But if you read the whole thing in
the context of Jerr R. Tolkien's letters, it goes from
the First Age all the way through the Third Age.
So even though Tolkien viewed this and you know he
kind of he kind of, you know, spoke about the
Second Age in this letter as maybe it's not all
that worth writing lots of stories about because it's a
(05:52):
pretty dark age, that really didn't stop him from elaborating
on it. And you know, this is something that shouldn't
prize us. With Tolkien, he might have like flippantly referred
to just about anything that was part of his imaginary,
you know, creativity as being, oh, that may not be
too much worth writing about right now, but you give
him a chance to think about it, and he's gonna
(06:14):
want to write about it. That's just kind of the
bottom line. It's interesting to think he did the same thing.
He actually started a sequel to The Lord of the
Rings that would have been about the Fourth Age, called
The New Shadow, and we have what little he wrote
of this in there. Of course, he started writing this
towards the end of his life, and you know, he
(06:34):
says he abandoned it because he really like kind of
for the same reasons. It was a pretty dark story.
He didn't really see much possibility, you know, for it
turning into a worthy sequel to the Lord of the Rings.
But I think if he had had more time, maybe,
if he had had more bandwidth and hadn't had so
many other projects he was trying to finish up while
(06:55):
his time on Earth was not yet complete, I think
he might have spent more time where on that next sequel.
So you know, you might even make the case that
The Lord of the Rings wasn't really necessarily when it
was the New Hobbit write the sequel to the Hobbit.
It wasn't really something that he was necessarily passionate about
publishing initially, right, It took him some time to kind
(07:16):
of flush things out where he was kind of like, oh,
this is a story I want to tell. It just
always pains me as a Tolkien fan to think about
all the stories that will never know that Tolkien could
have written. He I mean, how many novels could there
have been written about the Second Age. There's so many
different stories within that one age, and then you have the
history of the Third Age leading up to the Lord
of the Rings. All the stories in there. Oh, it
(07:38):
just it kind of makes you want to weep with
all the possibility that was not realized in his lifetime.
So at the end of the day, though even though
he says it's not really worth elaborating on, it didn't
really stop him from elaborating. In some sense, he had
been well at work on the history of the Second
Age simultaneous with The Lord of the Rings. If you
(07:59):
read The Lord of the Rings, you realize you get
a lot of it already in there. Sibley explains that
the publication of The Lord of the Rings seems to
have reawakened Tolkien's desire to elaborate the history of the
Second Age, and, to quote Sibley again, the creation and
eventual ruin of Numenor and the making of the Rings
of Power were central events in the chronology of Middle Earth,
and when in July and November nineteen fifty four, the
(08:20):
first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, The
Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were eventually
published by George Allen and by George Allen and Unwin
readers had their first tantalizing glimpses of that past history,
providing a rich, tapestried backdrop to the struggle by the
free peoples of Middle Earth against Sourn and the forces
of Wardour. These potent elements, though peripheral to the main narrative,
(08:41):
proved to be as indeed, they have remained an integral
part of the book's appeal. When in nineteen fifty five,
The Return of the King was published as the third
and final volume of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
added more than one hundred pages of appendices that proved
many details about Middle Earth, its languages, the lineage of
its kings and rulers, andological timeline of the events of
the Second and Third Ages. Yeah, I mean, Similey hits
(09:04):
the nail on the head here, right, Like part of
the appeal of Lord of the Rings itself is this
idea that there is all this history standing behind it.
You want to learn more about the things that are
referenced in the first episode on this series, in the
Fall of Numenor, I referenced the quote from the Council
of l Ron chapter that is one of the first
things in this book right here, right. You probably can't
(09:27):
see it too well there, but you know, just speaks
of like all these things that they spoke of at
the Council of Elrond, that were the ancient history of
them right then and there. But you want to know
more about these things. You're like, how many stories are
here that you know, I would love to just dive
into and learn more about. And that's part of the
(09:50):
fascination with the appendices. Tolkien really labored over those appendices
that are at the end of the Lord of the Rings,
and you get so much history right there, little nuggets.
I mean, just that time to all those little nuggets
in there, each one seeming like it could be its
own story, its own novel in and of itself. And
you have just how many of those little nuggets of
the Second of events that happened in the Second Age
(10:11):
peppered throughout there. And you have other stories pertaining to
the Third Age that lead up to you know, that
lead up to the Lord of the Rings. All of this,
right is part of the appeal. It's part of the
appeal of Lord of the Rings. Although nothing beyond the
Lord of the Rings relating to the Second Age was
published in Tolkien's lifetime. His son Christopher began the decades
(10:32):
long project of producing his father's unpublished Middle Earth writings
in nineteen seventy seven with the publication of The Silm Million.
Not only did the Silm Million contain the stories of
Middle Earth's First Age, but they contained a Kalabate, the
definitive account of Numanor's history, as well as of the
Rings of Power in the Third Age, which contains a
great deal of Second Age history as well. I mean,
(10:53):
between those two writings contain a lot of They kind
of put together the grand sweep of the Second Age
for us. Kalabath. Right, So you go pick yourself up
a copy of The Silm Marillion if you don't already
have it. The Silmarine itself, everything in the first part
of this book is pretty challenging if you're a newbie.
That's why I've done many episodes on The Silm Million,
(11:15):
helping you understand the Silm Million chapter by chapter, along
with my wonderful co host, Greta. But a Calabath is
found towards the end and you can read it as
a standalone thing. It doesn't have to be read in
the content with along with the rest of the film
Million and then of The Rings of Power. The third
Age is also wonderful because it tells some of the
(11:37):
same events, but it tells it from a different perspective,
more of a Ring centric perspective than a New Minor
centric perspective, right, and then it continues on to tell
to connect it all to the events of the Lord
of the Rings. So those are both very valuable works
that came along in nineteen seventy seven after the Silmar Million,
(11:57):
Christopher published further elaborations of this second Age with Unfinished Tales,
followed by the incredibly ambitious History of Middle Earth series,
which contained early drafts of a Calibate, as well as
two precursors of the New Minorian legend, the Lost Road
and the Notion Club Papers. Lost Road and Notion Club
Papers are both works that were non Middle Earth versions
(12:19):
of the New Minorian legend that Tolkien wrote well before
the publication of The Lord of the Rings. But eventually
what they had of the legend of Neu Minor was
subsumed into the Legendarium of Middle Earth and became what
we now know is is the story of Neu Minor.
(12:40):
Unfinished Tales contains, and we'll get to some of these
things in the later episodes in this series. Unfinished Tales
contains a whole section that pertains to the Second Age
by itself. We have some really interesting things in there,
descriptions of New Minor, kind of a table of its
various monarchs we have. And the only really long form
(13:02):
story that pertains that that's kind of a you know,
focused in look at life in the Second Age, in
the story of the Mariner's wife al Darion and Norendez.
That'll be a really interesting one to get into. Done
episodes on that in the past, but it's it'll be
(13:22):
interesting to get into within this context. Connected with all
of the rest of the story of numenor the Lost Road,
the Notion Club papers are both found in the History
of Middle Earth in various volumes of that, and there
are other writings early versions of a Calibate and of
the Rings of Power in the Third Age that are
found in those as well, so all worth checking out
(13:45):
in due time. But the Lost Road fortunately is part
of the appendices. At least the chapters that pertain to
Numenor are in the appendices of the Fall of numenor
Notion club papers. You've got to go pick up. I
believe it's Salon defeated to get yourself, you know, read
up on the notion club papers. So simply ties it
all together by referring to what may be the genesis
of the entire legend, Tolkien's recurring great Wave nightmare. This
(14:08):
legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history
has always troubled me in sleep, I had the dreadful
dream of the intellectable wave, either coming out of a
quiet sea or coming in towering over the green inlands.
It still occurs occasionally, though now exercised by writing about it.
I just need to think about that. It was kind
of able to get this nightmare out of his system
(14:28):
simply by writing about it. So maybe there's something to
that as far as like, if you're troubled by bad dreams,
getting it out of your system, to sort of exercise
that from yourself. And it's fascinating to think about the
origins of this, you know, this story, you know now
what has what was the basis for, you know, the
(14:48):
story that would become the most expensive TV show and
history up to this point. It all really starts with
this like nightmare and it starts also we learn with
his connection to C. S. Lewis, the two had been
They were very good friends, of course, both Inklings, and
they had challenged each other to write better speculative fiction. C. S.
(15:15):
Lewis writing about space travel, Tolkien writing about time travel. C. S.
Lewis's stories became the Space Trilogy, well published and beloved,
you know, by fans of C. S. Lewis, very very
great stories themselves. Tolkien's was supposed to be The Lost
Road but was never published in his lifetime became the
New Minory because it became the New Minorian legend essentially.
(15:37):
But it's interesting to go back and read The Lost
Road and find kind of what he initially envisioned it
to be. Sort of this father son's story interesting in
it of itself. I love the father son connection that
lies at the root of all of this between between
Tolkien himself and his son Christopher, Christopher kind of being
the son that carried on his father's legacy and saw
(15:59):
and complete least saw it through a christ I mean,
and I'd love that this chapter really ends with a
tribute to Christopher, this introduction here, because it's really Christopher
without him. He was the great apostle of his father's work,
of his father's legendarium. It's a beautiful witness to the
power and possibility of the father's son bond. To see
Christopher's dedication, to see his dedication to making sure all
(16:25):
of these important writings of Middle Earth saw the light
of day. If Christopher had not done that, we'd know
far less about Middle Earth than we do today. So
really invaluable work that Christopher did for all of us.
And you know, there's really no amount of tribute that's
too much to be paid to Christopher when it comes
to when it comes to fans of Tolkien and of
(16:48):
Middle Earth. So, yeah, this was really a dark age, right,
And I love this idea of the saga of a
dark age. Middle Earth as a legendarium really does contain
both catastrophe and you catastrophe, tragedy and triumph, the shadow
and the hope. Lord of the Rings is great because
it is dark at times, right, It's very dark at times,
(17:09):
but it ultimately ends on a note of hope. But
not all of the stories of Middle Earth do. Right.
There are glimpses of hope perhaps, and there are glimpses
of hope in Numenor, but it's kind of like it's
kind of the blend is shifted a little bit, and
this is a much darker story. It's a much darker
story with the darker ending and lots of very dark
events happening within it. So so yeah, that's that's my
(17:33):
sort of unpacking of the introduction here from Brian Sibley,
and we will be hopefully that helps you kind of
wrap your mind around what's going on here if you're
really learning about these legends for the first time, reading
along with us in the Fall of Numenor. And we'll
continue on next time, and the next chapter is really
going to focus on kind of introducing the things that
(17:54):
lead up to the Second Age, the stories that lead
up to the Second Age, in a you know, kind
of in a nice little one chapter synopsis there for us.
All right, well, hey, let's hit some correspondence real quick.
I actually want to start with the haikup. I have
been getting a lot of great haiku from one listener
in particular, Michael Michael h read a few of his
(18:16):
here before this one pertains to chapter twenty four of
the film Million, and this is chapter twenty four the
Silm Million is of course related to the story of Numenor,
because it's about Erindil, right, who is the father of
l Rond and el Ros, l Ros being the first
king of Numanor so he would have Erindil would have
(18:36):
been kind of like the ultimate celebrated figure in Numanor.
So here is. Here is the haiku pertaining to selm Million,
chapter twenty four from Michael h No hope of return
more Goth in the Timeless Void, but his lies live on, yes,
and that's the rub. That's the rub for the second age.
(18:57):
More Goth maybe no more, but his lies live on
and are going to be harnessed and put back to
use by Salarn in the second age. So thank you, Michael.
All Right, let's hit a few quick notes Jackie. This
one's from Jackie s on December twenty ninth. Let's see,
(19:20):
here we go. Jackie writes, thanks so much for reaching out.
I finished the Rings of Power show, and I agree
with you that it wasn't all Tolkien feeling, but I
appreciated the constructive criticism. I hope the producers take all
of that into consideration and make improvements. You know, Jackie,
I have no delusions that they probably even think about
what this particular Tolkien guy has to say. Maybe they do,
(19:42):
maybe they've run across it at some point, but you know,
my hope is just that somehow, the you know, the
criticisms will be heard from Tolkien fans sort of en mass,
and that maybe there's some things that can be done
to maybe not completely write the ship, because I'm not
sure it's one hundred percent solageable at this point, but
maybe salvage it to some degree just to make it
(20:03):
a little more enjoyable going forward for those of us
who are really kind of, you know, big fans of
the Legendarium and who were disappointed with season one. Not
everybody was, so you know, not trying to speak on
behalf of everyone here. Jackie asked some questions, and I
like going back to these, there's a good kind of starter,
(20:23):
you know, starting out sorts of questions. First question, are
these movies and shows base one hundred percent on the
books or do the producers mixed up up make stuff
up along the way. Jackie, so they they're definitely having
to what I would say, fill in a lot of
blanks because these stories, the stories of the Second Age,
were not told in details sufficient to to just adapt
(20:48):
it right to the screen, not in the Saint certainly
in the same way that Peter Jackson was able to
adapt Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The producers
of the Rings of Power and we knew from the
beginning they'd have to fill in a lot of blanks.
They have to make up a lot of stuff along
the way. The problem is that they aren't necessarily being
true to what was written in some cases. And that's
(21:11):
the rub. That's the rub for me and for mini fans.
Number two, I'm able to find answers to questions about
characters and plots in the books, or am I able,
for example, the background story of adra Gorn and did
he really grow up with the elves? You can learn
a lot more about the backstory of Aragorn if you
go to a I believe it's Appendix A of the
Lord of the Rings. The story of Adragorn and Arwin
(21:32):
actually contains a good bit of information about Aragorn's backstory,
a lot more about Aragorn actually, So I would refer
you to that. Her third question, if the characters are
from the book, should we know more or less what's
going to happen next? So I think you're referring to
the rings of power. You would think so, you would
(21:54):
think that they're not going to violate anything that happens
within the legendary from what Tolkien wrote himself. Then again,
I mean, I'm not privy to what they're thinking. It
would seem, you know, they haven't been completely completely faithful
to everything Tolkien wrote so far, so I don't. I
(22:16):
can't say for sure either way. Unfortunately, I would prefer
that they did not violate and really focused on telling,
you know, telling the story in a surprising way. You know,
there's ways of telling the story, even when you know
what's going to happen. There's ways of telling the story
that still make it intriguing, right And to me, that's
(22:38):
the real challenge of doing a show like this. But
I'm not entirely sure that that's the way they chose
to go with it. I think they chose to go like,
we're going to kind of use what he gave us,
but we're gonna fudget whenever we want to. That seems
to be their modus operande right now. She goes on
to say, I hope I'm not overwhelming you with my questions.
I just feel more inspired to find out more and
(22:59):
not just sit around wait for the next movie or show.
I still look forward to seeing what is next. We
have to keep hope because compared to the real world,
this is much better. In the end, this is all
a battle of good versus evil. Good will prevail. Love it, Jackie,
absolutely thank you for your note. Beautiful way to end
it there, and keep that spirit. Good will prevail in
(23:20):
the end, no matter what happens, no matter how dark
things get, good will prevail all right. And the other
note is from patron Sophie s from January twenty ninth.
Sophie says, Hi, John and Greta, I'm still exploring older
episodes of your podcast Wonderful Trove. Thank you, and today
(23:43):
I listened to your tribute to Christopher close to the
day of his passing. I enjoyed it very much. It
reminds me that most of us would do well to
consider what we hold true and dearest and feel a
certain responsibility to pass it on. I believe it was T. S.
Eliot who wrote, and I'm paraphrasing, that we defend an
idea or a truth against its foes, not because we
will win a particular battle, but to keep it alive
for someone else, the next generation. Christopher's devotion to his
(24:06):
father led him to protect and pass on his legacy,
and it is what you and your own way are
doing as well. I applaud you for that. So as
I wrote earlier, keep the faith all good things, Sophie.
Thank you so much, Sophie. A really beautiful note. And
you're right, you know, Christopher's Christopher's devotion to his father
is a really beautiful thing, and it's something that plays
(24:26):
an important role in this book, The Fall of Newman
or so, so thank you for writing and for acknowledging that,
like I said, there's really no amount of tribute we
can pay to Christopher, you know, that will really exhaust
all that we owe him for giving us what he
did through his lives, through his life's work, continuing his
father's life's work. All right, y'all good stuff, good stuff.
(24:47):
Thank you so much for your correspondence. Always love hearing
from everybody. Hit us up and we will do our
best to respond to you somehow and at some point.
That's all for this episode. Thank you to our amazing patrons,
especially the following John R. Lift with Tolkien, Jacob blockhom
John H. Every twenty seven, Emilio P, Jonathan D, Mike M,
Robert H. Paul D, Julia Wordy, Joe Bagelman, Jacob S,
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Richard K, Matt R. Matthew W. Garrett P, Chris S,
John W. Eugene D, Chris B. Daniel S, seb M
and Shana Supreme Mis Anonymous, Andrew T. Redhawk, Shannon Ess,
Brian O, Zeke F, James L, Chris L, Chuck f
Azya v Ish of the Hammer, Teresa C. David of
Pines with Jack, Eric B and Johanna T. All Right.
(25:32):
Thank you all so much. Thank you to our amazing fellowship,
all of you all who are watching and or listening.
We will talk at you next time. Bye bye
Hey there, fellow travelers, Welcome to the Tolkien Road. In
this episode, we continue our journey through the fall of
Numenor with the volume's introduction titled The Saga of a
Dark Age. 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 epi drama
of the Second Age, you won't want to miss this.
And here's the really exciting part. I've got a brand
(00:21):
new book on the way Tolkien's tragedy 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, let's dive in
(00:44):
to the Saga of a Dark Age. Hey there, fellow travelers,
Welcome to the Tolkien Road. Episode three twenty five. In
this episode, we'll be exploring the Saga of a Dark Age,
Brian Sibley's introduction to the Fall of numenor before we
get started, I'd like to give a double up AAR
five to are Amazing Fellowship three two one OOPSHT nice
(01:07):
special thanks to this episode's executive producers, John R. Caitlin
f T with Tolkien, Jacob Blockhom, John H, and AERW.
Twenty seven. Also a shout out to those celebrating their
Fellowship anniversary in February of twenty twenty three Ish of
the Hammer, Jacob Blockhom, Robert h az Yavi, Eric B,
John R, Andrew M, Shane Wise, Lucas W, Sean S,
(01:32):
Sarah W, John R, David Bigwood, kat El, Sarah M,
and Eric B. February is a big month for our
patrons for our fellowship. Thank you all so much for
sticking with us over the last year and in many
cases years. Hey join the Fellowship of the Road by
visiting Patreon dot com slash Tolkien Road. When you join
(01:52):
the Fellowship of the Road, it helps us to keep
on evering on and lands 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 Moore at patreon dot com,
slash Tolkien Road YouTube, hit that like button, don't forget
subscribe and let us know what's on your mind in
the comments below. All right, So, this is the second
(02:16):
episode in my series exploring the Fall of Numanor the
recently published collection of Second Age writings edited by Brian Sibley.
This is what we're talking about, right here, The Fall
of Neumanor. Yes, beautiful, beautiful volume right there. Sibley's introduction
is titled The Saga of a Dark Age. Tolkien himself
(02:38):
termed the Second Age of dark Age in an important letter,
the Waldman Letter for those of you who are familiar.
Why did he do so? After all? The Second Age
begins with the aftermath of more God's defeat and the
seeming absence of any strong evil from Middle Earth. Furthermore,
it's a time of new beginnings, of great possibilities, with
(02:58):
the founding of newmenor and all that this entails. People
are living longer. The Neumonorians have somewhere between three and
four times the normal lifespan of regular men. You know,
everything's kind of looking up, especially for mankind. However, for
all of the hope and glory of its beginning, the
(03:18):
Second Age is nearly thirty five hundred years is a
time that progresses towards and ends in catastrophe and unfathomable ruin.
It seems to prove that mankind is naturally disposed to
collectively choose evil rather than good. And boy, does it
choose evil. We'll see this especially toward the end of
(03:38):
Numenor's history, where evils we'd rather not imagine become common practice. Thus,
the Second Age is a dark age, one inclined toward
tragedy rather than the happy ending. In his introduction The
Fall of Numenor, editor Brian Sibley begins by this begins
by referencing the stories of the Second Age to the
Greater Middle Earth Legendarium. To quote him. In nineteen fifty one,
(04:04):
Tolkien was seeking a publisher who was willing to not
only consider the newly minted The Lord of the Rings,
but who was also prepared to commit to simultaneously publishing
The Silmarillion, a project on which he had by then
been intermittently engaged for some thirty seven years. To promote
his cause, Tolkien wrote out what he referred to as
a brief sketch, although it ran to more than seventy
(04:25):
five hundred words to serve as a resume of both
The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, and which
took pains to detail the codependency of the two projects.
He first outlined the making of Middle Earth, a creation
myth of considerable literary power and beauty, followed by opulently
crafted to histories of its different races, and the mighty
deeds that wrought, and great they wrought in great tragedies
(04:47):
that befell them across the generations that comprised what he
referred to as the First Age. Then turning to the
events of the age that followed, Tolkien wrote, the next
cycle deals or would deal with the Second Age. But
it is on Earth a dark age, and not very
much of its history is or in need or need
be told. So Tolkien, you know this, This letter, the
(05:11):
Waldman Letter that Sibley refers to here is a very pivotal,
very pivotal writing, just in terms of understanding how all
of the stories of Middle Earth are connected. Go read that.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend it it. There's
a good snippet of it at the beginning of the Summarillion,
(05:31):
the portions that pertain to the First Age and the
Second Age. But if you read the whole thing in
the context of Jerr R. Tolkien's letters, it goes from
the First Age all the way through the Third Age.
So even though Tolkien viewed this and you know he
kind of he kind of, you know, spoke about the
Second Age in this letter as maybe it's not all
that worth writing lots of stories about because it's a
(05:52):
pretty dark age, that really didn't stop him from elaborating
on it. And you know, this is something that shouldn't
prize us. With Tolkien, he might have like flippantly referred
to just about anything that was part of his imaginary,
you know, creativity as being, oh, that may not be
too much worth writing about right now, but you give
him a chance to think about it, and he's gonna
(06:14):
want to write about it. That's just kind of the
bottom line. It's interesting to think he did the same thing.
He actually started a sequel to The Lord of the
Rings that would have been about the Fourth Age, called
The New Shadow, and we have what little he wrote
of this in there. Of course, he started writing this
towards the end of his life, and you know, he
(06:34):
says he abandoned it because he really like kind of
for the same reasons. It was a pretty dark story.
He didn't really see much possibility, you know, for it
turning into a worthy sequel to the Lord of the Rings.
But I think if he had had more time, maybe,
if he had had more bandwidth and hadn't had so
many other projects he was trying to finish up while
(06:55):
his time on Earth was not yet complete, I think
he might have spent more time where on that next sequel.
So you know, you might even make the case that
The Lord of the Rings wasn't really necessarily when it
was the New Hobbit write the sequel to the Hobbit.
It wasn't really something that he was necessarily passionate about
publishing initially, right, It took him some time to kind
(07:16):
of flush things out where he was kind of like, oh,
this is a story I want to tell. It just
always pains me as a Tolkien fan to think about
all the stories that will never know that Tolkien could
have written. He I mean, how many novels could there
have been written about the Second Age. There's so many
different stories within that one age, and then you have the
history of the Third Age leading up to the Lord
of the Rings. All the stories in there. Oh, it
(07:38):
just it kind of makes you want to weep with
all the possibility that was not realized in his lifetime.
So at the end of the day, though even though
he says it's not really worth elaborating on, it didn't
really stop him from elaborating. In some sense, he had
been well at work on the history of the Second
Age simultaneous with The Lord of the Rings. If you
(07:59):
read The Lord of the Rings, you realize you get
a lot of it already in there. Sibley explains that
the publication of The Lord of the Rings seems to
have reawakened Tolkien's desire to elaborate the history of the
Second Age, and, to quote Sibley again, the creation and
eventual ruin of Numenor and the making of the Rings
of Power were central events in the chronology of Middle Earth,
and when in July and November nineteen fifty four, the
(08:20):
first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, The
Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were eventually
published by George Allen and by George Allen and Unwin
readers had their first tantalizing glimpses of that past history,
providing a rich, tapestried backdrop to the struggle by the
free peoples of Middle Earth against Sourn and the forces
of Wardour. These potent elements, though peripheral to the main narrative,
(08:41):
proved to be as indeed, they have remained an integral
part of the book's appeal. When in nineteen fifty five,
The Return of the King was published as the third
and final volume of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien
added more than one hundred pages of appendices that proved
many details about Middle Earth, its languages, the lineage of
its kings and rulers, andological timeline of the events of
the Second and Third Ages. Yeah, I mean, Similey hits
(09:04):
the nail on the head here, right, Like part of
the appeal of Lord of the Rings itself is this
idea that there is all this history standing behind it.
You want to learn more about the things that are
referenced in the first episode on this series, in the
Fall of Numenor, I referenced the quote from the Council
of l Ron chapter that is one of the first
things in this book right here, right. You probably can't
(09:27):
see it too well there, but you know, just speaks
of like all these things that they spoke of at
the Council of Elrond, that were the ancient history of
them right then and there. But you want to know
more about these things. You're like, how many stories are
here that you know, I would love to just dive
into and learn more about. And that's part of the
(09:50):
fascination with the appendices. Tolkien really labored over those appendices
that are at the end of the Lord of the Rings,
and you get so much history right there, little nuggets.
I mean, just that time to all those little nuggets
in there, each one seeming like it could be its
own story, its own novel in and of itself. And
you have just how many of those little nuggets of
the Second of events that happened in the Second Age
(10:11):
peppered throughout there. And you have other stories pertaining to
the Third Age that lead up to you know, that
lead up to the Lord of the Rings. All of this,
right is part of the appeal. It's part of the
appeal of Lord of the Rings. Although nothing beyond the
Lord of the Rings relating to the Second Age was
published in Tolkien's lifetime. His son Christopher began the decades
(10:32):
long project of producing his father's unpublished Middle Earth writings
in nineteen seventy seven with the publication of The Silm Million.
Not only did the Silm Million contain the stories of
Middle Earth's First Age, but they contained a Kalabate, the
definitive account of Numanor's history, as well as of the
Rings of Power in the Third Age, which contains a
great deal of Second Age history as well. I mean,
(10:53):
between those two writings contain a lot of They kind
of put together the grand sweep of the Second Age
for us. Kalabath. Right, So you go pick yourself up
a copy of The Silm Marillion if you don't already
have it. The Silmarine itself, everything in the first part
of this book is pretty challenging if you're a newbie.
That's why I've done many episodes on The Silm Million,
(11:15):
helping you understand the Silm Million chapter by chapter, along
with my wonderful co host, Greta. But a Calabath is
found towards the end and you can read it as
a standalone thing. It doesn't have to be read in
the content with along with the rest of the film
Million and then of The Rings of Power. The third
Age is also wonderful because it tells some of the
(11:37):
same events, but it tells it from a different perspective,
more of a Ring centric perspective than a New Minor
centric perspective, right, and then it continues on to tell
to connect it all to the events of the Lord
of the Rings. So those are both very valuable works
that came along in nineteen seventy seven after the Silmar Million,
(11:57):
Christopher published further elaborations of this second Age with Unfinished Tales,
followed by the incredibly ambitious History of Middle Earth series,
which contained early drafts of a Calibate, as well as
two precursors of the New Minorian legend, the Lost Road
and the Notion Club Papers. Lost Road and Notion Club
Papers are both works that were non Middle Earth versions
(12:19):
of the New Minorian legend that Tolkien wrote well before
the publication of The Lord of the Rings. But eventually
what they had of the legend of Neu Minor was
subsumed into the Legendarium of Middle Earth and became what
we now know is is the story of Neu Minor.
(12:40):
Unfinished Tales contains, and we'll get to some of these
things in the later episodes in this series. Unfinished Tales
contains a whole section that pertains to the Second Age
by itself. We have some really interesting things in there,
descriptions of New Minor, kind of a table of its
various monarchs we have. And the only really long form
(13:02):
story that pertains that that's kind of a you know,
focused in look at life in the Second Age, in
the story of the Mariner's wife al Darion and Norendez.
That'll be a really interesting one to get into. Done
episodes on that in the past, but it's it'll be
(13:22):
interesting to get into within this context. Connected with all
of the rest of the story of numenor the Lost Road,
the Notion Club papers are both found in the History
of Middle Earth in various volumes of that, and there
are other writings early versions of a Calibate and of
the Rings of Power in the Third Age that are
found in those as well, so all worth checking out
(13:45):
in due time. But the Lost Road fortunately is part
of the appendices. At least the chapters that pertain to
Numenor are in the appendices of the Fall of numenor
Notion club papers. You've got to go pick up. I
believe it's Salon defeated to get yourself, you know, read
up on the notion club papers. So simply ties it
all together by referring to what may be the genesis
of the entire legend, Tolkien's recurring great Wave nightmare. This
(14:08):
legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history
has always troubled me in sleep, I had the dreadful
dream of the intellectable wave, either coming out of a
quiet sea or coming in towering over the green inlands.
It still occurs occasionally, though now exercised by writing about it.
I just need to think about that. It was kind
of able to get this nightmare out of his system
(14:28):
simply by writing about it. So maybe there's something to
that as far as like, if you're troubled by bad dreams,
getting it out of your system, to sort of exercise
that from yourself. And it's fascinating to think about the
origins of this, you know, this story, you know now
what has what was the basis for, you know, the
(14:48):
story that would become the most expensive TV show and
history up to this point. It all really starts with
this like nightmare and it starts also we learn with
his connection to C. S. Lewis, the two had been
They were very good friends, of course, both Inklings, and
they had challenged each other to write better speculative fiction. C. S.
(15:15):
Lewis writing about space travel, Tolkien writing about time travel. C. S.
Lewis's stories became the Space Trilogy, well published and beloved,
you know, by fans of C. S. Lewis, very very
great stories themselves. Tolkien's was supposed to be The Lost
Road but was never published in his lifetime became the
New Minory because it became the New Minorian legend essentially.
(15:37):
But it's interesting to go back and read The Lost
Road and find kind of what he initially envisioned it
to be. Sort of this father son's story interesting in
it of itself. I love the father son connection that
lies at the root of all of this between between
Tolkien himself and his son Christopher, Christopher kind of being
the son that carried on his father's legacy and saw
(15:59):
and complete least saw it through a christ I mean,
and I'd love that this chapter really ends with a
tribute to Christopher, this introduction here, because it's really Christopher
without him. He was the great apostle of his father's work,
of his father's legendarium. It's a beautiful witness to the
power and possibility of the father's son bond. To see
Christopher's dedication, to see his dedication to making sure all
(16:25):
of these important writings of Middle Earth saw the light
of day. If Christopher had not done that, we'd know
far less about Middle Earth than we do today. So
really invaluable work that Christopher did for all of us.
And you know, there's really no amount of tribute that's
too much to be paid to Christopher when it comes
to when it comes to fans of Tolkien and of
(16:48):
Middle Earth. So, yeah, this was really a dark age, right,
And I love this idea of the saga of a
dark age. Middle Earth as a legendarium really does contain
both catastrophe and you catastrophe, tragedy and triumph, the shadow
and the hope. Lord of the Rings is great because
it is dark at times, right, It's very dark at times,
(17:09):
but it ultimately ends on a note of hope. But
not all of the stories of Middle Earth do. Right.
There are glimpses of hope perhaps, and there are glimpses
of hope in Numenor, but it's kind of like it's
kind of the blend is shifted a little bit, and
this is a much darker story. It's a much darker
story with the darker ending and lots of very dark
events happening within it. So so yeah, that's that's my
(17:33):
sort of unpacking of the introduction here from Brian Sibley,
and we will be hopefully that helps you kind of
wrap your mind around what's going on here if you're
really learning about these legends for the first time, reading
along with us in the Fall of Numenor. And we'll
continue on next time, and the next chapter is really
going to focus on kind of introducing the things that
(17:54):
lead up to the Second Age, the stories that lead
up to the Second Age, in a you know, kind
of in a nice little one chapter synopsis there for us.
All right, well, hey, let's hit some correspondence real quick.
I actually want to start with the haikup. I have
been getting a lot of great haiku from one listener
in particular, Michael Michael h read a few of his
(18:16):
here before this one pertains to chapter twenty four of
the film Million, and this is chapter twenty four the
Silm Million is of course related to the story of Numenor,
because it's about Erindil, right, who is the father of
l Rond and el Ros, l Ros being the first
king of Numanor so he would have Erindil would have
(18:36):
been kind of like the ultimate celebrated figure in Numanor.
So here is. Here is the haiku pertaining to selm Million,
chapter twenty four from Michael h No hope of return
more Goth in the Timeless Void, but his lies live on, yes,
and that's the rub. That's the rub for the second age.
(18:57):
More Goth maybe no more, but his lies live on
and are going to be harnessed and put back to
use by Salarn in the second age. So thank you, Michael.
All Right, let's hit a few quick notes Jackie. This
one's from Jackie s on December twenty ninth. Let's see,
(19:20):
here we go. Jackie writes, thanks so much for reaching out.
I finished the Rings of Power show, and I agree
with you that it wasn't all Tolkien feeling, but I
appreciated the constructive criticism. I hope the producers take all
of that into consideration and make improvements. You know, Jackie,
I have no delusions that they probably even think about
what this particular Tolkien guy has to say. Maybe they do,
(19:42):
maybe they've run across it at some point, but you know,
my hope is just that somehow, the you know, the
criticisms will be heard from Tolkien fans sort of en mass,
and that maybe there's some things that can be done
to maybe not completely write the ship, because I'm not
sure it's one hundred percent solageable at this point, but
maybe salvage it to some degree just to make it
(20:03):
a little more enjoyable going forward for those of us
who are really kind of, you know, big fans of
the Legendarium and who were disappointed with season one. Not
everybody was, so you know, not trying to speak on
behalf of everyone here. Jackie asked some questions, and I
like going back to these, there's a good kind of starter,
(20:23):
you know, starting out sorts of questions. First question, are
these movies and shows base one hundred percent on the
books or do the producers mixed up up make stuff
up along the way. Jackie, so they they're definitely having
to what I would say, fill in a lot of
blanks because these stories, the stories of the Second Age,
were not told in details sufficient to to just adapt
(20:48):
it right to the screen, not in the Saint certainly
in the same way that Peter Jackson was able to
adapt Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The producers
of the Rings of Power and we knew from the
beginning they'd have to fill in a lot of blanks.
They have to make up a lot of stuff along
the way. The problem is that they aren't necessarily being
true to what was written in some cases. And that's
(21:11):
the rub. That's the rub for me and for mini fans.
Number two, I'm able to find answers to questions about
characters and plots in the books, or am I able,
for example, the background story of adra Gorn and did
he really grow up with the elves? You can learn
a lot more about the backstory of Aragorn if you
go to a I believe it's Appendix A of the
Lord of the Rings. The story of Adragorn and Arwin
(21:32):
actually contains a good bit of information about Aragorn's backstory,
a lot more about Aragorn actually, So I would refer
you to that. Her third question, if the characters are
from the book, should we know more or less what's
going to happen next? So I think you're referring to
the rings of power. You would think so, you would
(21:54):
think that they're not going to violate anything that happens
within the legendary from what Tolkien wrote himself. Then again,
I mean, I'm not privy to what they're thinking. It
would seem, you know, they haven't been completely completely faithful
to everything Tolkien wrote so far, so I don't. I
(22:16):
can't say for sure either way. Unfortunately, I would prefer
that they did not violate and really focused on telling,
you know, telling the story in a surprising way. You know,
there's ways of telling the story, even when you know
what's going to happen. There's ways of telling the story
that still make it intriguing, right And to me, that's
(22:38):
the real challenge of doing a show like this. But
I'm not entirely sure that that's the way they chose
to go with it. I think they chose to go like,
we're going to kind of use what he gave us,
but we're gonna fudget whenever we want to. That seems
to be their modus operande right now. She goes on
to say, I hope I'm not overwhelming you with my questions.
I just feel more inspired to find out more and
(22:59):
not just sit around wait for the next movie or show.
I still look forward to seeing what is next. We
have to keep hope because compared to the real world,
this is much better. In the end, this is all
a battle of good versus evil. Good will prevail. Love it, Jackie,
absolutely thank you for your note. Beautiful way to end
it there, and keep that spirit. Good will prevail in
(23:20):
the end, no matter what happens, no matter how dark
things get, good will prevail all right. And the other
note is from patron Sophie s from January twenty ninth.
Sophie says, Hi, John and Greta, I'm still exploring older
episodes of your podcast Wonderful Trove. Thank you, and today
(23:43):
I listened to your tribute to Christopher close to the
day of his passing. I enjoyed it very much. It
reminds me that most of us would do well to
consider what we hold true and dearest and feel a
certain responsibility to pass it on. I believe it was T. S.
Eliot who wrote, and I'm paraphrasing, that we defend an
idea or a truth against its foes, not because we
will win a particular battle, but to keep it alive
for someone else, the next generation. Christopher's devotion to his
(24:06):
father led him to protect and pass on his legacy,
and it is what you and your own way are
doing as well. I applaud you for that. So as
I wrote earlier, keep the faith all good things, Sophie.
Thank you so much, Sophie. A really beautiful note. And
you're right, you know, Christopher's Christopher's devotion to his father
is a really beautiful thing, and it's something that plays
(24:26):
an important role in this book, The Fall of Newman
or so, so thank you for writing and for acknowledging that,
like I said, there's really no amount of tribute we
can pay to Christopher, you know, that will really exhaust
all that we owe him for giving us what he
did through his lives, through his life's work, continuing his
father's life's work. All right, y'all good stuff, good stuff.
(24:47):
Thank you so much for your correspondence. Always love hearing
from everybody. Hit us up and we will do our
best to respond to you somehow and at some point.
That's all for this episode. Thank you to our amazing patrons,
especially the following John R. Lift with Tolkien, Jacob blockhom
John H. Every twenty seven, Emilio P, Jonathan D, Mike M,
Robert H. Paul D, Julia Wordy, Joe Bagelman, Jacob S,
(25:10):
Richard K, Matt R. Matthew W. Garrett P, Chris S,
John W. Eugene D, Chris B. Daniel S, seb M
and Shana Supreme Mis Anonymous, Andrew T. Redhawk, Shannon Ess,
Brian O, Zeke F, James L, Chris L, Chuck f
Azya v Ish of the Hammer, Teresa C. David of
Pines with Jack, Eric B and Johanna T. All Right.
(25:32):
Thank you all so much. Thank you to our amazing fellowship,
all of you all who are watching and or listening.
We will talk at you next time. Bye bye
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