@ohmyarda's expressive portrait of Tar-Míriel Ar-Zimraphel illustrates @grundyscribbling's biography of the character.
The downfall of Númenor is one of the (maybe the?) most cataclysmic events in the history of Arda. Involving a literal reshaping of the world and the consequent annihilation of an entire people, it was brought on by the rebellious voyage of Ar-Pharazôn to Aman, against the laws of the Valar. As his (unwilling) wife, Tar-Míriel had a front-row seat to the whole slow toppling of Númenor. Yet, as Grundy notes in this month's biography of Míriel:
"The text does not record Míriel’s reaction to any of these events."
As Grundy's biography of Míriel shows, she emerges as a sort of grace note on Pharazôn's story, at first just a name but then given something of a story of her own. I say "something" because her story is still very much enmeshed in her victimhood at his hands, so much that what she thought or how she reacted (or didn't) to the decisions he made go completely unrecorded.
We've now surpassed more than 150 character biographies on our site. Our reason for beginning that project back in 2007 was to provide resources for people creating fanworks. And while, if asked at the time, we probably would have said a primary aim was making more accessible the histories of some of the more complicated characters, Míriel is a reminder that an equally important purpose is bringing to light those characters whose histories Tolkien left missing, like Míriel. (She is mentioned twice in the published Silmarillion.)
Maybe her reaction to the ending of her world will at last be recorded.
You can read Grundy's biography of Tar-Míriel here, pubished by the @silmarillionwritersguild.
