"The Fall of Númenor" thoughts: "The Ascension of Tar Aldarion"....
...good Eru the drama. Hollywood could never (but Tolkien did 🤓🧝🏻♀️🧝🏻♂️😎). As always, I appreciate any reading, your thoughts, etc! LFG! 🧝🏻♂️🧝🏻♀️🌊⛵️🐑🌳✨️📚📖🤓
1. The effect that Erendis had on Ancalimë, the way she talked about men...the bitter feminist in me gets it 😅 The idea at the repression of women having their own wills...found myself nodding along. BUT imo perhaps the problem was shutting the girl off from men. She had no chance to make up her own mind! To see men also being kind, good, honorable etc.
2. Ancalimë wanted to go see her mom to "vex" her dad, was "wilful", "clever, and malicious, and saw promise of sport as the prize for which her mother and father did battle." Oooof dysfunction 😫 Like, she was made a bargaining chip and leaned right into it, had fun with it, even manipulated as part of it. Also, generally, all together in context: 🚩🚩🚩
3. Tar-Aldarion changed rules of royal succession "for reasons of private concern, rather than policy," and "long resolve to defeat Erendis"...yeah, can we not, can we not make public policy from personal drama and grievance, just sayin' 😭 I guess this IS monarchy and not democracy, lol.
4. So Ancalimë and Hallatar's meet-cute: princess who doesn't want to marry any of the train of suitors meeting and falling in love with the shepard who's really of royal blood...that's basically a Disney movie. Of course, Tolkien was heavily influenced by these sorts of cultural stories and mythologies, as was Disney, but he wasn't commercializing and sanitizing it in the same way. And those more classic, culturally-based tales typically didn't have the happiest endings 🤪
5. Yeah, not great of Hallacar to trick her like that, but I also get why he was fed up...once again no one communicating and no one treating each other right 😭 Good Eru these Númenoreans...feels like Bravo on steroids at certain points 😅🤦🏼♀️
One of the funnier things from the Quora Tolkien digests is that, for whatever reasons, I get a lot of answers that are very fixated on Aragorn's descent from Lúthien and will reference Legolas's quote about the line of Lúthien never failing as if Aragorn's accomplishments were entirely attributable to his ancestry and nobody in the houses of Elros or Isildur or Anárion ever failed at anything or were just kind of shitty.
It feels almost unsporting to point out Pharazôn failing so hard he got his kingdom eternally sunk into the sea, so I'll settle for Arvedui of Arthedain, who definitely failed at several things that contributed to his death. There's Eärnur of Gondor, who rode into Minas Morgul to demand single combat with a being prophesied to never be killed by a man and was never seen again. There's the super racist Castamir who kickstarted (and ultimately lost) the Gondorian civil war that devastated Osgiliath.
Oh, and for the "just kind of shitty" contingent, there's Ar-Gimilzôr, an oppressor who forced his wife to marry him despite her unwillingness, along with Herucalmo, who ruled through the authority of his wife Tar-Vanimeldë and upon her death, seized the throne from his own son. Tar-Ancalimë's husband Hallacar (who tried to outmaneuver her with dubious success at best) sucked too, along with her cousin Soronto (who tried to either supplant her as heir or succeed her and achieved neither).
Descent from Elros grants stature and abilities of varying kinds to his descendants. It does not grant success or virtue, though.
the line of elros ♚ royalty of númenor ♚ headcanon disclaimer
Tar-Ancalimë was the seventh ruler and first Ruling Queen of Númenor. She was the only child of Tar-Aldarion, though she was raised by his estranged wife Erendis in the hills of Emerië. Ancalimë inherited her mother’s resentment of men, and as she came of age she retreated to the countryside, rejecting any suitors who sought her royal hand. Here she became known as Emerwen Aranel, or the Princess Shepherdess.
Ancalimë befriended the shepherd Mámandil, but in time he revealed himself to be not a simple shepherd, but another noble suitor: Hallacar, a descendant of Nolondil. This angered her greatly, and she rejected him also.
As he had no male heirs, Tar-Aldarion changed the laws of Númenor to allow for inheritance through the maternal line and for women to inherit, thus putting Ancalimë next in line for the throne. However, in order to block her scheming cousin Soronto from taking her place, Ancalimë chose to wed Hallacar despite his betrayal, though there was little love between them. Together they had one child: a son, Anárion. After his birth, Ancalimë and Hallacar lived apart.
Tar-Ancalimë was the first woman to be crowned the ruler of Númenor, taking as her mother had the royal prefix Tar rather than Tári. She was strong-willed, choosing to neglect her father’s policy of aid to the elves of Middle-earth, and to forbid her serving-women to marry, though her husband arranged their weddings in secret, much to her chagrin. Tar-Ancalimë reigned for 205 years, longer than any other monarch save Elros Tar-Minyatur.
crocordile replied to your post “Sorry, I'm completely blank on whether I already sent you this. I hear...”
The fact that both erendis took the first step towards opening the talks with him again and found him gone and just gave up makes me super sad.... :'(
y u p
crocordile replied to your post “Sorry, I'm completely blank on whether I already sent you this. I hear...”
Do u have thoughts about his relationship with Ancalime?
Sorta... I mean it’s like, my favoriteish relationship in the story but I haven’t articulated a lot of thoughts about it because projection. >_> But
She stood erect and stiff as her mother, and made him no courtesy as he dismounted and came up the steps towards her. "Who are you?" she said. "And why do you bid me to rise so early, before the house is stirring?"
Aldarion looked at her keenly, and though his face was stern he smiled within: for he saw there a child of his own, rather than of Erendis, for all her schooling.
"You knew me once, Lady Ancalimë," he said, "but no matter. Today I am but a messenger from Armenelos, to remind you that you are the daughter of the King's Heir; and (so far as I can now see) you shall be his Heir in your turn. You will not always dwell here. But go back to your bed now, my lady, until your maidservant wakes, if you will. I am in haste to see the King. Farewell!" He kissed the hand of Ancalimë and went down the steps; then he mounted and rode away with a wave of his hand.
vs
It recalled to him his daughter, and he said: "I will call you also Ancalimë. May you and she stand so in long life, unbent by wind or will, and unclipped!"
vs
She had something of her mother's coldness and sense of personal injury; and deep in her heart, almost but not quite forgotten, was the firmness with which Aldarion had unclasped her hand and set her down when he was in haste to be gone.
...lmao. idk. I think it’s really funny how Aldarion is delighted with Ancalime as an unexpected advantage and as something I’m not sure it had occurred to him to want: like, given time and without Ancalime I’m sure he would have realized that no wife meant no children, no heirs, and no hope of like... seeing himself continued in the world in a meaningful way jsldkgjsldg---no, you know what, actually, I guess what’s comical is like, Aldarion shreds his personal relationships in pursuit of futile goals, or anyway, goals that can’t be accomplished in his lifetime; what he needs to make his sad life at all meaningful is an heir who shares his political vision and priorities. What he gets is Ancalime. And I’m not sure he knows that his policies and his temperament are two separate things, or like, he’s aware he has a temper but his stubbornness and perverseness and pride are to him sort of part and parcel of his Secret Quest and this vision that no one else understands, so when he sees how like him Ancalime is personally, I wonder if he assumes it follows that she’ll continue his work. But then, nope, despite his conclusions about what matters, all that survives of him is the personal: his marriage is Ancalime’s education, not his venturing.
To get back to their actual relationship, I also don’t know if the delusion that she might be a political successor lasted long---he seems to view her with this distanced admiration, like, the fact that she’s so like him just means that they’re both going to be isolated forever, and the best they can hope for is to never have to deal with other people’s impositions, haha, weird. Surely one’s individual character reaches its fullest stature by just being left alone to stiffen, right. Though she might also have paid more lip service to his ideas while he was alive/when she served as regent, I can see that. it specifies that after his death she neglected all his policies, so maybe not before? Not necessarily “lip service” even, her desire for his approval must have been sincere. I feel like Aldarion thought his deep estrangement from his parents was... normal and the default, on some level, so when he turns around and ends up as a dad he expects that pattern to continue. And maybe it doesn’t completely? But he probably doesn’t notice.
Also hey how much do you want to bet he vaguely hates Hallacar
the line of elros ♚ royalty of númenor ♚ headcanon disclaimer
Cemendur was the son of Axantur, a lord of Hyarastorni. Though he was the youngest of his father’s children, his brother Ardamir preferred life in the city and his sister Lindissë moved to Forostar with her spouse, allowing him to inherit his father’s lands.
In his childhood he befriended Rerindë, the daughter of one of his father’s farm-workers, they were wed as soon as they came of age. Cemendur and Rerindë had two children: Írildë, a lace-maker who studied under her great-aunt Yávien’s tutelage, and Hallatan, who became involved in politics whilst on a visit to his uncle Ardamir in Armenelos.
Hallatan represented Hyarastorni in the Council of the Scepter, where he was known as the “Sheep-lord” for his rural holdings. He befriended Prince Anardil, and after the prince inherited the scepter and became Tar-Aldarion, he entrusted the regency of Númenor to Hallatan while he was on his voyages to Middle-earth.
Írildë grew very close to her dear friend Raivatamë, another lace-maker taught by Yávien. It was through Írildë that Hallatan met Raivatamë, and he swiftly fell in love. Though Raivatamë was originally reluctant to accept his suit, they were eventually wed, and had two children: Nessanië, a student of the heavens with a special interest in weather, and Hallacar, who followed in his father’s footsteps as a politician.
In truth, Raivatamë loved not her husband, but his sister; her marriage grew cold and distant after the birth of their children, and she abode more often with Írildë, with whom she was truly happy. Hallacar was raised seeing his mother only infrequently, and this rift in his family of origin would foreshadow an unhappy marriage of his own.
[Ancalimë] sought to subject [Hallacar], claiming to be the owner of his land, and forbidding him to dwell upon it, for she would not, as she said, have her husband a farm-steward.
