The Downfall Of Númenor | Middle Earth Explained

The Rise and Fall of Island Kingdom Númenor - Subscribe for more animated LOTR-Content!

Chapters:
Creation of Númenor 0:00
Rise of Númenor 0:46
Rise of Sauron 2:04
Moral Decay 3:37
Sauron on Númenor 5:26
Destruction of Númenor 6:14

Images used:
- Downfall of Numenor by Alan Lee
- Middle-Earth Map from the Rings of Power Series

Other Images inspired by Alan Lee, Matěj Čadil, Julien Gauthier

Thumbnail inspired by Nerd of The Rings - "The History of Númenor | Tolkien Explained"

[RuinsOfGondolin]

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I chose to not go into too many details and let the video be rather short (cause I thought not everyone wants to hear a list of every king of numenor). If you have improvement / general ideas please let me know!

[cemalak]

Such a great summary that it can be a guide for new LOTR fans who have not read the books yet. Thanks for all the effort.

[road]

Beautiful work, the detail and music makes you feel it like a series.
Perfectly done.

[veljkojankovic]

Great video! Simple, illustrative and informative, please keep it up!

[TheArgentin]

Hey. Great video. Loved the art. Keep 'em coming

[Kingofgondor]

I can't get enough of middle earth.

[simonjames]

Another great video. The style reminds me of the lore videos they made for Game of Thrones extras yet if Alan Lee made them.

[danielwielki]

thanks for reminding me of the history of Númenor👍👍

[edroseptic]

Great channel! Great art in the videos, as well.
True Tolkien content needs to pervade. 👍

[MrFirebolt]

The pronunciation could do with some work though. They didn‘t follow the star of „Airendill“ but e.a‘rendil.

[redheadredemption]

I always wondered if Númenor is what we call Atlantis

[Sportsfilmappreciator]

Didn’t have life spans of 500 years, only the early kings and queens did, the average lifespan was 3 times of men, say 240, still impressive.

[koshka]

I wonder how much of this will be in Rings of Power season 2.

[cloudwalker]

Thinking of Atlantis being swallowed by the sea and a few inhabitants fled to South & North America and Egypt… truth in fiction????

[ingmigueleduardo]

Atlantis/Numenor/Gondor = Azores/Portugal/

[RavingCelt]

Is this AI reading? Pronunciation seems off

[tranquility]

After finishing the Silmarillion - i reached the conclusion the Valar were at best useless and at worst just as bad as Melkor and Eru was a spiteful and vengeful god who did some terrible things.

Firstly let's think about this - we say the Numenorians turned against Eru and to evil but what does that mean? Numenor was an autocratic monarchy, I'm not sure of the population figures but it must have been hundreds of thousands of men, women, children and babies.

What happened is the King of Numenor turned to evil, one person, and did so under the will of an immortal super natural Demigod like being. As Numenor was an autocratic monarchy the population had to do what the King ordered - those who didn't were persecuted (like Christians in ancient Rome for example).

So one person, but we could be generous and say maybe 30 or so of his close advisors were complicit, but still did so under the influence of Sauron and rule of the King. Your average Numenorian just lived under the rule they were born into. Your average Numenorian wasn't building tombs and statues of themselves to try and get some semblance of immortality, they were fishermen, farmers, blacksmiths, builders, carpenters, sailors and soldiers.

But we can be more precise, we can be certain that from the get go children and babies did not forsake Eru and turn to evil because they had no choice in the matter, - so already thats 25% of the population that definitely hadn't turned to evil and were completely innocent. There can be no other interpretation of this other than complete and utter despicable evil, its is no less evil than any genocide.

Basically less then 1% of the Numenorians actively made a decision to turn to Evil, this was the powerful ruling class - everyone else just did as they were told under the authority of the King and whatever means were used to enforce his will - and from the treatment of The Faithful this was by force. Most people wouldn't have joined the faithful out of simple self preservation.

The army who sailed to invade Valinor did so because they were following orders, they won't have had a choice, you try joining any military and then disobeying orders - the punishment would have been severe.

The sinking of Numenor was an act of utterly pure evil without question, it was genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocents - the Valar did nothing to stop or even argue against it and are guilty by association.

Lets think of just a few things Eru didn't intervene in - Melkors 5, 000 years of destruction and taint of the whole of Middle Earth, creating Orcs from Elves, destroying the two lamps, destroying the two trees, the destruction of Beleriand, the destruction of Gondolin, Ruined every work that the other Valar attempted to create, He raped the Maia of the Sun, named Arien, He kidnapped Elves and enacted unspeakable tortures upon them until all that remained were the grotesque perversions that served him.

Sauron's tyranny of middle Earth, all the genocidal wars he prosecuted against the Elves and Men, specifically against the Elvish kingdom in Holian, the proxy wars against the Dunedain kingdoms in Arnor, and virtually every other conflict he engages in. Routine use of torture, turning men into undead wraiths, wiping out the the Ent Wives, genocide of the Beornings, sending Orcs to Moria, to names but a few things ...

Eru did not lift a finger, ooh but allows sauron to dominate and decieve the Numenorians - right genocide it is then .

Eru was a dick, basically.

[cloudwalker]

Thinking of Atlantis being swallowed by the sea and a few inhabitants fled to South & North America and Egypt… truth in fiction????