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, beat-a-lons and laugh-a-lons. 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. Hello, we're back. Yes. So you think you're done with the book, but then you turn the corner, flip a page, and guess what's waiting for you? Appendices. A long one.

Yeah, the seat is stupid lawn. We just had a chapter and this is at least three times as long. So we're going to be breezy breezy.

We're going to try our best, which is not going to hit the high points. Yeah. So this is the Atalabeth appendix.

Yes. And the subtitle is the downfall of Numenor. Would you know we're intrigued by? And it's exciting because I have a vague idea of Numenor. If I didn't have that vague idea, I'd be like, the downfall of a place I've never heard of.

But I do have a vague idea of what that is. And I'm very excited for this. So we are.

We are now post. Mordoth is captured. The great evil is defeated. The Valor have come and saved everyone and left. And now we're trying to figure out what's going on in the aftermath.

And the aftermath is men. Yeah. So most specifically the edane, which they made.

I know they said this earlier, but I had just like not really caught on. I think, but they say the edane alone of all the tenders of men fought for the Valor, which is when they phrase it that way, like, oh, snap. What were all the other men doing like ever? And we talked about this in the previous chapter. It seems like either they were enslaved by Mordoth, either they were working with the day previously.

No, no, the other people. The rest of the men were kind of under the shadow of Mordoth in some way. So either enslaved or willing or willing to be a combination of both.

Yeah. So then it talks about what's going on with those evil men who did fight for Mordoth and they flee and they had East and they had East until they hit all the men who quote answered neither the call of the Valor nor of Mordoth. So there's an entire massive section of Middle Earth.

There was like, I guess neutral. It sounds far away. It sounds like it's way. It's far away. Yeah.

It sounds far away. They don't really go into details there, but that's what happens to like the great captains that were men under Mordoth. They went that way and they, you know, kind of took over that land. So that was interesting. I feel like for me, to your point of recognizing that the ordain is actually a very small percentage of men in total gives a lot more context that two blue wizards would go into that land mass, because that's huge.

It also gives me more context to the disdain that El's have for men. I'll hold on. There's a really funny meme that I saw the other day. Um, it's your classic, you know, two muscular men, um, joined hands meme.

Uh, why can't I find there are wrestling? Yeah. The arm wrestling meme.

Um, oh, here it is. So it's that classic one arm is labeled, the joint hands are being better than humans. And then one arm is labeled dwarves. The other is El's. And then the scene below is El's washing their hands.

They're like, we're done. Yeah. But like they both think that they're better than men. And I think that's really interesting. Like we have less context on why the doors specifically feel that. Um, but I feel like we now have excellent context for why the elves. Yeah.

Yeah. And they're not wrong. I mean, if you look at it, you're like, okay, well, one tiny fraction of a percent of your populace fought for the obvious good guy. And the other one fought for literally the most evil of all evils. Like I would not feel good about that either.

Do you know what it's giving me? Except actually, I don't know if this was the case. Remember at Harry Potter where they're like all of Gondor and art, not Gondor, all of Gryffindor and all of Hufflepuff like fought for the good side. Ravenclaw had some for the good side, some for the bad side. And then Slytherin was like none for the good side.

Okay. This is what I'm picturing. I picturing Slytherin where like five people from Slytherin are like fighting for the good side and everyone else is kind of like. Yeah.

You would look at them funny and you would be totally justified. So yeah, that's what's going on here. And then we've got the elder being summoned to return to the West. But the men who fought with with the valor are going to be rewarded. Yeah.

So Aeon Way comes to them and teaches them and they were given wisdom and power and life more enduring than any others of mortal race have possessed. This is a cool moment. Yeah. Huge gift and a cool moment because we have Aeon Way coming in as like a Prometheus character.

Um, very cool. And then it says a land was made for them and it's neither in Middle Earth nor Valinor. It's an entirely separate island in between closest to the West, like closer to Valinor than not. I wonder if they looked at this and they're like, okay, so the Eldar are kind of like these elves that had at some point lived in Valinor or descended from elves that lived in Valinor.

And so you have these people who have like this glory about them in the West. But men can't live in Valinor. And then you have the men who worked for Morgoth or, which is most neutral, which are kind of sitting over here in Middle Earth. And I wonder if the valor kind of looked at these a day and it thought, where are you going to go? Yeah.

And I also wonder if they're coming out with the attitude of like, we've got to like emergency helicopter lift these guys out because if we just we're leaving and if we just leave them here with all of these baddies, what's going to become of them? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, so that was the impression I got. So they, they have, um, Ose, like raises an island out of the depths. Which is pretty cool. And it says, so cool. The land, uh, they called the Valor called this land Andor, the land of gift, because they're gifting it to them as a reward for their service.

And that was just beautiful. Like this is very much a promise land. Yeah.

Um, that, that they're giving them. It's very cool. Um, and then this was beautiful as well. And the star of Arendelle shone brightly in the West as a token that always made ready and a died. So then our setting sail to follow the star, to reach this land and or Numenor, whatever you want to call it. And that was just extremely poetic. And to go along with the fact that the star was like right there, I do want to say this is where I think Tolkien gets cheesy.

The island was shaped like a five point star. Did I miss that part? It's actually, I actually heard it at somewhere else. It's not mentioned here. But, uh, if you look up the shape of Numenor, it was shaped like a star.

Hesiterical. So he's like the land of the star. Yeah.

In case you missed the star blazing in the sky, just wait until you did the star shaped island. Exactly. Um, so then, um, we're talking about like the names of the people that then live there. So we call it Numenor and the people there are called Dunedain. Well, Dunedain, Numenorians, we have lots of names. Of course, we always have three names.

So, yeah. And when I saw the word Dunedain for the first time, because I understand now what Edain is or Edain, um, that's like the name for men that the, this particular group of men. So then I thought, well, what is Dune? Um, so Dune is West. So it's the West Edain. It's the Western men.

Yeah. And I had never liked, and that's why it's men of the West. Oh, that's Stan.

Men of the West. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, I just like really enjoyed that. Like, yeah, I enjoyed that. I looked at the word and thought, wait a minute, there's just a little preface on a word that I already know.

It's just classic. Told me to have a legit etymology for this sort of thing. I think there's so many seeds in Lord of the Rings. We just don't even think about because Aragorn says like rise men of the West or something like that. And I always thought the West of Middle Earth, because if you look at Middle Earth, there's like Gondor and everywhere and then there's Mordor and then there's the East. And I always thought it was like Rohan and, but also he's like calling back to a phrase probably from his lineage of like rise, right? Like my lineage. Men of the West. That would be a phrase returning to him.

Um, and I guess we will find out later because I don't know this. Um, but at some point in their evil days, Numenor, like, well, can't speak. Numenorians are conquering parts of Middle Earth.

Yeah. So there is possibly some Numenorean lineage along the Western toast. And we don't know how far Flun and far that's that like heritage was spread. Obviously it went to Gondor at some point. And I don't, I think when Aragorn says it, because I do know there's like Rohan, Rohirrim and other stuff there. I don't think he's explicitly saying it like for my family. I think he's just saying it as like a historic homage. It has a double meaning. Yeah, exactly. Which is interesting. Yeah. So I loved that. That was fun. Um, but here's the thing.

Okay. So we're basically having a paradise here. There's like garden of Eden quality of life. We've got no sickness. Uh, not immortal, but they're living a long time. A long time. They're tall. They're beautiful.

And who was the first king of this island? That was cool. Elros. Elros, Elron's brother. Yeah. So that was me. And he lived what, like 500 years? Yep. And he was ruler for like 490 years. So it was like a long time.

Yeah. So we're getting these massive generations, which was something I didn't have a really good stale on this. Cause we have Elros as the first king.

And then we have, I think sometime around the 20th king, we started in some bad times. Yeah. Um, but if you think about the generations that are actually occurring here, these generations are probably at least 300 years. Yeah.

And I, between teens, so that's a long time. And I think it was mentioned. So I think we can say pretty, pretty easily that there's just a lot of bliss in the first part.

Like I think somewhere it's like the first 2000 years on this island, which is a long time. It's just like really good times. Like the elves come and go, they bring gifts. The new minorians are very friendly. They're very happy. Like life is pretty good for a long time.

And there's a great phrase here. It says, thus the years past and while Middle Earth went backward and light and wisdom faded, the Dunedain dwell under the protection of the Valar and the friendship of the Eldar. So yeah, Middle Earth is having like a classic dark age occurring right now. Whereas life is amazing in Numenor.

But however, there are some complications. So to set this up, the Valar have forbidden the Numenorians from selling west out of site of Numenor. They say you're allowed to sell anywhere you want, but westward you can only do so far. And the reason being is that they do not want them to come to Valar or Valinor. They don't want them to be tempted because, you know, they're not meant to be there. And it's not, I think there's a combination of two things. Like they're not meant to be there and it's a temptation.

But that temptation is too great. Also, I thought it was really intriguing and this more details come out, I think with this and for their conversations, but something I didn't realize is so they're saying like, these are the undying lands. You guys are going to die at some point, right? Like kind of like these lands weren't made for you. And I feel like that sounds a little rude and a little mean at first where you're like, what do you mean? Like just because I'm going to die and they're like, that's kind of your lot in life is your mortal.

And I think they even say it would even hasten your death to be in the brilliance of it. Yes. This is something that Manway says and we can talk about this a little further on.

I think when a specific king is like trying to have this conversation or like figure out if they should sail west, he's like, if they come here, they're going to, it's almost like a like a moth to a flame. They're just going to kind of wither up. Right? Yeah, they they piano withstand the glory. They're not they're not cut out for it. However, there's just just like interesting things.

Okay, actually we'll do a couple of quick highlights before we get to that. So they have the elves bring them a seedling of keloborn, which was nice. So they have a white tree and every time we see white trees, I'm like, is this the Gondor one yet?

Not yet. A predate. And then we have the Numenoreans who visit Middle Earth attenuously and they start teaching them many things. They trade with the men. Yeah, well, they give them things. And I think it's I mean, they're even instructing them on how to sow like food.

Yeah. And I think they have obviously had a very deep dark age. So this was interesting because we kind of see this is clearly the Numenoreans at their peak. We see a onway come to them as a Prometheus and give them light and knowledge. And now we see them passing along the favor to a lesser kind of man.

And that's that's beautiful. That's what I thought it was interesting that the men at this period of time saw these like sea lords is something they would call them. And almost thought they were gods. They were like, whoa, you're so tall. You live so long. They were so different.

You are like incredible. Can you imagine that? Like maybe you're a Numenorean, you're going to live 400 years and you're like, oh, I have my little pet colony that I like to visit when I'm out sailing east. So you keep on visiting it every 10 years. The people there who live 40, you know, 40 years, they would see the same man every time for hundreds of years. That would be insane.

Of course, they would think they were gods. So all of this is great and dandy and then bad. Now the bad happens.

All right. So did this. So this this was a really interesting scenario that Tolkien came up with.

First, let's set the stage. It says the Numenoreans be damned a hunger for the Undying City that they saw from afar. And the desire of everlasting life to escape from death and the ending of delight drew strong upon them. So they can technically see Valar, you know, the very teen, the Valar, not Valinor, the island just outside. Isle just outside. Yeah. Yeah.

I always forget the name of it. They can technically see it all like a clear day. Somebody has like good sight. Somebody who's selling just as far as they can.

They can literally see it with their eyes, which if you think about it is, I mean, they're supposed to be very far-sighted, but that cannot be that far away yet. Very tempting. So this is this is the beginning of the end for them, this temptation. And I was I was intrigued by the setup. It was very it's an interesting choice for Tolkien to say here is this amazing idyllic setup. And here's how it went wrong. And basically the way it went wrong was that the elves and the men intermingled too much. They were too friendly with each other. They knew too much about each other. And that's how the men were able to be like, you know, we speak the same language as you. We love the same music.

Our writing is maybe not as good, but we're working on it. And yet somehow we see you every day and you're immortal and we're not. And it's just not fair. And why can't we live in the eternal realm?

And why can't we exactly? Exactly. And then there's so that's one one element of it, which I thought was really interesting that it's the fact that the elves were too friendly with them and too close and intermingled too much. That seems to have set this.

I mean, obviously Mordorff probably helped. But like it seems to have set this this envy or this temptation place. And then I think the other misconception that the men have here is really interesting. They're called the undying lands, not because the lands make you undying, but because the undying live there.

Exactly. And they've got some kind of cargo cult going here where they think if they just make it to the undying lands, they themselves will become undying. And it seems like, yeah, you reference, there's a conversation later in here about one of the teens and an attempt is made to try to clarify that and it doesn't seem to have worked.

So yeah, those are the two misconceptions that lead to every bad thing that's about to happen. And it's a lot. It's a lot of bad things.

It goes deep. Yeah. Anyways, so over the course of, but it takes some time. It takes some time, right?

And these are still long generations. Um, and I guess, actually, sorry, I guess the third misconception, which we all probably fall under is a misunderstanding of the gift of death. Because I remember when we first heard that phrase, you and I were both like, well, that's an interesting way to phrase it. Not sure I would call it that. So it's a really, again, it's a strong philosophical stand that Tolkien is taking. Like death is a gift. You get to leave the world and go on to something else like a second life, like an afterlife or heaven or like whatever. We don't really know the. A luvatar appears to have different men this gift and not really explained it. And there's a scene later on here. And maybe I'll maybe I'm not sure, but there's a scene where one of the elves is talking to them. It's like, Hey, like you have a gift and it is a gift.

You just seem to not a gift because that's the way more God has twisted it. Yeah. Which is, which is fair. So we've got these, we've got these confusions. Um, and I think it's interesting that the kings have been starting to bring this up with elves. The kings have been starting to bring this up with Valar. And you see kings slowly starting to want to prolong their life.

They're trying to find ways to live longer and longer. Yes. And there's one conversation actually that's really interesting here where it's one of the Valar's messenger is trying to persuade the steam like, you know, don't, don't, you don't want to want this. This isn't what you think it is. Yeah.

Yeah. It isn't what you think it is. And I like this phrase. He says, which of us therefore should envy the others? Because he's talking about you did to a state, you did death. And the rest of us, we are bound to the world in hope or in weariness.

And that, that was such an interesting answer, but also one that is impossible for man to understand. You know, like sometimes you'll play those fun little games with your friends where it's what would you do if you were a vampire forever? And I say things like, yeah, choose it. Don't be a coward.

All your friends are going to die, but don't be a coward. Think of all the hobbies you can ask. But in the end, honestly, that would probably be the wrong thing.

Right. I think you're going to be lonely and sad. And it's just going to be a bad time. Like there is a curse to immortality. I think it is interesting to that. So if we're comparing vampires to what elves, both of them have a sense that like, even though they're very different and maybe like the moral coding of like vampires are typically like, ooh, scary, not very nice.

Elves, we think of as like ethereal and good, but they both have, when people have thought about immortality for these creatures, both have a sense of like aloofness and like separateness from caring about what happens to the world. Because I think at some point you're around long enough, you know, you're not going anywhere. How much can you really care and be invested and put passion and love and- Well, they talk about this weariness that happens when you're too, when you've been around too long. And we just don't have a sense of that scale.

Even the new Minorians who are living 400, 500, you know, hundreds of years, apparently still don't have, have not lived long enough to feel it truly yet. So they don't understand it. So this answer is a good answer, but it's like ultimately something that no man could really truly understand. And obviously it doesn't persuade them.

There's another interesting thing here. So following on in this like messenger's argument, they're talking about death and how it's a gift that a Rue aluvertard gave them. Here he says, nonetheless, many ages of men unborn may pass. Air that purpose is made known. So nobody really understands it or where man goes in the afterlife. And then he says, and to you it will be revealed and not to the valor.

I thought that was very specific because we've kind of been seeing the valor as like the intermediaries for everyone to a real avatar. And this guy is specifically saying, yeah, God's going to reveal this, but only to you. And it hasn't happened yet. That kind of was like a teaser for some future event that obviously I don't think I don't think told to wrote it.

I'm not sure. So maybe I would be very intrigued if we can get to the end of his notes and all these stories and find out what he wrote about the gift of death for men or if it's just a big mystery still. Like tell me. Yeah.

So yeah. And then they start talking about like all like kind of their technology and their drive is twisted and it's turned to how can we prolong our lives? And ultimately this fails, but they achieve some things that are gross like this.

They achieved only the art of preserving interrupt the dead flesh of men and they filled all the land with silent tombs. That's wild. Yeah. And yeah, I don't know that the image there is very interesting. Like if you imagine like every other building was a tomb. Yeah. That's that's just an interesting city.

So yeah. I mean, it says that like people, the people who do live are turning more to like pleasure and revelry and they're becoming greedy. They're trying to live life to its fullest because they feel because they're surrounded by elves that their lives are short. Even though even though they're objectively so long and this is fun to think about this like comparison by. I know. Right. They are living like 10 times longer than your average man. And yet it's not enough because they're not comparing themselves to the average man. They're comparing themselves to an elf. So that's a lesson to the viewer probably. Be careful like comparison being the thief of joy.

Okay. So speeding along. What have we got? Well, and so all of this is happening and it starts making a big impact in the political sphere because what starts happening because of these start having a schism. You start having a schism in the country.

So you start having people who are still very grateful to the elves and right. Are these are the old friends? Ellen D. Lee or something like that. Exactly. Because they're like, no, like they're not, they haven't had this relationship corrupted by jealousy. Right. And then you have the Kingsman. Some group of people called the Kingsmen and I think they're called the Kingsmen because their most recent Kings up to this point have been trying to kind of have these conversations with the Valar have been trying to extend their life into different possible ways. And so you have this group called the Kingsmen and more and more you're seeing people kind of lean towards the Kingsmen attitude.

Yep. So the elf friends are dwindling subset of the Numenoreans and I thought this was an interesting note somewhere in there. He says, yeah, even though the elf friends didn't want to betray the elves or the Valar or anything, they had these loyalties. They still fear death.

Like there was definitely some part of them that also understood that fear. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So then we come to the sentence that Sauron is mentioned. It says in this age, as is elsewhere told, Sauron of Rose a dint in Middle Earth. And you're like, what? And then we got this whole sentence here that I did not understand. It says, nor did Sauron forget the aid that Tarin minister had rendered to Dilkel out of old in that time when the one ring was forged.

And I'm like, and there was a war between Sauron and the elves in Aredor. And I'm like, when was the one ring forged? How did we miss this? And I'm hoping it'll be the next appendix. It's going to be in the next appendix, which is. We'll drop our we'll drop our tidbit trailer now.

The rings of power and the third age. Okay, good. Because I hadn't read at the time that appendix like hadn't looked at it yet. And so I was like, I feel like I missed something huge.

So I'm excited to see that. But we did Sauron and Sauron is now are a bit bad. And he's kind of he's hanging out in Middle Earth still making a mess and trying to throw throw around his weight there.

So there are some Numenorean colonies or like, you know, projects down there that are starting to come over to Middle Earth. Yeah. Yeah. And Sauron seems to be interfering there. So we now get one of these teens.

This is the 20th team. And I thought this was an interesting note. He took when he ascended the throne, the name of a Dunator Lord of the West, forsaking the Elven tons and forbidding their use in his hearing. So previously, all of the all of the teens of Numenor had Elvish names. So he has now deliberately chosen not to do this in a break of tradition. Yeah. Though it says later on that he didn't fully break the tradition, right? There's other stuff that he did that he tapped. It made me wonder, does Eridorn taped an Elvish name when he becomes a teen?

We will investigate this possibly. Well, Elrond gives him an Elvish name. What is it? Yeah, Estelle, which means hope. An Elisar? Isn't that an Elvish one? Oh, yes. I think you're right. Is it Elisar?

Well, because Elrond gives him Estelle. Well, that would be when he was a child. I was like, um, anyways, we can look that up later. Oh, here it is. Elisar, the royal name of Eridorn when he becomes a teen of Dondor and armor.

Okay. And it is Elvish and it's a title given to Eric Gordon by the elves. And I just wanted to see if this tradition had like been restored by Eric. Yeah. So he does take an Elvish name when he becomes king. Cool.

I love that. Um, okay. Time goes on. That was the 20th king. Now the 23rd king was the greatest enemy of the faithful. Um, and this is so this was just an interesting note.

The white tree was left untended and be dead to decline. And again, I'm like, Oh no, this is bad. Um, we have a brief period with Tar Palantir who is a descendant where he kind of like almost turned scenes around and you think things might go for the better, but they don't. The people are too far gone. Um, and he doesn't last long enough.

And then just dipping through. Okay, here we go. We are now at a new team. Yes. Our pharaoh is on and he's like, basically it says he's the most prideful of the lot.

Yeah. Um, so what happens is that Sauron at this point has lots of power in Middle Earth and he's attacking like these Numenorean outposts. And our pharaoh is on gets furious about this and he sails over to Middle Earth in his might shows up and says, basically he's gonna compel Sauron to become his vassal and his servant. Um, and I thought, Whoa, that's not gonna work for you. Um, but then he arrives and it says he commanded Sauron to come before him and swear to him filthy and Sauron came.

I think it's so funny though. It's like the reason why he was pissed and wanted Sauron to come is cause Sauron started calling himself king of men. Yes. So Sauron specifically called himself something that he knew. I think he knew that would piss off Numenor because maybe because earlier in the chapter, Sauron was, they said Sauron was a little bit fearful of Numenor and he was trying to figure out a way that he could get that fierce wage, right? He kind of get them off of his worry list. Yeah, but we'll see. So I was just surprised at Sauron came, but the reason he came was really interesting. He saw that the majesty of the teens of the sea surpassed all rumor so that he could not trust even the greatest of his servants to withstand them. That was so fun.

He's like, Oh, my goodness. All of my, all of my people are useless in the face of these, um, which is interesting. Like there's so much you need minions for, right? And so instead of like just going ham and fighting army to army, he has to go undercover and undermine them differently. Um, in a little bit of a side detour trip, um, which obviously he's very effective at. Um, so his methods work, but it's just funny that the reason he had to even do that instead of doing battle face to face is, uh, these guys are too good. Like they're too powerful. Just like the fact that they would overwhelm and overaw his people was hilarious to me. Well, and I don't know if he's probably built up his orc army. They're probably used to fighting the men in middle earth. He's coming over here and he's saying like, um, man, this is like, these aren't men.

These are men of middle earth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So basically he's taken captive and Sauron is like, Oh no, this is terrible.

Yeah. But secretly he's happy. Um, and it says in three years, he had become the closest to the councils of the teen for flattery.

Sweet as honey was ever on his tongue. So he's, he's doing great work out there. Um, and this is our far as on still that same team. Um, and then, you know, it says, you know, our far as on he's, he's, he's getting old. It's like, he sees that his time is ending. Um, and Sauron makes another move and he says, what does he say here?

Oh yeah, this is where they start doing things openly. So Sauron has given them things. He's given them tech. He's given them wealth. He's, he's like driven them onto new lands and such. And then he says to them, in the darkness, there is a Lord and that Lord could make other worlds to be just to those that serve him so that the increase of their power shall find no end. And then, and our far as on said, who is the Lord of the dark?

And I thought, Oh my gosh, look at this mistake, rookie mistake. I just like, you don't even ask that question. You could just see him falling. I think it's so funny because I feel like the elves, like they had a pretty good sense of who Melkor was, but like these men, it's been thousands of years. They don't know, right? Like really, they don't know. So he's like telling them this fairy tale of something they don't know anything about. Well, he's basically saying that a root of Lupitar is like the wizard of Oz, that the elves just use this name and, and he happens to always say what the elves want, which we know is not true.

But men don't know that. And I just, again, when your God calls themselves the Lord of darkness, I feel like there should be two bull sirens that go off. Oh no, this is a cult. This is bad.

But it doesn't go off for him. And it says, our forest on the team turned back to the worship of the dark. And I think that was an interesting phrase back to the worship of the dark, because we had talked about this previously. The ordain were under the influence of Morgoth until they fled and came to the elves. Oh, interesting.

So I thought that was a really interesting phrase. They turned back to the worship of Melkor at first in secret, but ere long openly and in the face of his people, and they for the most part followed him. And this is, this is just an example of like the power of a wicked team. You see this a lot in scripture, you see it a lot in history.

It's, the beginning and it only gets worse from here out very soon. Almost all of Numenor, except for like a limited few. Ellen Dill. So we'll talk about who these guys are. There's a very limited, there's like one family, essentially, who are mentioned and a few friends, it sounds like, but basically one family who are not part of this evil thing. So we have Amandil, who is a counselor of the king and one of his old friends from his, his like younger days, who has a son named Ellen Dill. And then first mentioned, Isildur and Anarion are the sons of Ellen Dill. So this is the family and I, all of this is so, this is giving me cool scripture vibes, right? This basically feels like, who was it in Sodom and Gomorrah? Oh, lot. And was it Abraham as well?

Am I making that up? Well, because Abraham said, which piece of land do you want? And Lot says, I'll take this land. Yeah. And so it's a lot in his family who are, who are, who are leaving. Yeah.

It kind of, this family gives me that vibe or like a Noah's Ark sort of vibe. Yeah. Actually.

Yeah, it does. Like last one's out. Yeah.

Last one's out. So very interesting. And we're kind of like, we're left in this kind of tense state where we've got these two sides and they're not come to blows yet, but there are being like these laws are being passed and these strictures are being passed. Like the elf friends are kind of being oppressed. Kind of like where you can't worship or believe your beliefs anymore. Yeah.

Similar. Like you can't go to the west side because that's where the elf ships are coming forward. We don't want you meeting the elves.

Right now, no one can speak to Elvish now. You know, it was, it's a slow, but pretty thorough suppression here. All right. What else do we have? So this is interesting. We have Sauron who's trying to destroy the tree that they have, which is called Nimloth. Yeah.

And he hasn't guarded and set up. And this was really cool. They basically send a seal to her on this little mission. And he says he passed by the guards and took from the tree a fruit and he gets caught. He's a sail. He fights his way out. He gets many wounds, but he eventually makes it back. The fruit is planted in secret and then when it flowers, his wounds are healed and he like is able to go on.

So that was just some fun bats where you're on a seal door. Like even I think as a boy, it sounds like he's relatively young. Well, maybe just young dish. He did a really cool mission.

Yeah. And I kind of get like to your point, almost like the scriptural vice, but Amandel, we don't hear that much about him. He's the grandpa to a seal door or or yeah. And then his son is Elendil. And I get very much like Patriarch almost profit vibes where he's like, I'm a counselor to the king. I see what's about to happen.

Soran is increasing his hold. Like we need to make moves, right? Like that he is doing all that. He's giving Elendil orders later.

He's like, do this thing. Yeah, I agree. This is very much like a NOAA sort of situation. Okay, but it's so they after a seal, there gets the fruit. Thankfully it grows. Can you imagine if that thing didn't grow if you're a bad gardener?

Oh my gosh. Anyway, so it grows because they're good gardeners. And then it says that Soran convinces our pharazon to destroy the tree. And they've built a great temple. And the first fire upon the altar altar, Soran kindled with a hewn wood of Nimloth.

And apparently it reaps and it's terrible. And then they talk about what goes on and this temple in the temple with the spilling of blood and torment and great witness men made sacrifice to Melchor that he should release them from death. Alright, this is classic scripture. This is and they made note of how the sacrifice is done with fire. This is classic precibal crap, right? Yeah. It's also very reminiscent of Carthage and how they made sacrifices. So it's just very interesting.

Classic evil told they should have read their great history and then they would know how to fall for this. This was fun. But for all this death did not depart from the land. Rather, it came sooner and more often and in many dreadful guises.

So like they've never had sickness before. Well, guess what? Now you do.

You have madness. Just it just describes a fall in this civilization that is so extreme. But I mean, people became quick to anger. Yeah, if you read history, this happens.

This is how it goes. So even though these scenes are happening, they're still increasing in wealth or conquering places of even greater ships. It talks about their changing attitudes towards the men left in Middle Earth. How they once came as a Prometheus and now they're here or and then they tax them and now they come to now they're colonizing them. Yeah.

Yep. And enslaving them because we'll hear later about how many slaves they have to sail their boats. So then it says, thus our pharazon, king of the land of the star, grew to the mightiest tyrant that had yet been in the world since the reign of Mordoth, though in truth, Sauron ruled all from behind the throne.

That's just cruel. So now that this has happened and again, Pharazon is seeing the end of his life approaching. Sauron says to himself, all right, it's time to trigger our last plan. So he gets Pharazon, he talks to him and he says, why are you obeying this ban to sell west? Yeah, we you need to sell west, you need to go to the undying lands and take what is your do. And then it says, our pharazon being besotted and walking under the shadow of death, heartened to Sauron.

That's just a great phrase. So he creates this massive fleet, massive and while this is happening, almond like you said, like this patriarch figure, he sees what's happening, he knows better. He he sees what our pharazon is about to do. And he decides to try to do what Arundel did and to bed for relief with the Valar. So he goes, he gets on his ship, he tells Elendil, get your ships, get your supplies, go out to see, you know, be at sea, don't hang around here.

Yeah. Try basically get out of town. And then he goes off and Elendil and his sons are waiting for his sign for any sign from him. And none comes because he sells off and he has never seen again.

And there's a lion in here that is pretty, pretty harsh. Men could not a second time be saved by any such embassy. And for the treason of Numenor, there was no easy absolving, which is true.

This is treason. Like just the level of the level of the fall is powerful here. It's like you were with the gods, you fought with them, and now you're literally worshiping Satan. And then you want to quite literally want to come conquer, you want to come come conquer the ever dying lands agency, even though we've told you it's not going to be good for you. And again, there's there's just so many scripture in here.

Like this, this feels like a tower of apple. Oh, I could see that wanting to reach the gods. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just so there's so many. I loved this story. But anyways, what's going on here? So then it talks about Elendil and his ships and all the stuff that they took and the seven stones, which we've talked about the Palantir, right? Pretty cool.

It talks about how on a silder ship was the young tree that they had had grown. So now they're waiting. They don't get any sign for from Amadil. And they do get terrible signs in the heavens. Yeah, so these massive clouds that form in the shapes of eagles.

They get earthquakes, they get other things, lightning strikes, but they're not like dissuaded. They array their fleet, and they go off. And I loved this phrase. They sailed into forbidden seas, going up with war against the deathless to rest from them everlasting life. Wow.

What a right phrase. So we get there, they sail past the little outpost island that they could see the shore. Yeah, they get to the shores of Valinor.

And it says, our far as been wavered at the end and almost turned back. That would have been very interesting. Obviously, if he had done that, he would have immediately been dethroned when he got back. But it's interesting that even he he's something. Yeah, and he's sensing something.

And it's just, I don't know, it's just interesting. He's been he's committed to the cause. Like imagine how many terrible sacrifices he's made in that temple.

Yeah, they're doing human sacrifice in there. And I imagine he's made more than one himself. So yeah, he's not a good guy. But even in that moment, like the terrible beauty of it kind of overwhelms him. Yeah, but not for too long. So then he gets off with a group of people, goes to the shore, claims it, you know, basically taunts them that none are doing battle for it, etc. So then they camp. And I love this, because I can just see this happening in like two seconds. Madway called upon a Louvitar.

And for that time, the Valar laid down their government of Arda. And I thought that was an interesting way of phrasing it that they're just saying, look, we're not going to deal with this. This is, I don't know if it's exactly this vibe, but it's kind of above our head.

Maybe they didn't feel like, I don't know, maybe they didn't feel like they had the authority to kill so many of the children of Louvitar. I don't know what vibe did you get from that? Because I kind of got the vibe of like, Hey, I don't really want to deal with this. I'm going to pray and have God, God smite these people. Oh, that's so interesting.

I was almost getting the sense of like, a Louvitar being like, Okay, this is where I maybe a loop are being like, Hey, yeah, I've got exactly where he's like, this is where I step and like lay down the government. I need to make some changes, right? Like there are some things that I need to do. Step in. It's like Jehovah reaching in directly to metal. Yeah. And anyways, very good. So it says a Louvitar showed forth his power and he changed the fashion of the world, which is an awesome way of phrasing this. So he opens up this great chasm. The entire fleet is sucked into it. And they all die.

Yeah. And then all the people who went on land are partisan and all his like army. They're buried in an earthquake landslide affair. And then the island, the beautiful island, the gift, the land of the gift.

Well, yes, yes, yes. And then so and then Louvitar does this also where he takes away Amman and the island of Russia, and they're taking away beyond the reach of men. So that's just like that shielding that we've referred to in the past. Yeah.

And then yeah, the phrase that I really liked for that was Numenor went down into the sea with all its children and its wives and its maidens and its ladies proud and just goes down this long list of things. So sad. Yeah. And they yeah. And it says they're just buried in the ocean.

So there's this massive tsunami essentially that takes it out. It is really sad actually. Yeah.

But deserved totally deserved. And then we have the nine ships of Elendil. And that's the only thing that survives. And they're like shielded a little bit from the tsunami, but then the island disappeared and they're blown by the wind. They were more on the Middle Earth side, I think.

And you had people on the opposite side of the island going west towards Valinor. Right. So they survive, but they're basically like shipwrecked out there. Yeah, is my impression. So it's kind of a miracle that they survived. And I do think it's interesting that let's see, this is the point in time if you're looking at geography for Lord of the Rings.

Yes. That we had a pretty flat Arda. And then this is the point in time where the world became round. And so and then Valinor was almost like physically removed. It's almost like this.

You have to have this special bridge kind of situation. If I can find that quote, I don't think I can find it. At some point they send out sailors and they say all the roads are bent because it was a flat world before and now it's round. And the only people who can return to flat world are the elves.

And they call it the straight way. Yeah, it's really cool. So actually, this is an interesting note. Sauron was on Numenor when it went down.

Of course, right? That's his temple telling people. And it says he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of men. Yeah, his spirit rose out of the deep. So I thought that was interesting that like, you know, he lost something there. He was killed.

He came back in his grocer form. That was an interesting way. And then I thought this was also interesting that the people who survived, you know, Elendil and his sons, it says, okay, of the drowning of Numenor, even the name of that land perished because the men spoke to thereafter, not of, you know, Elena and or Numenor. They don't use that name. They use other names. And one of them is Akalabeth, the downfallen.

So yeah, they just even the name is lost. It's so cool. And I do think it's interesting when they talk about Sauron. So Sauron kind of still was there. His spirit survived. But then this is what's so interesting is, I think it's so fascinating because this whole time he was like, I want to get rid of the Numenorians, right?

I hate them for what they are, what they were historically, but also I hate them for how they could interfere with my plan. But then it says like, he laughed when he saw Farazon going off. He laughed. He did lead to himself in the temple when he did hit by the tsunami in the face. Yeah.

Hilarious. But then it's fascinating because like when everything was done and the island sank and he saw the wrath of the Valar, it says Sauron himself was filled with great fear, right? Like he, like he was laughing when he was sending them off because he was like, he wasn't expecting it to happen like this. And then when this happened, he thought, holy crap, right?

That's wild. So I thought that was fascinating that even he like took a step back and was like, whoa, okay. I like the very end where it basically says that the drowning sailors and drowning men might sometimes glimpse Valinor as they die. Did you see that where it's like sometimes they might see the straight way and they might glimpse the shining shores as a as a gift? Is that how they phrase it? Yeah.

By some fate or grace or favor of the Valar that they might look upon the white mountain dreadful and beautiful before they died. And that's how the chapter ends. Yeah.

Or the appendage, which is really just a chapter in disguise. So wild. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. This section was really cool to me. What what do you think now that you now you know more of like the history of Numenor and like the downfall and kind of the heritage of our mind? Yeah, first of that comes to mind is that Reans of Power show is even worse than I thought. There's so much good material in here.

You could do so much interesting like cool TV with just half a half a paragraph. Honestly, that's what I was thinking is I was like, they definitely have pieces that they're trying to pull out, but I'm also like, it's just not only seen like five episodes. Like I went in there, I was like, Oh, I don't know anything about this. And I thought, Oh, this is lame. And then I thought, well, maybe it will be lame when we read it, but no, it's epic and awesome. And you could do great work with it, obviously, which they have not done in my opinion.

So that's okay. Somebody someday will. Somebody will make it amazing.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it it really is like, I think what blows my mind is we look at Gondor, we look at, I don't know, Lord of the Rings, and we think, wow, this is a whole universe. This is a whole story. But then every single detail that I feel like I read in the Simmerallian, including this chapter or appendix, I'm like, there's so much more to like the backstory of Gondor and Aragorn and his heritage and all of this.

This one in particular was like really fun to see all the mythological or scriptural references. Like Atlantis. This is clearly Atlantis, right? Oh, and Tolkien has such an interesting... Because they're a high tech society, their island nation is sucked under the sea. Like, it's fun.

It's just fun to see them. It's like Atlantis, it's Noah and the Ark, it's like so many things. It's Sodom and Gomorrah.

It's like all kinds of... Yeah, well, just like that, that element of, oh, the entire city is wicked, except for like one group. Leave the family. Yeah, leave the family to the wilderness. Yeah, it's cool. I do think it's so interesting. I remember reading somewhere that Tolkien actually had a dream that it was a nightmare that would come to him fairly often about being in a city that was sinking under the sea. And he actually said like he's always had this dream. He wanted to write about it.

And I thought this was so intriguing. He said he thought it was some kind of genetic stress, because it was something that his son would also have this dream. I don't know if his father had the dream. And so I think he actually believed in like... He believed that there was at some point, right, a city of Atlantis, and there's some kind of stress dream that survived. And I thought that's so wild, but I definitely think that was his inspiration for this. That's cool.

Yeah, crazy. Well, hopefully next time we discover more about this entire sequence of sorrow that they just said, this was written elsewhere. So join us next time, Brian. Yeah, our last... For the last appendix. And I really feel like that will be the proper end of this book, because I have no intention of reading the note on pronunciation. Exactly. We're the index of names. Exactly.

Or anything else, really. They'll have to forgive us. Our pronunciation is raw and authentic. That's right. The way God intended.

Our Tolkien maybe did not intend. Exactly. Okay, well, thank you so much, guys. Bye. Bye.