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.
On me giving myself feelings for Elendil and Míriel even though they have a total of zero interactions on page
I'm looking at how insistent Elendil is in the UT that we should not count Vanimeldë's husband Herucalmo in the line of kings of Númenor. Elendil clearly specifies that Herucalmo WAS of royal blood, as a descendent of Atanamir, and that he effectively ruled Númenor for 20 years, until he died, and he even adopted a royal name -- Tar-Anducal. But he also makes a point of highlighting that none of the circumstances of his claim made it legitimate, and goes on to say that Alcarin, Herucalmo and Vanimeldë's son, "ruled for 80 years until his death in 2737, being rightful King for one hundred years".
The difference between Herucalmo and Pharazôn is that Pharazôn is still married to Míriel and thus he is a legitimate king. Which brings to mind again Elendil's insistence that the marriage was not just a product of coercion, but that it was illegal anyway because cousins that close can't marry under Númenorian law. I've mentioned before that it sounds so weird on page the first time you read it, that a lame ass law about cousin marriage would be put on the same level as rape/forced marriage... and I always come away with the same impression, that it is easy to assume Elendil is just using every single argument he has to say that Pharazôn's kingship is at best dubious...
Also thinking, of course, of Fíriel and Averdui and this post by @anghraine...
men of middle-earth ∿ misc. númenóreans ∿ headcanon disclaimer
Aicanásso was the younger son of Tar-Atanamir, and became the chief spymaster of his brother Tar-Ancalimon. He was responsible for surveilling the Faithful of Númenor and ensuring the King’s Men retained their loyalty to the throne, but also used the information he gathered to advance his own political career. He was jealous of his brother’s kingship, and though he remained outwardly deferent to Ancalimon, Aicanásso did all he could to undermine his rule for his personal gain.
Though Aicanásso was married to the woman Quetindiel, a speech-writer for the King, neither his vows nor his daughter Silquendil prevented him from seducing Tári-Caumasarnë, his brother’s wife and the general of his armies. Ancalimon and Caumasarnë were never close, having only wed upon discovering Caumasarnë was with child, and though in truth her faithlessness meant little to Ancalimon, Aicanásso took great pleasure in cuckolding his brother. No children were born of this affair, and it never came to light within their lifetimes, but from Caumasarnë’s indiscretion Aicanásso learned many state secrets Ancalimon would rather have been kept hidden.
Silquendil adored her father, unaware of his darker side, and when she bore a son to her husband Ambalo she made sure Aicanásso was involved in little Herucalmo’s life. Aicanásso discovered he much preferred being a grandfather than a father, and as his own political prospects grew less and less feasible, he devoted his attention instead to building up his grandson as a potential king.
After Ancalimon’s death, the prospective heir to the throne was Tar-Telemmaitë’s daughter Vanimeldë, who showed little promise as a Queen, and here the aging Aicanásso saw an opportunity. On his deathbed he urged Herucalmo to claim the throne from Vanimeldë by whatever means possible, and in devotion to his grandfather, Herucalmo swore he would fulfill his grandfather’s legacy. Indeed, Herucalmo would go on to seduce and marry Vanimeldë, and when he grew impatient of waiting for a descendant of Aicanásso to take the throne he had her slowly poisoned and seized the crown himself upon her death, declaring himself Tar-Anducal, King of Númenor.
Vanimeldë was a woman of simple wants--or, at least, she thought so.
Written for the April 3rd Legendarium Ladies April general prompt, Wants and Wishes.
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I.
When she was young, Vanimeldë was a child of simple wants.
“Vanimeldë, please, you must pay greater mind to your arithmetic. I have spoken with your tutors, and your progress… You do not seem to have made any progress at all since the last time I spoke with them.”
Vanimeldë’s mother, Vanimandil, often initiated such conversations with her daughter. Though Vanimeldë might find arithmetic too tedious and too irrelevant to devote much attention to it, she was quite an accomplished listener, and she had heard servants whispering in the back halls, when they thought she wasn’t near. The wife of the King’s heir despaired of her husband ever putting his mind to one day governing Anadûnê, despaired of it perhaps even more than the King himself. One of the maids had heard her complaining to her favorite lady-in-waiting; one of the grooms had watched her follow her husband into the stables to implore him to stay in the capital as he was preparing to ride away to meet friends in Rómenna.
Sometimes, the whispers seemed to seep from the very walls, and Vanimeldë would just attribute it to her own keen ears. But what could anyone expect? Vanimandil was a daughter of Andúnië, if a few degrees removed from the Lords’ immediate family. They had strange notions of how to rule in Andúnië; so everyone said, and if it was what everyone said, there must have been at least a kernel of truth to it.
But Vanimeldë knew better than to repeat palace gossip indiscriminately. Information was a valuable resource, one that should never be squandered. Besides, it would just make her mother upset to remind her of it. So Vanimeldë smiled winningly and pointed out, “But arithmetic isn’t all there is to being Queen, is there, Mother? I’ve been doing very well in my other—“
“Yes, you sing very well, Vanimeldë,” Vanimandil cut her off, her formerly smooth brown forehead beginning to crease noticeably. “And you master any instrument given to you to play within a few months. However, that is not—“
“And literature and history, Mother,” Vanimeldë added earnestly. It was easiest to overwhelm her early on, to get her off track so that she didn’t exactly forget what she had been angry about, but that she would deem it no longer relevant. Vanimeldë had watched her father employ this method many times, and he almost always succeeded. “I excel in those subjects, and did you not say that I handled the colonial delegation wonderfully when I had to greet them last week?”
A pause, and then, Vanimandil nodded. “…Yes,” she allowed, her green eyes softening slightly. “That’s not precisely new, Vanimeldë; you’ve always been attentive to your history texts, and to the classics.”
But Vanimeldë knew her mother had weakened the moment the word ‘history’ passed her lips. They did love their history in Andúnië, though Vanimeldë thought the Andustari focused disproportionately on the Elves. Why focus on another race when their own had such a rich history? But in the Andustar, it was all about the Ñoldor, and the Falmari who visited from Tol Eressëa. Boring. Now, the tales of the great among the Edain, and, more recently, the voyages of Tar-Aldarion and the struggles of Tar-Atanamir and Queen Adanel, those were tales worth reading and rereading. And watching. In fact…
“And remember what my tutors told you about the languages I’ve been learning?”
“Y-yes.” Vanimandil hesitated, winding her long belt in her hands. Finally, she squeezed her eyes shut, and sighed. “I would prefer if you devote an appropriate amount of time to all of your studies, not simply the ones you find most interesting. But for now, I will leave you. We will talk about this again,” she promised, but as she shut the door to Vanimeldë’s bedchamber, the air that followed her was hardly that of one who had won an argument.
With her mother gone, Vanimeldë reached for the Taliska reader she had been looking through before Vanimandil came to her. The language held appeal for her by itself, it was true. But there was another reason she was interested in it, and that was another thing she wouldn’t be telling her mother, not yet.
The theaters in Armenelos only allowed adults through their doors, and did not make exceptions for princesses—at the very least, Tar-Ancalimon wasn’t willing to force them to make an exception. But they offered many plays sung or spoken in Taliska, and it would only be a few years yet before Vanimeldë was old enough to go inside. She intended to be well-versed enough in the language to understand the story by then.
II.
When she was a young Queen, Vanimeldë’s desires were, she thought, still quite simple things.
Vanimeldë wrote poetry, and she wrote plays. This did not make her unique amongst the nobility, or, indeed, even among past royals. Fully half of the volumes of poetry on Vanimeldë’s private shelves were written by authors with more than a drop of Elros’s blood—the works of Princess Áralindë, the sister of Tar-Atanamir who had been disinherited for marrying outside the House of Elros, was especially fine, and… Anyways, there were also several tomes of plays written by noble authors on Vanimeldë’s shelves. The quality of these works tended to vary greatly, with some being masterpieces, and some whose greatest contribution to the world would be to inevitably be used as kindling by the future generations. The former, Vanimeldë kept to enjoy. The latter, she kept to laugh at and to remind herself of all the things she was not. And the theaters in Armenelos typically ran at least three Elrosian-penned plays at once at any given time.
It was not spectacularly strange for the nobility, even the Kings and Queens, to write. More than one of Elros’s blood had contributed to the great cultural legacy of Anadûnê. So why was it, that when Vanimeldë wrote—
She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on her stylus. She was the Queen; it was simply not worth concerning herself with. But Vanimeldë’s ears were no less keen than they had been when she was a child, and this time, she got the impression that she was meant to hear the whispers circulating around the palace.
‘Irresponsible.’
‘Given to frivolous displays.’
‘Can’t focus on affairs of state for more than a few hours at a time.’
‘Oh, if only that last child of Vanimandil’s had not died!’
Vanimeldë fisted her free hand in her dark hair. Incredible. Tar-Aldarion left the country for years on end on his voyages, and I’ve never uncovered so much as a scrap of evidence of ministers or courtiers or anyone calling for his removal. I haven’t left the capital. I am right here if there is a crisis. And yet…
Frustration was taking its toll. Vanimeldë hadn’t been able to finish the scene she was working on for the past three hours, though there were probably ten dialogue switches left. How ironic it was, that the very people complaining about the Queen sequestering herself in her chambers were causing her to stay there longer through their incessant criticisms. Just a few more lines, and I think I should be able to put this down for the rest of the day with a clear conscience. Just a few more lines.
The blank spot at the bottom of het page remained quite infuriatingly blank, and Vanimeldë would like you to know that it took an enormous amount of restraint not to hurl her inkwell out the open window, but that she did restrain herself.
“Vanimeldë?”
She didn’t hear anyone calling for her at first. Vanimeldë had sent her ladies-in-waiting and all of the other servants out of her chambers while she worked. Likely a few of them were gathered outside the outermost door in case she called upon them, but most had no doubt scattered to the four winds. If her pages came back with their tunics covered in crumbs again…
However, when Vanimeldë did hear someone calling for her, she was at least able to relax and set down her stylus (And managed to do so gently enough not to break it. This time.). She knew but one person who would come venturing into her chambers without ceremony. “I’m here, Herucalmo,” she replied, “becoming the living avatar of frustration. Come join me.”
Her husband strode into the room, looking very much as though someone had just died, though that wasn’t unusual for him. Vanimeldë loved him, truly, she did, but he was markedly intense about most things, and most of the times she liked to tease him about it. This time, she couldn’t summon the levity to do so. She could only flop back in her chair and look at him with a grimace. “What brings you to my dungeon?” Vanimeldë asked, wishing, not for the first time, that sarcasm was a substance that could literally drip off of her voice; distilling it into a perfume would likely do wonders for keeping certain officials out of her hair. “Has someone died? That would liven things up around here.”
Herucalmo grimaced right back at her. “Nothing that enlivening, Vanimeldë. If you will recall, you have a budget meeting scheduled with your ministers in an hour.”
Oh, that. Again, Vanimeldë resisted the urge to throw her inkwell out the window. It was made of Falmari sea glass, after all; that wasn’t exactly easily replaced. “I was under the impression that last year’s allotment was considered quite satisfactory. Do we really need to meet if obviously the best course of action is to do as we did then?”
“Considering that we have more money than we did last year, yes.”
“That could be easily solved by sending the surplus to the treasury.”
“They won’t accept that as a course of action unless you are there to recommend it.”
“I am hardly the first ruler to send such messages without being physically present in the council chambers.”
“Vanimeldë.” Herucalmo closed the gap between them, rested his hand flat on her writing desk. The look in his clear eyes was not unsympathetic, but at the same time, it wasn’t really a look that indicated he was going to leave without some sort of concession from her. “You’ve missed the last three council meetings. You are running out of excuses, and your ministers are nearing the end of their patience.”
She paused, running her hand over the rope of lapis beads strung around her neck. “I… I know that. I’ve been busy.”
Vanimeldë enjoyed holding court. She enjoyed hearing from petitioners, even if the issues they brought before her were laughably petty; it did give her a good laugh, and there was something gratifying about knowing that they’d thought it worth it to tell her about it. She enjoyed arbitration, diplomatic negotiations. She even enjoyed trade negotiations. It might have been one of the things certain people thought Vanimeldë didn’t have a sufficient attention span for, but there was something oddly fascinating about the knots people could tie themselves into over tariffs, and the underhanded trickery they would try to pull off when it came to taxes.
But meetings such as the one Vanimeldë was being called upon to attend now… She understood their necessity, of course; not all the vital workings of an empire could be exciting, though it would make life much easier if they were. However, the tedious minutia of running an empire held little appeal for Vanimeldë, especially when she knew she was going to be walking into a room where every person there would tell her that everything that came out of her mouth was wrong. If her advisors were really all convinced that they all knew better than her, what exactly was the point of showing up at all?
“I know,” Herucalmo murmured, lines showing up in his forehead, deeply etched. “But a gesture must be made.”
“And what would you suggest?” Vanimeldë demanded, her voice breaking with sudden exasperation.
Herucalmo said nothing for a long moment, his eyes very bright. Then… “I could go in your place.”
“If they demand that their Queen show herself, I am not certain they’ll settle for the Prince Consort.”
His mouth twitched in something like a smirk. “If I tell them that you sent me as your representative, they might accept it. And we are descended in the same degree from Tar-Atanamir. Even they cannot complain about that.”
Vanimeldë smirked back. “Go, then. As my representative.”
She almost wished she was going with him, just so she could see the looks on her advisors’ faces when Herucalmo told them he was there as the Queen’s representative; the flabbergasted looks might be enough to cure any bad moods for hers for a while. But for now, she had a scene to write…
III.
Vanimeldë wrote. And wrote. It was a glorious time, when she could write without any interruption at all, save those which she chose to heed. The play was finished, a score created, a willing actors’ troupe found, and a theater designated as the site for the debut. When she thought about it, Vanimeldë felt as though she was walking on air. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to write without disruption for so long.
But as Vanimeldë emerged from seclusion, she began to notice things. Her ears were still keen, and she was gifted with the far-sightedness of the House of Elros. She could hardly be expected not to notice.
Notices of meetings and scheduled negotiations and arbitrations were either finding their way to Herucalmo’s hands when they should have reached Vanimeldë’s, or they were simply addressed to him outright. Certain courtiers now addressed Herucalmo more deferentially than they had before, and in others, Vanimeldë detected a certain edge of… derision? Yes, derision, when they addressed her. Like she simply wasn’t someone to be taken seriously anymore. That wasn’t the least of it, but that was what followed her wherever she went. The nagging sense of dynastic irrelevance.
Vanimeldë supposed she could have stood to be paying more attention to exactly what her husband was doing while acting as the Queen’s ‘representative.’ Never let it be said that she couldn’t recognize her own faults; she knew she had been inattentive in this. But never let it be said either that Vanimeldë did not know how to send messages as well as she could receive them.
“Are you certain you can afford to spend the evening at the theater?” Vanimeldë asked sweetly as she and Herucalmo settled into the royal box of Armenelos’s grandest theater. Alcarin was not with them; the boy had never had much love of art, poor thing. “I know how busy you have been of late.”
If Herucalmo caught the knife in Vanimeldë’s voice, he gave no sign. Seeing as such equanimity would be new for him, Vanimeldë attributed it to obliviousness. So much the better. “I think I can afford to spend one night away from the palace,” he said with a smile.
So very much the better.
“Oh, good! I think you will enjoy this one, my love. It seems just the sort of thing that would interest you.”
Vanimeldë had never told Herucalmo precisely what her play was about, though considering that Herucalmo had never exercised the curiosity required to ask, she could hardly be faulted for keeping her silence. If he was content not knowing, then let it be a surprise. Vanimeldë loved surprises.
For an hour or two, Vanimeldë watched. And waited. Waited for that particular moment of dawning realization, and the emotions that accompanied it. If she was nothing else, Vanimeldë was an avid spectator; she hoped dearly that Herucalmo, her Herucalmo, would not disappoint her.
Around the end of the second act, Vanimeldë saw enough of that crawling look to ask, with just the right degree of anxiousness, “How are you liking it so far?”
“It’s… wonderful.”
To say that Herucalmo’s voice was strained would be a gross understatement, bordering on obscene. To say that it was strangled did not do it much more justice, but Vanimeldë supposed she would have to be content with that descriptor until she could find a satisfactory replacement.
As for Vanimeldë, she suspected she would have bled sugar if pricked, her smile was so sweet.
That nagging sense of irrelevance was still with her, and Vanimeldë did not know if she would be able to be rid of it. So many thought Herucalmo more fit to rule than her that it might well be impossible. But she still had her writing—and judging from the ghastly shades of white her husband’s face was turning, another new hobby. It was so good to have new hobbies.
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Anadûnê—Númenor (Adûnaic)
Andustar—The western promontory of Númenor. The north of this region was rocky, with forests of fir trees on the coast. Andustar contained three small bays which all faced west, the most northern of which was the Bay of Andúnië. The south of the Andustar was fertile, and there were forests of birch, beech, oak and elm trees. Timber was this region’s main source of wealth.
Falmari—those among the Teleri who completed the journey to Aman; the name is derived from the Quenya falma, '[crested] wave.'
Taliska—the language originally spoken by the Houses of Bëor and Marach (later to be known as Hador) before they entered Beleriand. Taliska is noted as apparently having some Khuzdul influences. Though the language largely fell out of use among the House of Bëor (the Bëorians coming to more commonly use Sindarin in their daily speech), it was still widely-enough retained for the survivors of the House of Hador to carry it with them to Númenor, where the language eventually evolved to become the Adûnaic tongue.
the line of elros ♚ royalty of númenor ♚ headcanon disclaimer
Tar-Vanimeldë was the sixteenth ruler and third and final Ruling Queen of Númenor. She was her father Tar-Telemmaitë’s only heir at the time of his death, thus inheriting the scepter from him despite his reluctance to pass leadership onto his daughter. Vanimeldë was not raised as an heir, as her father hoped for a son, and thus she was inexperienced and uninterested in queenship. When her cousin Herucalmo, descendant of Aicanásso, declared his love for her, she was easily won over by his promises to care for her and her kingdom.
It soon became clear that Herucalmo cared less for Tar-Vanimeldë and more for her throne, but even so she was glad to have someone else take on her responsibility. Vanimeldë preferred to focus on music, theater, and dancing, sponsoring the arts and even enjoying a different kind of fame under the stage name Liltalissë.
Tar-Vanimeldë and Herucalmo had one child, Alcarin. As his son grew and showed, like his mother, little interest in governance, Herucalmo’s greed and ambition only increased. He plotted to gradually poison his wife, killing her slowly before her time, and upon her death he seized the throne and declared himself Tar-Anducal, seventeenth King of Númenor.
Alcarin cared more for food and wine than for his rightful kingship, and was content to let his usurping father rule in his stead until his wife Avaldë began to pressure him to avenge his mother. In truth Avaldë wasted no tears on Tar-Vanimeldë, but wanted the throne for herself. She was one of the King’s Women, the society first founded by Alcarin’s ancestress Tári-Fanyahelcë, and chose for herself the Adûnaic name Pharâzarî, the golden queen.
At her bidding, Alcarin dosed his father with the same poison he had fed to Tar-Vanimeldë, and Herucalmo met the same unfortunate end as his wife. Tári-Avaldë celebrated the occasion by promising her son Calmacil, a man as cunning and vicious as herself, that if necessary, she would help him dispose of his father in the same manner. In the end such lengths were not necessary, but Calmacil would meet a similarly ghastly end mirroring that of his grandfather “Tar”-Anducal...
the logical consequences of the sumptuary laws post
Fëanor thinks the whole thing is absurd and just wears casual work clothes all the time anyway. Unless he's at a family function. Things like being a lambengolmor or mastering a craft entitle you to wear certain types of clothing, and guess what his half-siblings and most of his political enemies are not. So he shows up wearing, say, long red robes that look from a distance like they have the entire text of a certain tatyarin epic embroidered on them in silver thread, and you get closer and it's actually thousands of tiny artificial diamonds. If it was just lots of shinies, Ñolofinwë would be fine with it - well, annoyed - but the problem is that it's actually tasteful. Like Míriel Þerindë's son would be caught dead in tacky robes. And at this point Ñolo is practically frothing at the mouth and valardammit it would almost have been worth mastering a trade just to show him up.
Teenage Elemmirë (the younger) goes through a rebellious phase where she dyes her robes. Her mother panicks and makes her wear a hastily modified bed sheet until she can get them clean.
Vanimeldë likes extremely elaborate historical costumes for her plays, partially to show off the wealth of the crown and partially because she's doing it for art. Herucalmo is the angry history nerd who complains about how artisans in Tirion would never have worn that, the color and pattern are all wrong for a member of that clan, and anyway they had restrictions on precious stones in clothing. This is most of what they fight about.
Zôrzimril's mother is Haradrim. It's quite common among the Rómenna merchants. Not that there isn't a lot of Adûna supremacy, even there, but they do tend to be pragmatic and some of the trading relationships with the important coastal families from Umbar go back centuries, with arranged marriages used to cement alliances. But because of citizenship laws, she can't wear fabric exceeding a certain value, or that incorporates gold, blue, green, or purple dye. They have to adjust the laws a bit when Ardamin, unexpectedly, becomes king. And if you think she is above designing a gown for her coronation specifically to be the shiniest, most elaborate, cloth-of-gold and indigo and diamond-embroidered fuck you to the nobility - you would be completely and utterly wrong.
