Quote:
Originally Posted by Gothmog, LoB
Even if they spend most of their time in some Númenórean colonies in Middle-earth other Númenóreans would have been with them and reported stuff back.
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That's certainly possible, although even if strange things happened it doesn't mean that the Númenóreans became aware of the Rings. As Morthoron has offered, they may have become essentially lords of rogue colonies who paid lip service to Armenelos without having too much direct contact. I'm imagining a "Mister Kurtz in
Heart of Darkness" type situation in which Númenórean lords in Harad are still nominally under the authority of the empire but are sufficiently isolated and/or cautious that they operate with virtual autonomy. It's also possible that before anything too "strange" happened the Númenórean Ringbearers faked their own deaths, abdicated or disappeared and then went to join Sauron, which might have been suspicious, but not sufficiently telling to indicate with much specificity what was happening.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gothmog, LoB
The idea of the Shadow having something to do with the later Nazgûl is interesting in general, but I don't think this is really necessary. The Kings didn't need some evil whisperer telling them that the Ban was crap. That they could figure out themselves, or rather their innate and growing pride and hubris could do that for them.
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I agree with this. While
Alcuin's essay is interesting, I don't think there's necessarily a correlation between the Rings and the darkening of Númenor, and in some respects I think it's more thematically effective if there
isn't - after all, Sauron himself is "but a servant or emissary", not the sole source of evil in the later Ages. We could also go down the "textual history" route of arguing that the Númenor story was invented before the Rings of Power story, but admittedly in early (1937) versions of Númenor the darkening did not really happen in any great degree (although there was some discontent) until Sauron himself came.