The atrocity of the Akallabêth

[Findegil]

Well, I think you have missed a part of the information mentioned in the Akalabêth. The Valar did not do anything at the approache of Ar-Pharazôn. They laid down there responsibility and commited the reaction to this breaking of a rule set by Iluvatar himself to him. All that followed was not the action of the Valar but of Eru himself.

What the Valar did before was sending warning after warning to the Numenoreans.

What else should they have done?

Respectfully
Findegil

[Elmo]

It stills makes it atrocious if Eru did it then and anyway weren'te ALL the men in the invasion force (except the 'Failthful') I also dislike civilian women being held over civilian men and the Valar could still have evacuated the the civvies

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I also don't think killing women and children would be OK, but I suppose what we have are forgetting is, that possibly 90% of the Númenoreans were really wicked at that time. This would include the women as well (they could very well make sacrifices of their own children to Sauron, for example). And after all, Valar let the Faithful leave. If they acted really ruthlessly as you say, they'd have put the island down no matter if any faithful were there.
TM, you said they missed warning... I think they got enough warnings: if you don't consider their own tradition, then from the Elves, the Faithful ... and this took centuries. Ar-Pharazon was really much then. I think we'll all agree that worshiping Sauron and making bloody sacrifices of other people is really not nice. But we have many warning omens even in the last generation: eagle-like clouds from the west, restless earth beneath the island, lightnings from the skies, and here is the reaction of the Númenoreans to the warning:

Then some few would repent for a season, but others hardened their hearts, and they shook their fists at heaven, saying: 'The Lords of the West have plotted against us. They strike first. The next blow shall be ours!'

If I exaggerate it a little bit, the Valar were very kind to wait until the last moment, till Ar-Pharazon really attacked Aman. You also have to look at it from the point of Valar, or Eru - you have some world you had a hard work with, but when your own creation turns against you, who have created it for them, believes Sauron that you are just a nonexisting phantom (sorry TP ) and instead worships Melkor as "Lord of All" (when actually he is stuck somewhere in the Void), and finally, wants to attack you (?!?! huh?), that's really much. Destruction of Númenor was not exaggerated punishment in my opinion, for the "evil ones", of course. And as I said, when the Faithful left, there possibly were not too many of those who didn't deserve the punishment. So, I also don't agree that the death of those women and children was O.K., but they surely were not so many - they were not all of the inhabitants of Númenor, there were just few of them, so the portrait is not as terrible as you show it.

[Elmo]

I believe not one child should die for the sins of their parents... and I'm also opposed to the death penalty

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

I believe not one child should die for the sins of their parents... and I'm also opposed to the death penalty

Yeah, I am as well... but... well, you know, I can't think of any possibly better continuing of the story...

[littlemanpoet]

Within the context of Tolkien's story, it is incorrect to assume that the women and children were innocent of the crimes against Eru and the Valar for which they are punished, while the men are guilty. Were the women quarantined? Were the children not around? No, all were together in the same disobedience against the Law set down by Eru, and paid the penalty thereof.

"But they didn't do anything!"

... that would be the objection, I believe.

Maybe they did and maybe they didn't, we cannot say based on what we are told; what is implied, though, is that the attitude of the Numenoreans was shared by all. The next generation would have been no better, and probably worse, than the one that received the punishment.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by elempi

Within the context of Tolkien's story,. . .

I think what lmp means is that there have been a few changes in perspectives in ethics from the Second Age to the Seventh Age. Tolkien's story is set within a mythological past in which it was deemed appropriate for entire races, nations or tribes to share the same fate. Individual, situational ethics weren't yet around then.

[Macalaure]

Unless I haven't overread something, there was no messenger or whatsoever sent to the first Men. Then again, the Valar only found out about the Elves by chance, so maybe they didn't know about Men before it was too late, because they didn't go to Middle-earth regularly anymore. Later the Valar couldn't have helped Men against Morgoth without helping the Noldor as well. Obviously they weren't particularly good at swallowing their pride.
I think that they didn't intentionally neglect Men, but that it all was just a lot of bad luck and maybe shortcoming of character.


As has been said, the Drowning of Westernesse was not the Valar's deed. I don't see what they could have done either. But it casts an ambiguous light on Eru, I think. Numenor was a gift to the Edain of the first age. Their descendants rebelled against the Valar, so Eru surely has a good right to take it from them again. But he killed everyone on it who didn't have a ship prepared perchance, and that was cruel.
I think we agree that the unfaithful Numenorians deserved punishment. Death? If there is one person who is able to judge that, it is Eru.
If he had let the women and children live (in Numenor or Middle-earth), history would have repeated itself, I'm sure. So, judge each individual and only kill the wicked? Leaves a weird feeling in me.
Maybe judge each individual, withdraw the gifts that the Valar once granted to the Numenoreans from the guilty and banish them from the isle, therefore making them no better than the average Man of Middle-earth? Not sure whether this would have been wise. But maybe Eru just wasn't wise in the moment? Maybe he was just angry about these people who received more wisdom etc. from the Valar than any other Man and still weren't satisfied and turned to evil to have more? Maybe he thought that even the Faithful would, after having multiplied, turn to evil eventually? (if I read the Silm correctly, it was the Valar, not Eru, who helped the Faithful escape)
Whatever the case, the drowning remains a deed that, in my mind, was unjustifiedly cruel and overshot the mark. Was it justified? I don't think so. Is it understandable? Maybe.

Concerning the warnings, I think the reaction of the Numenorians to it shows more of the paranoia of the people than of their actual peril. I doubt even the Valar knew what was to come when they laid down their supremacy.