Hi there, I'm Stephanie.

And I'm Lydia.

Come along with us as we explore and learn about the world of Tolkien through deep dives on lore, characters, beatalons, and lafflons.

We are excited to have you as a new friend on this journey with us. Welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, a Lord of the Rings podcast. Hello, hello, welcome back. Hey there.

Excited to be here with you. I have actually, I've been looking forward to this one mainly because we just wrapped up our couple of like last Simmerillian episodes. Technically we have one more which is Brings of Power, but we talked about Achillebeth the episode before this one and I feel like deep diving into like the history of Gondor and of course Beregorn, our favorite character. Yeah, I think we're gonna get some really cool, some really cool stuff here.

Yeah, because we've now met in the Simmerillian, we've now met Sildur and all I know about a Sildur, I mean, I know two things about him, but we haven't technically read about him yet, but we do know he's connected to Eregon. We know that this is some founding father of Gondor, I assume. But yeah, it'll be exciting.

I am very excited. And so I have pulled up a series of goodies for you, Lydia.

Yes, exactly. A lot of wonderful little tidbits that I hope you enjoy. I've been, you know, searching for histories because we've made it to kind of the end of Simmerillian, but it doesn't really talk that much about what happens once Eregorn's like family comes to Middle Earth. And so I was looking at a lot of like Tolkien Gateway or One Wiki to rule them all. And it is really interesting. So where do people get some of these infos from, if not the Simmerillian?

That's what I was just looking at. So there's like a variety of them. Some of them are from Lord of the Rings, but some of it is like Unfinished Tales.

Okay, yeah, there are those other side books that I... Yeah, there is a lot of Simmerillian in here. There's like the peoples of Middle Earth, the history of Middle Earth. So there's like a variety of different sources, which I thought was really interesting. But so this is what I found on like a variety of these excellent crowdsourced sources about Gondor.

Okay, so let's start out. I realized as I was looking into the history of Gondor, we are going to be talking a little bit about like the history of Ornor as well, which is the sister kingdom. And it's the one to the north?

It's the one to the north. And so I think the best way to do this is kind of to go chronologically from when Elendil and his two sons, which are Isildur, and then I always get confused about the other one. Yes, and Narian make it to Middle Earth.

I think we should start there. Okay, so if you start there, I mean, maybe this is a spoiler for the last appendix of Simmerillian, but they did there. Does Elendil, he doesn't die, right? Like we have Elendil and Isildur both at the Battle of Sauron, right? Yes, exactly. So do they still have long life or did that vanish?

They still have long life because Aragorn, I think, what is he like 300 when he's in Lord of the Rings?

He says in the movie 87, but I don't know if they actually did that.

He makes it to 300. Is that what it is? That sounds right. Aragorn, how long lives? Something about 300, maybe I'm wrong. Let me see, how long lives? He lived to be 210, never mind. But still, they've got some longevity.

They've got some longevity in them, you know? Yeah. And so I wanted to start out with Elendil, who we know when we were reading our Kilibesimmerillian chapter, when Numenor goes down, he's sitting on a ship and he has, I believe, four ships with him and then each of his sons are on separate ships and they have, I don't know, it's like two ships each or something. Yeah. And there's like people on the ships with them. So other people who are kind of like elf.

So they're ready to start a civilization is what you're saying?

They're ready to start a civilization, yeah. And that's exactly what happens. Also, I do love that Elendil's name is so perfect for what he is in like the story of Numenor. It means elf friend or star lover. Oh yeah, that is perfect. It's just like flawless for him as a character where he's coming from a culture that was kind of really antagonizing about both of those things. But anyways, so last time we see Elendil, he's sitting on a ship with a bunch of people and his two sons are also on ships. It sounds like when they start sailing off to Middle Earth, Elendil has not really confirmed with his sons that they were all going to be landing at the same place.

But they also like were cast on like the ways of a storm, right? So maybe. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So they don't land in the same place.

They don't land in the same place. And I think we mentioned also before there are some kind of like colonies of Numenor that already exist on the coast in Middle Earth. Yeah, on the coast of Middle Earth. Or at least outposts.

I don't know if colonies right word, but they have structures and possibly people.

Possibly people. And so Elendil actually arrives more in the northern part of Middle Earth where Arnor is originally set up. And the people, it sounds like there are people there from Numenor or whoever or that were familiar with Numenorians that are very friendly.

And he and his people kind of set up there. It then sounds like the ships that were with Isildur and his brother, I keep looking for his name and I keep. Amarian.

Because I keep forgetting it. Amarian, they end up getting sent a little further south. And so they kind of get off their boats and start setting up ground closer to where Gondor.

But they stayed together. So we have two brothers. They stay together. Yeah. So we have dad up north. Yeah. And then we have two brothers below. I'm pretty intrigued by this. Two brothers founding a city after being shipwrecked, essentially. I mean, is this not Rome?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds like they had a much better they had a much better relationship, though, because it sounds like Amarian founded menace menace Arnor and then Isildur founded menace Ethel. Okay.

And so neither of which are Gondor or wait, what is it?

Those are both I think those are both in in Gondor.

Right. But the big city in the moves is Menace Tyreth, right?

Menace Tyreth, which I believe one of these gets renamed to Menace Tyreth, I think maybe I could be wrong. Because if it founds an Aethelian, I think Menace Ethel maybe gets. Okay, that's no menace Ethel gets turned into menace Borgel. Okay, never mind. There's there's many iteration to these cities in the future, but that's where they found the initial cities. We start there.

And they're going to be good neighbors for each founded a city instead of and they're going to be good neighbors.

Yes, exactly. But then it does sound like obviously dad and sons reunite, they're able to kind of like get into contact. But what's fascinating to me is they don't say like, okay, now we're all going to move right to this one central location. They kind of remain spread out like

maybe you've already been set up, you know, you already built the city. Nobody wants to like redo that, right? Yeah, or maybe they thought to cover more territory.

It also sounds like pretty early on pretty quickly. They decided that Elendil was going to be their king is going to be their leader. So I'm just pulling up making sure I have my right notes open, which one do I want? Yes, this one looks good. But it sounds like pretty quickly. They were going to have Elendil be kind of the ruler of the people that were left over from Numenor. And then it sounds like the people who are kind of colonized there were also very open to him setting up a structure and a kingdom for what was remaining.

So do you think at this point that they knew that Sauron had survived the fall of Numenor?

I don't know.

I think when they first made it back to Middle Earth, I don't think they fully I don't think they fully knew I think they got there. Optimistic. Yeah, exactly. It is interesting because so we talked about how like there was some almost like these little colonies of men who were there. There were run-ins, especially in the south with like, I thought it was really fascinating. They were like with Easterlings and with Corsair ships and all of these other like groups of men who were there. And we haven't really heard much about them.

And we haven't heard much about them. But you know what I think is so interesting is in Lord of the Rings, in the final battle, we see you know, Sauron's mustering the Easterlings, the Corsair ships, he's mustering all this. And I always thought like, man, he like found all the evil baddies all around the land and like got them together. But it sounds like these were kind of the natural enemies of like Gondor and Arnor before like these were the people that were kind of raiding and living in the land. Yeah, but there's also an interesting element now that we know a question in the movie is like, Oh yeah, Sauron recruited these people recently. But what we actually know now is that literally every people had set for the Edain have been working for Sauron or Mordoth, I guess.

Mordoth. At some point in their history. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is just even the sorry, even the Edain, I should say. Yeah. And that's just that that has a different vibe to it. It's not Sauron is saying, Hey, follow me and I'll give you riches.

It's fulfill your ancient oath to Mordoth and work for me and I'll give you glory just like back in the old days or something like this. It seems a different vibe. Yeah. And so he's like really leaning on old relationships and enemies and all of this stuff when it comes to the movie later on, which I don't think I fully recognize or realized. Yeah.

Okay. So basically, even though he had his sons kind of ruling different parts of the kingdom, Alendil, what was what was considered a high king? Meaning he was like kind of in control the whole on or gone door situation, even though they were ruling together. But once they started setting up shop, then we start seeing our friend Sauron coming up because he had already had Mordor going on. I don't know how active it was when he was in new manure kind of doing his, his evil worm, tonguey counselor to the king vibes. But it sounds like that was kind of there waiting for him. And he got back and started back into full swing.

Yeah. He's like, I went on sabbatical for three years, but I'm back to my upfront or committing battle ways now. Yes.

And I think we can kind of confidently

say that this is the period of time when he starts creating the rings. Okay. Actually, I think the rings might be, I don't know where that fits because I was reading on, where was it? I was reading somewhere that it's believed that I think like two of the Nazgul were at one time like Numenorean lords. Right. I think we, I think we read that in the last chapter,

but we made there more than that's appendix. Exactly. So I'm not sure exactly where this timing is.

I can actually Numenorean lords who were in middle earth at the time, you know, maybe.

So let me, let me Google this because I think this is important, the placement of this. Okay. When did Sauron create rings compared to Numenor or yeah, the fall of Numenor destruction just so we have some context here. Okay. The one ring was forged before the destruction of Numenor. Oh, actually quite Numenor. Yes. Before it wasn't in Numenor. It was in middle earth.

And then did he forge the other rings while he was in Numenor? Do you think? I don't think so.

I think all of this was like going along. We'll investigate this. Yeah. Yeah. I think all of this was going on while he was there. That's incredible. He was a busy boy. He was a busy boy. Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. Wild. So I think he had already created the one ring when Farazon like summoned him.

Okay. And he had already, I think, handed out and had his, his minions with the rings, but we never really think about like the men or the dwarves while they were falling under his corruption with the rings. And so I wonder if that could even have been a component.

I don't know of like, of like how Numenor fell so badly, so deeply. Maybe, maybe the destruction. I do think some of the Satan worshipping really took him down.

So basically by the time they got there and were setting things up, Sauron was also there. And it sounds like he was powerful.

Yeah. Right. Praying power. And so it actually is really intriguing because they had set up cities and they were doing really well, but then there was a set of kind of like sieges and battles that they were having with Sauron. And during one of these sieges with Sauron, Anarion is killed. Okay. Which is the brother of Asildur.

Exactly. So Anarion is killed. It does sound like Anarion has children. Yeah. So he has descendants, but he's no longer in the picture. At this point, they've been fighting Sauron on and off for a bit. And this is when they come to like this last alliance of elves and men and they get everybody together and they go into battle.

And it's cool now to think about that with the context we have, which is the War of Wrath. Like the first attempts at Dyn's Mordoth, then the successful attempts that the Valor sent in the War of Wrath. And now this third one. I guess there are three here in my mind. So it's cool to see that it was a success, but it's interesting to note that the first one didn't go so well. Right? Like there is like a 50-50 flip here in terms of precedent going in. That's pretty cool.

Also, I think like knowing that they lost, like Alendil lost a son and Asildur lost a brother, like they're mad. They're pissed. Right? Like they've been fighting with Sauron and this is like, no, we're getting everyone together. We're finishing this. Like this is where they just lost their home. Their home How do they recruit elves?

I mean, do you think they had good relationships? I guess they must have. They did.

They did have good relationships. So Puritan, Galadriel, everyone else, they were on the mainland when like Numenoreans would go back and forth and trade with the elves and do all this stuff.

We have those elves and then of the men, are we looking at like Rohan at this point?

It sounds like the people kind of in this western section had had frequent interactions with Numenoreans and that they were pretty like open.

But we don't know like a specific tribe. It wouldn't be like these are the ancestors of Rohan or something.

We don't know specifically like ancestors of Rohan or anything else. It's just getting the sense of like there were other men in that area that were like open. Non-Numenoreans. Yeah. Yeah. And like having them there and we're friendly and then there were some that were like, we're not so friendly. Sure.

So we have set up the Last Alliance. I mean, the only thing I know of this is what you get in the movies. And I think it would be interesting to read the Lord of the Rings book again to see what other further details are in there. There's probably more. Yeah. But we have Elendil is killed by Sauron.

Sulder takes up his sword. So I mean, Sauron was like an inch away from wiping out that bloodline. Yeah. He was like, I'm gonna finish this, right? Yeah. Because we saw how influential he was in like bringing down Numenoreans. Yeah. Very interesting.

And that's funny actually because it's like Sauron's like, oh my gosh, I missed a rat. Exactly.

Well, it's like only a few boats. Like Elendil had four so-and-so like other ones had like two and two. Like there's not that many. It does sound like there were people who had had fled earlier.

There were others. There were like enough to make a city. Like, you know, you need a few unrelated people. But yeah, like I got the impression it's a very small group. Yeah.

And so initially, I think. But then I think they were able to join forces with the people who were living there prior and like all of this other stuff. But anyways, so yeah, so Elendil is and Gil-Galad, which is a big name. He's a king of elves. So like Gil-Galad. Okay. The name sounds weirdly familiar.

He's the kings of power. Oh, yeah, I'm not gonna be able to place it from that. Okay. It's a cool name though. Gil-Galad. The last high king of the Noldor.

Sorry, I think you broke up High King of what?

High King of the Noldor. Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. So I'm curious what Gil-Galad's genealogy is. Let's see here. Last King of the Noldor in Middle Earth. That's kind of the thing.

It sounds like he was kind of the highest authority of the remaining Eldar Elves. Okay. Interesting. So he and Elendil are both killed and like you said, that's when Isildur takes up his father's sword and cuts the ring.

So this is where it gets interesting. So then in terms of political structure with the kingdoms, Isildur's line actually takes over the northern kingdom, the kingdom that his father had been ruling and then the brother's kingdom and the fancy A name. Amarian. His descendants, because it sounds like he does have children, they remain the lineage for the southern kingdom of Gondor.

So Eridorn then is coming out of Arnor technically.

And so technically, this is the line of the High King. And so because they had established that the dad was kind of like the High King in Arnor, they say that Isildur took that position. The kingdom in Arnor, whoever's king of that is the High King, which technically would have say over Gondor as well.

But we never hear about Arnor. So Arnor is lost, right? Did we discuss that a while back? Like Sauron destroyed Arnor?

Basically, it sounds like there was the witch king of Ammar.

Of Agmar. Yeah. So there was a series of events that kind of led to it breaking. And so that's what I want to dig into now. So Isildur actually didn't live super long after he got the ring. Because he has the ring, he shot by the orcs.

He shot by the orcs. Did he have a child? He must have had a child. He did have a child. Let me find my notes. Let me find my notes and we shall read about it. Yeah.

So he does have children. Where'd it go? Let me go back to my Gondor page. Okay, excellent. Excellent. So he has children.

But then there's a really interesting situation where his children have children and they kind of break off into like a multiple kingdom kind of agreement. Okay. Where So do they split Arnor?

Yes. So what happens is Alindel perishes and his three eldest sons also die. But he had a fourth son and that one became the high king of Arnor, right?

But that son had... Oh, okay. So that son had a series of descendants until at one point there were three sons who couldn't figure out how to divide up the kingdom. So they split it. And so they split it into three regions. But it sounds like and this is actually so Isildur's son and then his descendants had it for 800 years before it became this like squabbling situation. But then once they divided up into regions, it sounds like there were a lot of things that started surfacing like people would squabble with each other. They'd have little wars. Yeah.

This is a classic Alexander the Great setting with the generals. Yeah. Giving the lance to his generals and it was just squabbling the entire time.

Exactly. And so it sounds like they were so caught up like over who would rule some of the northern kingdom that things started happening and so are like so wrong kind of crept up on them. And so they were kind of like sapping each other's energy while other stuff was happening. At one point there was one king who kind of like put himself over all of the three.

He was like, okay, this is too much. I'm going to go back to being like the king of Arnor. But then at that time, the power of Ingmar had increased. And so then it was like this diminished kingdom of Arnor that wasn't as strong as it used to be versus the witch king of Agmar. And it sounds like the witch king of Agmar kind of took them all out.

Interesting. And destroyed kind of the remaining remnants of the kingdom of Arnor. And so you still have men hanging around obviously in Bree and some of the other locales, you have the Rangers of the north, which are kind of like these camping descendants.

So what's up with that? Do we know like those are just I don't know, is it in the classic outlaw tradition of like a turban or is it something else? Why are these guys Rangers? Are they just like special forces of Arnor?

It doesn't necessarily sound like they were outlaws. It just it kind of sounds like a little bit a little bit sad is like they are descendants of the Dua Dain, but they're just like hunters. They're just wandering the wilderness. They're homeless, kind of nomadic. Yeah, kind of like well,

it's kind of like when the first who am I thinking of? I'm not sure I remember his name. Who are when they first were scattered after that first alliance of men and elves. And they're trying to survive and they're just like roughing it. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Exactly. So that's kind of how

that at this point has a witch to have a more taking over all of Arnor and these are like the remnants that have been driven to various places.

Yeah, basically, I get the impression that Ingmar because the witch king eventually leaves right and what you're left with and you see this

but they've only got like ruins or something. It's just ruined. Yeah, it's just like a land and ruin. And nobody's really left and there's nobody there's not enough like population or leadership to go back and rebuild.

It sounds like there's just these villages like Bree and a few other little villages of human but they're not together.

Technically. It sounds like Bree is just an example of like one of these types of villages. There's leftover human villages, right? But they're not they're not integrated into a kingdom.

They're just kind of like chilling. Yeah. Okay. Right. So I don't know how many of them are duoden.

You kind of get the impression the Rangers of the north have more of the duoden lineage and these people are maybe kind of like mixed in common folk with some of the duoden lineage maybe but it just really feels like it's decimated. Yeah. And it's sad. So Arnor is decimated and then Gondor survives.

Okay, and so then at least that's my impression. It sounds like at the beginning Arnor was kind of like the hot place.

Yeah, maybe there was a lot going on and then after kind of it was declining and fell, Gondor was really starting to rise. Probably that's because people fled to Gondor.

Yeah, that might be part of it. Honestly, that wouldn't surprise me if people went south. And so basically in Gondor, there was the descendants of Anarion who were kings, although they were technically under the influence of the High King. But as Arnor was getting weaker and weaker and weaker, it just felt like that relationship and that kind of oversight was declining.

Yeah, exactly. And so then what I think is really interesting is after the war, Gondor is actually really rising in power. And so it's building more cities. It's like trading more with different types of men from the east and even says there's like some large conquests of more and more land to the south and to the east. Right?

Yeah, so when we're seeing Gondor, you actually get the impression like it's been eaten up a bit from like it had kind of expanded. But this is the prime. This is yeah. Exactly.

So it's hitting its prime. This is the part that I know the least about, but I thought it was fascinating. So they hit kind of a Gondorian golden age where there are like four kings and they call them the ship kings. And I wonder if it's because they were OG.

I don't know. I don't know if that means that they were like OG descendants. Like people came over on the ships from Numenoy. I mean, enough of them must have been. They all must have sometime Numenoy and blood in them.

But that's because they're descendants of an Arian.

But like you don't look at Don Lorenz and sailors. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it sounds like they were starting to do more trade and travel. They would sail to places south and back to places east. Right? Yeah. And so they were starting to build up a lot of wealth.

And I'm reading there was this saying that I was like in Gondor, precious stones are but pebbles. Right. So it was kind of like they were they were hitting this golden age. I'm getting the impression of like Rome with all of its taxes coming in. You know what I mean? El Dorado. The streets are paved in gold.

Yeah, they're like they're doing really well with trade. And then there's three things that apparently were really difficult for Gondor during this period of time. Right. So one of them was called, which reminds me of something else in Somerilian, a kin strife. Oh, geez.

Right. So one of the kings and I thought this was interesting. One of the kings was part of the Cenarian lineage, but his mother was a Northman. And so it was like, do we know who those are? Oh, an area is the oh, I just misheard you.

Yeah. So he's from an area, but he's half flooded because he's half regular man mix in there somewhere.

Exactly. He's half like Northman, which apparently is like not very well respected. And so people are looking at him and they're kind of like, I don't know. You could be the king, but also like how much do we really like you? And so then there was a captain who was also of the House of Anerian. So he also had some of that royal lineage and he actually took over, did a coup. This is, I guess, like the first coup in the history. He did a coup and he took over the throne and actually really fascinating because this is when a Gileath was initially sacked because this Gileath was the capital up into up until some other time.

And so this captain I took it, obviously, because it's on the water. Easy to take.

And it also says its palantir was lost. And so this, this kin strife was kind of the first major thing that we're seeing. Civil war. Yeah. Being very difficult.

Is it their last or does this just kind of continue?

I think there is kind

of there was a civil war, a civil war as big, but there's definitely issues with the lineage. But it sounds like this was the biggest kind of like government takeover that they had. And so this is his name is Kastmir, the usurper. And turns out he was, turns out he was really mean. He kind of like he loved riches. He was really like big into trying to siege places and get more money and do all of this stuff. Classic, our far is on character.

Exactly. So he was, he was not very, he was not very nice. And this is what I think is so interesting too, is they're saying a lot of the, it's so funny because they were upset with the king being like part kind of this Northman, this Northman lineage. But then a lot of this Kastmir army, I think was he was hiring people from the Northman and like other, but it's different when it's mercenaries. Yeah. And so basically a lot of like the old Gondorian aristocracy kind of died in this civil war.

And then there was this whole way you're losing the lineage. Like you were we're getting to, we're again getting to the point where it sounds like I almost destroyed the lineage again. Right.

And so that's what's crazy is this whole thing of why they didn't love this king as he was part like outsider. And in Kastmir comes in and he's like, I'll take over, but then he wipes out a whole bunch of people with this army of like other lineage. And so they come in and there's, there's more of the kingdom's population is replenished. And it says Northman and Rhovarion. And honestly, part of me wonders if that's Rohan's ancestors, a wave of Northman and Rhovarion migrants

kind of like come into the kingdom. Yeah. And so that was one of them. So a descendant of that king sounds like they were having actually a lot of kind of like trade battles and conquering things and like backs and force in this period of the of the kingdom.

And there was a great plague and a great plague came and swept through Middle Earth and it really decimated the kingdom. Be bonnet. Yeah. And it says it struck the white tree. Oh, and so the white and I see we're going to learn is I don't know if this is true spoilers for our next chapter. But is this white tree the one that is sealed door had on his ship? That was for a moment.

Yes. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. The white tree actually died. And so this king had he did find a sapling of the white tree, thankfully. And this is when he moved the capital capital of Asilius to minus Arnor, the city that Anarion founded. And that's the one that became minister. Yeah.

Okay, that's cool. That's the one that became minister. And so all of that happened. But at that point, like the settlement was really depopulated. And so they're saying like this would have been a great time for the heredrum or the Easterlings to have attacked. But apparently they were also so decimated by the plague.

That nothing really happened at that point. Okay, then I think that another big thing that they mentioned is the line of Kings fails.

Right? Yeah, what does that mean? How then do we have Erdogan? That's that's actually a good point. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah.

So this is what's fascinating. I love this part. So basically there's a king, right? Right? He's slain in battle.

And at this point, this is a descendant of who of El Sildor or of Anarion of Anarion still.

Okay, this is still Anarion's lineage. Okay. And so this king is slain in battle along with both of his sons. Now the law claims that whoever is I guess it's sons first, but also says the eldest remaining child should take up rulership. And he also had a daughter.

Okay. And his daughter was married to a man. What's what's this guy's what's this guy's name? A thyridane, a thyridane. And so yes, okay, Prince of of Atherodane, no, on door, the victory center. Anyways, the sun and law, the sun law, we'll just call him the sun law. Anyways, so the sun and law sees this and he's like, dang, my wife could be queen.

And so then he says he goes to court and he says, guess what? I'm a descendant of El Sildor, right? Like I have some El Sildor lineage in me from the kingdom of Arnor.

So like my wife's queen, but like, could I be king? Is it true? Is he lying? Because he's have a Sildor blood, but he's like, my wife, my wife has an Aryan blood. I have a Sildor blood. Like maybe I could be king because technically that was the high king lineage, right?

Like when that was still functioning. And so then the court actually has a ruling and they said, basically, even though a Sildor is lineage was kind of the high king lineage, you will not be able to be king unless you have an Aryan lineage.

Okay. So when they say the line of teens, they mean the line of an Aryan because they're still the line of a Sildor and their teens of different teen dumps. And so he was saying, I see the line of teens of Gondor failed. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But the line of teen in Arnor stayed. Therefore, Eridorn has that lineage. Therefore, he can be high teen of both, et cetera.

That makes more sense. Because now they're in the back of my mind, I guess there's been this paradox of the line of teens failed, but we have Eridorn. And I never like thought too hard about it.

Yeah. But then basically, so this guy's like, okay, fine, I can't be king, but his wife is queen. And so they live on, they have kids, but then, but that's just an interesting court case to be aware of. But they live on, they have kids. But then what happens is the descendant, the last remaining descendant.

Oh, this is actually really fascinating. The last heir of an Arion, he leads Gondor's forces to try to fight the witch king of Agmar. And he dies. And this is actually when Glorfendell, one of the elves prophesies and does that prophecy. And he says, don't fight the Lord of the Nazgul because never by the hand of man shall he fall.

Right. So this is the point when like the king of Agmar is kind of taking over Arnor and Gondor is coming to try to help that they're like, don't, don't do that. And it sounds like what's crazy is the witch king is so powerful that he's coming south and starting to fight to fight Gondor.

And this is when he takes over menace Ethel and renames it menace morgul. Right. That's the layer that we see. But then what happens is this descendant was in this battle and he rides off to try to go fight the witch king at menace morgul. But then they're never heard from again. Him and his whole army that go off. No one comes back.

Okay. And so basically the government sitting there and they're like, have you heard anything? Have we heard anything?

Nobody's heard anything. Is he alive? What if he is alive? What if he's not? And so they don't know what to do.

And so at that point they're like, well, we don't know if he is dead or not. And that was the last of the line, right? Like all the cousins, everyone else, they've all died out. They're gone.

That was the last of the line. You're getting down in the genealogy. These trees should be growing.

But that's like why the kin slaying was really important.

And when he's like the aristocracy kind of got, and then the plague came and they had very few people. So that's why all of this is kind of building up.

And so they're like, dang, well, we don't want to just like put someone in charge because what it like, is it lead to civil war? Right? If he is actually dead. And so they're like, we're just going to put in a steward.

Just in case he's alive and he comes back, we're not going to call him a king.

We're just going to say he's a steward. How did they select the steward? Does it say?

Yeah. And so I think what they were saying for the house of stewards. Um, oh, actually, how did they select them? Oh, well, I mean, I love this. I love this naming. They picked a house. So they picked the house of Hurran, which I think is super interesting.

That is cool. So it sounded like the king actually had a steward. And so it had been selected prior by other kings as being the house to steward the king.

So it was already an addition that said, this is the one we're going with it. Yeah.

Yeah, we're just going to keep this guy. Okay. And so they would technically have an oath that they would swear to yield the rule of Gonderback if ever the king should return. But they said at this point, they were very, they were very unsure and feeling negative about the hopes that an Arian one would survive. And then the house of a seal door in the north, they also thought had died out.

Right. Because there's been so much chaos and destruction up there.

And Arnor was destroyed. Right. And they hadn't really heard from anyone. Right. And so they were like, okay, at this point, technically you have an oath to secede the throne if someone comes up, but like, but chances are, practically, you're probably the king. That's an Arian. Okay. And so all of this actually gives me so much context for why Denethor is like, heck no, like, who are you?

Like for generations, many generations died out. Yeah. And also the court case, which I thought was super interesting, that was like, a seal door might have been the lineage of the High King, but you can't rule Gondor unless you have some an Arian lineage. Right. And so that really puts into play, like, you might be a seal doors line, but why does that, what, what effect does that have for us? That's interesting. And but I think not positive, but I'm pretty sure Ergon is crowned king of Arnor and Gondor. So maybe that's how he gets around that. He's like, I am king of Arnor and by proxy, therefore. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is what I think is so interesting is this whole time, everybody's like, the, the bloodlines have died out. There's nobody left. But then this is what's crazy when I looked up, let's see, where is this go?

Where is this go? Give me a second. Okay. Okay. One second. Okay. So what I thought was so fascinating is this whole time, they're like, the bloodlines have died out, but then Ergon shows up and it's important that he's the descendant of a seal door because that was the High King's lineage, but he also has lineage of an Arian. Okay. So that's also which is wild because one of, one of ancient kings daughters married into the line of a seal door, Northern, a Northern house. Okay.

And that is also part of the lineage of Ergon. Okay. Okay.

I like that. And so I'm not exactly sure where you might say to who you might say, excellent questions, but essentially I first I was thinking like, oh man, I can see why this would be a hard sell to Denethor and Boromir because it's like, no, we literally had a court case that said you have to have an Arian's blood to be considered king. But technically Ergon fulfills both and he technically does have the bloodline of both.

So I'm a little bit curious. So we have the fall of Arnor and then we have Gondor. Do we know how many years it is between the fall of Arnor and when Ergon comes to Gondor and becomes king? Because I'm wondering how many generations of Ergon's fathers, like everyone thought they were lost and dead, right? But he must have had like a generation or two at least of ancestors that were just like, strabling a life and Rangers. Like, do we know anything about his father or his father's father?

We do know about his father. So his father was a chieftain of the Duna Dane.

Okay. And the Duna Dane at this part, are they just one section of Arnor? Do you know what I mean? Like, has Arnor already fallen?

And so all Ergon has ever known is like... It's been fallen for centuries. Okay, that's what I, that's what I imagined. So all Ergon has ever known is this like, wreck of a kingdom. And then probably the ruins.

And so that's also an interesting tape on it too, to be told that, you know, you're the hypoion, you need to fulfill this prophecy. And I feel like in the books, they do not show him to be reluctant. But they do in the movies. And I kind of like that. Yeah. Well, I think, I think in the books, maybe what they're highlighting more is like, this is a big stretch, right? Like, you're some random ranger, and you're going to become king.

And the movies, I feel like they're showing him feeling the weight of that a little more, where he's like, Oh, man. So yeah, like his father was, and this actually is so interesting, it says a chieftain. And so it makes me wonder if the Dunedain, like, even though they were rangers, and they were kind of nomadic, maybe they had these like, little, almost like tribe, government structures that would kind of wander around. So he was a chieftain of the Dunedain.

And I think it's so interesting. His mother was the one, so his father died when he was pretty young. And when I was looking this up, it sounds like Aragorn's grandmother, which sounds kind of crazy. It sounds like Aragorn's grandmother on the mom's side was like, we should let our daughter marry this Dunedain chieftain, because like, we're concerned about this line dying out.

Somebody was thinking ahead. And so they had Aragorn, and then shortly after Aragorn's father died. So that's why there's this urgency around Aragorn, is because they're like, oh no, like, like the things that the Gondorians were worried about, they were thinking it's done, like, they are all gone. Technically, even though I'm saying like, he has a sail door and he has a Narrian's line is not like, Oh, well, he was just, there were tons of these people just hanging out. It's like, no, this is a very few remnant left, right?

You remnant. It's like almost a miracle.

So the fact like the proof of his heritage is the rena felidunned. Right.

So how does that come down? And it remind me which man had which man had that ring? Was that was it Huron who had that ring? Yeah, no, it was Barrett.

It was Barrett. Bear here ring a bear here. Yeah.

So bear here. And then he was Baron's father. By Finrod Feligun.

Yeah. So Feligun gives it to bear here, bear here does it to bear in. And then obviously from that line through Baron, Luthien, etc. We eventually get to Aragorn. That is a lot of generations to pass down a ring. I am, I know it's just, it's very impressive that it just didn't get lost, you know, or just some elf cousin was like, Oh, I have more right to this than you. So it's cool that he has it. Yeah, I'm trying to see where he achieved it by Finrod. Interesting.

Okay. So that was a sign that I guess he had both of the lineage and could be like that high King, King of both figure. And we can do hold the ring.

Okay, so it does sound like it was through a still door, actually, that he got that ring. Okay, interesting. But I think that might speak to like the, I mean, it's still there.

It's still there was a re-collector at this point was a re-collector.

I know. Also, I think this is so sweet. I didn't see this, but he gave it to Arwen as like an engagement ring.

Oh, that is sweet. Honestly, I was just thinking about this. You know, I have like, I know very limited jewelry, but I do have a ring from like Wheel of Time, which is this cute little snake ring like the orb or yeah, and I was just thinking, man, if I had to did another like thematic fantasy ring, I would get the reenafelagant. It would match.

Would you get? Well, the reenafelagant, right? Because it would match my other snake ring.

That's actually perfect. Yeah. And I now know about it.

I think it was really cool and I liked it. I like that regal. The other option is the one ring, but that looks a little bit too much like wedding rings. It's a little bit more difficult to pull off, you know, it would have to be one that's got the actual the script engraved on it, you know?

Oh my gosh, I would love like a ladriol's ring or one of the elf's.

One of the reens of power. Yeah, yeah. You should get what's the name, Nenya? What's the name of Nenya? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would love that. 100% somebody has made this. That's the beauty of like, a fan of that's been around this lawn. That should be.

What if I want to buy it? Presents to ourselves. Yes. I would love that. Amazing. But yeah, okay. So that is kind of the general stuff I have about Arnor and Gondor. Yeah.

That helps set the stage, especially the part where like the played wiped out or the Civil War wiped out people, the played wiped out people, just like the destination. It's just one thing after another, you know, witch teen, Civil War, played all these elements.

A lot going on. And then I actually, I really loved this thing that I found kind of to talk about like Aragorn and his coronation. So when Elendil's Elendil landed on Middle Earth, he apparently said in Quenya, so Elvish, out of the great sea to Middle Earth, I am come. In this place, I will abide with my heirs unto the ending of the world. Yeah.

And those are actually the words that Aragorn sings at his coronation. Oh, that's cool. Isn't that cool? So that's like an anthem, I guess, of the nation or the royal line. Yeah. That's very cool is Elendil.

Yeah. And this, the story of them coming to Middle Earth, it's kind of, it's very reminiscent of the story of like Aeneas, who is supposed to be like a founder of Italy, like the Roman line, etc. Am I going to turn that up? No, I think that's true. But basically the plot of it is a city has fallen, Troy or Numenor, and then the remnants go by sea to some other place. There's lots of different staternations that claim that their founders were Trojans and like lots is, oh, that's fascinating.

It's not even just like a few, it's lots of different places. And so there may be other reasons for that, but like they say, oh, yeah, of course, our founder was a Trojan who came after the war. And then especially with the parallel of Anarion and Asildur being two brothers who are founding cities. I was like, oh, this is very strong Rome vibes to me, which I love. I love it. So yeah, this is great.

This is, there was a lot here. I feel like we could dive in even more.

We have to wait until we finish the last appendix. Oh my gosh, there's so much history here. But I do think it's really interesting. It adds context for me for why Gondor was so doubtful about Eragorn. Yeah. Right. It adds context to me.

While they were like, really this ranger from the north has the heritage of like, not just Asildur, but like Anarion and I don't know, it makes, it makes sense to me. Right. Yeah, very cool. Well, it will also help us have contents for a future episode called Eragorn, the perfect man.

I know. I'm really excited for that one. We have to record it. Yeah. At some point we'll get there. We'll get there. We'll do it. Thanks, okay. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us and have a great night.

Bye.