#appendix a

And, I fall into my own LOTR rabbit hole. I remember reading the Appendix long ago and wanted to read it again.

Appendix A - Link to .pdf pages

ok, so this started when a YouTube video of a guy talking for 40 minutes about Tolkien's Aragorn and Arwen found me. How their story was pushed into an Appendix because Tolkien felt it was important yet couldn't fit it into the main story.

Galadriel is Arwen's grandmother! Galadriel is Elrond's mother-in-law.

Aragorn's elf name translates as 'Hope' Leading me to...

Born of Hope is an independent feature film inspired by the Lord of the Rings and produced by Actors at Work Productions in the UK

"A scattered people, the descendants of storied sea kings of the ancient West, struggle to survive in a lonely wilderness as a dark force relentlessly bends its will toward their destruction. Yet amidst these valiant, desperate people, hope remains. A royal house endures unbroken from father to son.

This 70 minute original drama is set in the time before the War of the Ring and tells the story of the Dúnedain, the Rangers of the North, before the return of the King. Inspired by only a couple of paragraphs written by Tolkien in the appendices of the Lord of the Rings we follow Arathorn and Gilraen, the parents of Aragorn, from their first meeting through a turbulent time in their people's history."

Okay, we're getting a short version of the Silmarillion. Very condensed. Whoever would read that without knowing for example what the Two Trees are must be so confused!

Fëanor thought to restore the Silmarilli from Morgoth by force. As opposed to what!? They were recovered by force in the end, just not by Fëanor. This sounds way to judgamental.

Interesting how it keeps saying they waged war against Thangorodrim, not Morgoth. Don't underestimate Sauron's part!

In Elrond and Elors alone the line of the heroic chieftains of the Edain was preserved, and after the fall of Gil-Galad also the lineage of the high-elven kings. I guess we are talking about pretty specific chieftains here as I assume many of them had more than one child. Also isn't this ignoring Galadriel?

Okay, so at the end of the first age the half elves were given the choice, and only then Elrond was given the grace to sail in the end. No answers about Elured and Elurin again, but something to think about.

It specifically says again that Elronds children get the same choice. Why not Elros' children? In the context it sounds as if it was done this way mostly to make poor Elrond even more miserable.

I hate how he keeps talking about "lesser" men.

Elros was granted a lifespan many times that of lesser men, the other Numenoreans three times that of lesser men. That's nice, I always worried that the long lifespan came mostly from Elros' descendants spreading his genes exponentially, but apparently they didn't all die on him basically immediately, either. I still believe that 90% of the people in Numenor were descendants of Elros by the time it sank, though. It's either that or a lot of incest.

From Numenor they could see the white tower on Tol Eressëa. Given that the earth is still flat at this point in time, the limit should be their eyesight, not the horizon, though, so I'm assuming they could also see the forbidding line of mountains once raised to defend the blessed land from Morgoth though. What a sight.

Why does Tar Atanamir get the cognomen The Great? I need to pay attention if there's more information on him.

The Numenoreans grew in wisdom and joy. Now thinking what "growing in joy" means. They laughed more? Probably just generally improved standards of living. They did start in a war in which they were "utterly defeated".

Was Tar-Minastir the one who helped fight in Eregion? It only says that he sent a great force to help Gil-Galad, not what for.

So they abandoned the eldarin tongue, meaning they spoke it regularly before, but there was a Numenorean tongue, too, different enough that I assume they spoke that every day. Was the Eldarin tongue used only in formal context? Or as a second language that people spoke when not at home?

Interesting, Sauron's servants deserted him when they saw the splendour and might of Ar-Pharazon's army. I mean, they probably weren't very loyal to begin with, but what drove them now?

"But great kings take what is their right." [Sauron] said

Elendil and his people escaped with nine ships, seven palantiri and a baby tree. Nice. Though people that fit on nine ships? Absolutely everyone in Gondor must be a direct descendant of Elendil by the time of LOTR, come on.

How did the population of nine ships in less than three lifetimes of men establish two enormous realms? Sauron's servants must have run away quite far.

Sauron lost his body that "he had long walked in"! He fled as a spirit of hatred on a dark wind. He also couldn't look pretty anymore, and his power was only through terror from this point forward, which must have been hard, as before it was way more through deception and talking, like Saruman's.

I think it's very responsible of tolkien to introduce arwen to aragorn only when he is 20 and has lived with her father for 18 years, which prevents it from being a grooming situation (even though she is still much older than him) and (socially) incestuous. and even elrond is like "no you are way too young". very nice. I have a feeling though, if this was gender flipped, he would've fewer qualms about this, especially considering aragorn's mother seems to have been super young (probably in her early teens) and his father 58 when they married… but I love that arwen and aragorn's relationship is now explained, even though I personally don't understand why this isn’t woven into the lotr story.

maybe I'm overinterpreting, aragorn and arwen sounds a lot like tolkien and his wife too, no? I know he mostly based beren and luthien on their relationship, but him being orphaned as a child, younger (and maybe a little naive), from different backgrounds (catholic vs protestant), them not being able to be together bc of their guardians, then getting engaged but parted by a war, and then finally ending up married sounds very parallel. but Idk maybe this all applies to beren and luthien as well.

I love that this series actually tells the whole story of most of the characters and through that forms a bridge between fantasy and the reality of life and death, but it's so sad to read somehow :( I'm assuming tolkien did this on purpose to end his life's work (and prepare for his own end). but it's also sad (if aragorn and arwen are indeed based on his own marriage) to think he thought he would die before his wife. but then he had to live without her for a couple of years and I'm sure felt not unlike arwen is described here, withering.

“Dís was the daughter of Thráin II. She is the only dwarf-woman named in these histories. It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need, They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves 'grow out of stone'. It is because of the fewness of women among them that the kind of the Dwarves increases slowly, and is in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves take only one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights. The number of dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third. For not all the women take husbands: some desire none; some desire one that they cannot get, and so will have no other. As for the men, very many also do not desire marriage, being engrossed in their crafts.”

- Also worth noting she was the mother of Fíli and Kíli who died during the Battle of the Five Armies. Return of the King, Appendix A, III Durin’s Folk.

This is your friendly reminder that while Aragorn was king, he and Arwen had a lake house near the Shire that they would occasionally stay at and visit with Merry, Pippin, and Sam.

Additional friendly reminder! Sometimes Aragorn would bring friends with him, so odds are Legolas and Gimli would have definetly joined him at some point as well.

Below are the results of the calculators I used: