The sinking of Numenor - a lesson to whom?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Hmmm...If that is the case (and again, very plausible, m'lady), then that is where Tolkien actually diverges from the bible, in that Eru acts only to save a piece of Eden unmarred, whereas Yahweh is punishing Adam and his descendants by removing Eden forever (as well as plopping the original sin guilt-trip on procreation, as well as casting woman as a seething pit of lasciviousness and temptation).

Yahweh was much more 'old school' vindictive than the more liberal Eru. I don't think the Puritans or the original Calvinists would have cared for Eru much.

Well, this would leave us with several possible avenues to explore.

1. A deity who removes man from paradise, leaving the memory of it. This could lead two ways: Man would retaliate with anger and cognitive dissonance (those grapes are probably too sour anyway) and become even more isolated and distanced from paradise/perfection, or the memory would somehow inspire Man to hope somehow to attain it again, or to strive after it.

2. A deity who removes all memory of paradise/perfection leaves Man with his own devises and frailties, prey to evil without any hope or inkling of purity, beauty, perfection (assuming the long defeat).

This second possiblity is very dark indeed. But ultimately we know that the passage from the Akallabeth which I quote earlier is mitigated not only by the establishment of Gondor, and Aragorn (hope) in LotR but by the claims of Elendil's influence made in the Akallabeth itself.

Originally Posted by Tolkien, Akallabeth

Elendil and his sons after founded kingdoms in Middle-earth; and though their lore and craft was but an echo of that which had been ere Sauron came to Numemor, yet very great it seemed to the wild men of the world.

So, one has to wonder what Tolkien meant by saying there was no place with a memory of a time without evil, yet that some faint aspect of that time persisted in Elendil's influence. Did Tolkien realise that the first passage I quoted would create a very modern philosophy with no hope and no perfection, Middle-earth abandoned to Sauron? Or is this too much niggling because the Third Age had no revelation?

Legate, I must ask the boon of a delay in replying to your very interesting points, as RL makes strident demands on my internet time these days. I shall return as soon as I am able.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Okay, this is more like general thoughts on the subject, not replying concretely on what's been said here, but connected to it.
(I wrote this post in the way "whatever comes to my mind", so please forgive eventual inconsistency - although I was trying to achieve it, at least in some way.)

There is one thing. Middle-Earthian Man was actually never "removed from paradise". In the meaning, he was never physically there. He was denied it from the very beginning - THE paradise, Valinor. Then, there was Númenor, the given land, which was not paradise (for example, the people had to work there like everywhere else and also, it could have been marred, as it was in the end), but it was something "special" - indeed, the "Golden Age" comparison seems very good to me - and it was taken away from the Númenoreans to be never given back. Along with it, any contact with the "real paradise" was removed - not a sight of it, just memory. But the memory was there (cf. even Faramir's ritual of looking to the West before dinner, "to Númenor which was, and to Eressea which is, and to what is behind Eressea and will always be"). Mentioning Faramir's words now, I seem to notice one thing: I originally thought that Valinor and all such stuff may have been just a memory of the glorious past, the time when we could climb up Meneltarma and had our own island and such things, but now it seems to me that - "which is behind Eressea and will always be" - Valinor has, strangely enough, some importance to the Dúnedain even in the present. My question would be, why should it? It's been removed from the Circles of the World and either way, it's the Elves' "heaven" - not Men's. Men have a different fate. Why are Dúnedain concerned at all? Is it the closeness to the Elves, maybe even in bloodline in some cases? Is it an expectation of hope like in Eärendil's times - and well-deserved, actually, thinking of the Istari? Or what?

As for the still returning comparisons to the biblical portrayals of paradise and such things. It's good to use them because it's probably the easiest way to compare something. But I would like to warn that it's not staying good to the subject to put the equal marks between some things in Arda's story and the biblical story. I said: comparison. When you look at the things in which the tales differ, you can notice more about how it works in Middle-Earth.
For one, we should acknowledge one thing - Arda lacks deeper interaction of the Creator and the Creation. It lacks the aspect of the "God descending", be it Christ in New Testament or "shekhina", presence of God following the Israelites even into the exile. As it has been said above, Eru is far more "liberal", also in the sense that he cares a lot less about the creation, at least compared to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He seldom acts in an apparent way, and when he does, we see rather an All-Ruler aspect in him than the descending God. (His acts are like that he "pushes" Gollum into the lava, for example.)

In any case, of all the comparisons of the tale mentioned here, I think the best comparison used was alatar's tower of Babel. Although I am pretty sure Tolkien did not intend it, so I disagree on that it would be retelling of it, but the point of the story seems to be the closest to what happened on Númenor: just as alatar said.

Originally Posted by alatar

This act of pride was 'rewarded' with the dispersing of all humanity due to divinely-enacted language barriers, and so never again could humanity unite in such a prideful way - trying to reach Heaven/Aman.

So the direction of the "lesson" may be as well such as this one. Directed to all the "further generations" - however even here one interesting problem arises, and I am sure we are all aware of it: if the Undying Lands cannot be reached anymore, why the lesson? Even if Men tried to enter Aman with armies, they couldn't anymore. So this lesson may actually not be lesson at all; it may not be a word, but rather an actual deed.

To which relates: Note also one thing, which I am not sure if has been emphasised enough - the course of events during the Fall of Númenor is such that Manwë calls to Eru (apparently, things have reached the point where Manwë himself doesn't have adequate "power" - or what - to do something), and Eru does something unimaginable - a real change, literally the world "shakes at its basis". And at least to me it always seemed that without Manwë's asking for it, Eru wouldn't have done anything. It's obviously one of the "big shocks no one would expect" that he only can do, though, of course. But still - I would compare it for example to Eärendil's journey, although it was in a different scale and also somewhat different circumstances.

Although still, the destruction is not total, at least the memory remains - and, if we believe the legends, the top of Meneltarma. And now you can look back at the first paragraph of this post and think what it means to have this memory - even in presence.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Legate, I must ask the boon of a delay in replying to your very interesting points, as RL makes strident demands on my internet time these days. I shall return as soon as I am able.

Granted

EDIT: x-ed with Morthoron, and it seems we both remembered some things - obviously Faramir should have made a fortune by becoming a restaurant-owner: everybody recalls his meals