Tea at Trianon: The Rise and Fall of Númenor, Explained

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, April 22, 2021

The Rise and Fall of Númenor, Explained

From Nerdist:

Amazon’s hard at work on their Lord of the Rings series, which is set to debut in 2021. But despite that fast-approaching debut date, we still know very little about the show. In fact, even calling it a Lord of the Rings series isn’t really accurate. (Thank you, Elijah Wood, for pointing that out.) We know that J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, a land in the world of Arda, is still the setting. But the show won’t chronicle the same events depicted in Peter Jackson’s original film trilogy. Those movies—which followed Frodo and the Fellowship on their quest to destroy the One Ring—take place during the Third Age of Middle-earth. The Amazon show, on the other hand, takes place in the Second Age.

What’s special about the Second Age? Well, for starters, it’s probably the least documented timeline in Middle-earth history. That means it’s a rich era for creation. But due to some complicated rights issues, there are also plenty of limitations. From what we’ve been able to parse out, the show can only reference the Second Age as it appears in The Lord of the Rings novels and its appendices. It cannot reference Second Age events depicted in other Tolkien writings like The Silmarillion. It also can’t reference any First Age events, as those rights belong to The Tolkien Estate. Nor can it mention the specific events of the Third Age, as those rights belong to Middle-earth Enterprises. Additionally, when Amazon negotiated rights to the series, it also agreed not to contradict any of Tolkien’s writings. So while there’s room to explore in the margins, it can’t outright break canon.

So, what Second Age events can the Lord of the Rings series cover? The appendices are detailed, but not totally comprehensive, which is again where the whole creative element comes in. As long as the writers don’t disrupt canon, they have plenty of room for invention within the set parameters. But there’s one major event all but confirmed to occur in the series: the rise and fall of Númenor. (Read more.)