Din, you're responding to points I've made about The Lord of the
Rings by referring to The Silmarillion. For my sanity's sake, I'm
excising many of your counterpoints, not to make you look wrong, but
to keep this simple.
There are two discussions between us: I'm talking about the story
being told strictly in The Lord of the Rings and you seem to be
talking about the greater story which includes The Silmarillion and
possibly other books. They are not the same thing.
--- In mepbmlist@y..., Din <din_ohtar@y...> wrote:
> The Numenoreans were given special gifts beyond those of other
Men
> precisely because of the choices they (or their forefathers) had
> made. Tolkien didn't endow them with special abilities to show
that
> some men are better than others.
what a load of crap. Lets see what they built compared
to what the riders build. Then we see who had the
ability.
LOL!
Nope. What a given civilization builds has nothing to do
with "race". The Northmen were from the same "race" as the
Numenoreans. The only differences between them were that those of
the Edain who went to Numenor were given longer lives and greater
stature. Both gifts were retracted throughout the Third Age
(the "diminishment of the Dunedain" Tolkien refers to every now and
then).
> He did so to create a fantasy race which could be used to explore
> the follies of pride, arrogance, and racism.
I'll go with pride and arrogance without a doubt.
The Kin-strife occurred for one reason and one reason only: racism.
In fact, Aragorn is a bit racist when he meets Frodo. He learns over
the ensuing weeks that Hobbits are indeed made of sterner stuff than
they look to be.
And, of course, a lot of people focus on the Elf-Dwarf thing as an
example of racism, although it's never explained in The Lord of the
Rings (in fact, we can't be entirely sure it's ever explained at all,
although a passage in The Peoples of Middle-earth may be the
explanation).
> The Elves' allusions to their dark past are pretty
> obscure,
no it wasn't. The elven kinslaying was recorded and
told (and repeated a few times).
You seem to be compressing The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion
into one storyline, and I have been referring only to The Lord of the
Rings, except where it appears to me you are talking about The
Silmarillion.
There is NO mention in LoTR of the Kinslayings. And the issues
concerning the Rings of Power are really only made clear in Tolkien's
letters.
> No, they wanted to halt change in Middle-earth so
> that they wouldn't have to leave it.
I disagree. Only the three elven rings had that
ability.
No. All the Rings had that ability. You might want to check out my
essay at Suite101, "Connections: The Lore of the Rings":
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/43808
There I quote Tolkien from Letter 131:
"The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or
slowing of decay (i.e., 'change' viewed as a regrettable thing), the
preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance -- this is
more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural
powers of a possessor -- thus approaching 'magic', a motive easily
corruptible into evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had
other powers, more directly derived from Sauron ('the Necromancer':
so he is called as he casts a fleeting shadow and presage on the
pages of The Hobbit): such as rendering invisible the material body,
and making things of the invisible world visible.
"The Elves of Eregion made Three supremely beautiful and powerful
rings, almost solely of their own imagination, and directed to the
preservation of beauty: they did not confer invisibility...."
So, that is straight from Tolkien himself. Like I said, you have to
read the Letters to understand the full score on the Rings of Power.
> Had they not made the Rings of Power, there
> would have been no War of the Ring, there would have
> been no Lord of the Rings.
NO !!!!!! Sauron was a badie before the rings were
made, and he was a badie after the rings were made.
Yes, but had the Elves of Eregion not made the Rings of Power, there
would have been no Rings of Power. Hence, Sauron would not have been
the Lord of the Rings (something more than he was as merely Sauron),
and there would have been no wars fought over the Rings of Power.
I shudder to say this, but have you read the earlier
books that talk about the first age ? If you had, then
you would know that Sauron had been making trouble for
a long time.
Yes, but I've only been talking about The Lord of the Rings. 
> Neither of us can speak for Tolkien or his
> characters on this issue, but I did tackle some of the possible
> motivations the Elves had in "Shhh! It's a secret Ring!" in my
> January 19 article at Suite101:
>
> http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/58090
never been there, never plan to be there. What does it
say ?
Far too much for me to quote here. Which is why I suggested you
check it out. This off topic thread already seems to threaten to
overwhelm the discussions that this list was intended for. I didn't
want to do that.
> But my point was that the Elves never told
> the Numenoreans about the true causes for the War of the Elves and
> Sauron.
??? The war of the elves and sauron was a continuation
of the First Age war by morgorth against the elves.
No, the War of the Elves and Sauron was strictly fought over the
Rings of Power. Although there is very little "canonical" history
concerning the war, a fairly lengthy account was published in
Unfinished Tales. There are some problems with that account (mainly
the fact that Tolkien rejected the entire essay which contained it).
> The Numenoreans showed up and saved the day out of
> friendship for the
> Eldar.
Which time are you talking about ? They appears a few
times to save the day. The main time was when they
'captured' sauron. Another time was the last alliange.
I was only speaking of the War of the Elves and Sauron. And Ar-
Pharazon "captured" Sauron for his own personal pride (and because
Sauron wanted to be taken to Numenor, according to Tolkien). Ar-
Pharazon had no love for the Elves and in fact had nothing to do with
them.
> But they were drawn into a war between two
> sides which were not either wholly good. The Elves were more good
> than Sauron, but the Elves had still committed a very evil plan.
What evil plan ??
The Elves made the Rings of Power to halt change or decay in Middle-
earth. They were trying to delay or prevent their inevitable fading,
when they would become disembodied wraiths. Tolkien explained these
matters in some of his letters (cited in the "Connections" essay).
Yes, the Elves were generally "good", but they were capable of
committing great evil, and did engage in it. And creating the Rings
of Power was a morally wrong action.
but the elven rings were not made with sauron's help,
All but three of the Rings were made with Sauron's help. All the
Rings were made for the Elves' benefit.
> Of course the Numenoreans wanted immortality for
> themseleves. That is why they tried to take it from the Valar.
wanted immortality for themselves, and taking it from
the valar are not the same thing.
Immortality could not be taken from the Valar, who couldn't grant it,
either willingly or under duress. But the point was that the
Numenoreans who invaded Aman committed greater sins than the Orcs.
> The Orcs didn't even come close to equalling the evil of the
> Numenoreans.
Count the number of dead elves and humans that the
orcs racked up, check the number of dead elves and
humans that the numeroneans did, and I think the orcs
win by a long way...
How do you figure that? The Numenoreans began conquering Middle-
earth around SA 1800 and they kept going strong for about 1400
years. A LOT of men most likely died in those centuries.
And then the Kings Men, who remained faithful to Sauron during the
War of the Last Alliance, most likely took a few Elven lives.
And during the Third Age the Black Numenoreans fought against Gondor,
if not against the Elves.
... The people who were sacrifice
people to morgorth were prisoners who were punished. I
think the worship by the numenorean king to morgorth
was done in secret.
"Akallabeth" says that Sauron seduced the Kings Men into sacrificing
members of the Faithful, and that he himself killed many of them in
the temple in Armenelos.
