[Voronwe]

I have to disagree with you there, Galorme. While it may or may not be otherwise in the Bible, Tolkien portrays Eru as a perfect and very distant god who only interacts with his creation on a few occasions. The Valar, of course, are certainly not perfect. It's debateable whether it was the Valar or Eru that took the decision to destroy Numenor; Manwe could have called upon Eru to accomplish the downfall of Numenor and the subsequent change of the world, since it was beyond the power of the Valar.

As to the original question, I don't think the downfall of Numenor was a lesson to anyone. It was simply the only just (although somewhat brutal) outcome of the situation. Numemor was originally a gift to the men who had rejected Morgoth and remained faithful to the Valar (and thereby Eru) in the War of Wrath. When the Numemoreans finally turned to worshiping Morgoth and attempted to make war upon the Valar, then the 'land of gift' was taken away. Only those who still remained faithful survived, but they too had Numenor taken away from them and had to return to Middle Earth.

This brings me to the reason for the poetic, regretful prose style in the description of the Downfall. This is easily explained by Elendil being the author of The Akallabeth, which is stated in Unfinished Tales. Elendil, while perhaps accepting the judgement of the Valar as just, is nonetheless filled with sadness at the destruction of his homeland, and with it so much knowledge, culture and beauty. Even many years after the Downfall the Numenoreans still thought of themselves as exiles, so Elendil's pain and loss must have been very deep. The passage is more an expression of regret for all good aspects of Numenor destroyed in the Downfall than any kind of justification for what happened.

[ November 19, 2002: Message edited by: Voronwe ]