loveable but wayward and wrong-headed

Pharazôn can think he'll deal with this later, but Sauron knows he's not coming back from Valinor, and meanwhile using the Númenorean army to get rid of his enemies would be only a small detour before he has them set sights on the Valar (the Armada doesn't even start construction immediately into his stay on the island).

Forgive me if this is a weird question out of the blue and feel free not to answer if you're not interested, it's just something that's been boggling me and as you're one of the persons whose posts particularly got me into the Númenor/Gondor subfandom, even back when I mostly lurked on Tumblr, I was wondering whether you had a take on this.

Oh, not weird—the Gondor/Númenor subfandom remains my home away from home in many ways!

Given Númenórean power at that point (in book terms—the more film/fanon-inflected takes on Númenóreans almost always "depower" them in many ways), I don't think it's impossible in a practical sense. But I don't think Pharazôn would be motivated to start wars with people he doesn't have any interest in ruling and who, as far as he believes, don't have anything he wants.

Kingdoms occupied by Elves, ruled by Elves, would hold very little interest for him IMO unless they were sitting on some massively lucrative/beneficial resource he wants (like immortality!). If he can get it through dominating other humans, he'd always prefer to do it that way. I don't think open conflict with "Elvenesse" for its own sake, with inevitable losses to his own forces of some kind no matter how victorious they might be, interests him much at all at this point. Sauron was different because he'd set himself up as a king of Men, challenging Númenórean supremacy in a primarily human region and directly threatening territory held by Númenor.

Sauron's armies nearly took out Lindon and Rivendell and would have succeeded if Tar-Telperiën's forces hadn't swung the tide, and Pharazôn's could have followed the same path. He had no real difficulty against Sauron's later, rebuilt forces (while Sauron himself played a wounded gazelle gambit, it's clear that his forces were genuinely overwhelmed by the sheer military power of Pharazôn's). Númenor is a massive imperial power at this point with a wide array of colonies in Middle-earth from which to launch attacks/expand, and even that late, long enough lifespans to have some time to adopt conquest of other species as a priority and see the results of that shift among their shorter-lived subjects. Geography is a major factor, but it's not a magic wand.

thank you! 💛 I love drawing fashion and seeing everyone’s amazing creativity during @tolkienfashionweek has been a delight. My answer to your question is kind of long, so here is a bonus doodle (young Dior trying on the Beorian capelet his father gave him!) and a bunch of text below the cut.

but it also just. wasnt the only place that any of those texts existed. there were lots of other libraries in antiquity. they didnt survive forever either, because most buildings and cities and institutions die. the texts that survived were the ones that people continuously decided to keep copying, even across shifts of institutions and book formats.

@starshadeemilyart ‘s beautiful Lalwen. truthfully I’d never thought much about Lalwen before but thanks to Emily I am now rotating her in my mind microwave style

Full image under the cut (nudity, bondage)

Architecture Wave

https://www.instagram.com/eloquentedition/

“Voyage of Eärendil upon Vingilot” Late submission for @tolkienseaweek Day 2: Sailing/new beginnings