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Old 12-28-2002, 10:07 PM   #1
The Lady of Ithilien
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No. I'm asking about human nature. You have the Númenóreans who had basically everything that a civilization of Men ever had, and still they ended up being destroyed. I wonder if that is how Tolkien view humans, I wonder if we are destined for failure in his eyes.
But they weren't destroyed: that's the whole point about the escape of Elendil and a few others of the faithful from the ruin of Numenor.

And about Aragorn, eventually. Perhaps JRRT viewed humans as a battleground in which there are many casualties but always resurging hope due to the human spirit that will not give up -- "the old that is good does not perish, deep roots are not reached by the frost" (a paraphrase, as the books aren't handy).

It takes some time and reflection to connect Bilbo's poem for Aragorn with The Akallabeth, but the connection, I believe, is there, signified perhaps by how Aragorn was known in Rivendell: Dunadan, or Numenorean. (And in the external story, a rather neat linkage between The Akallabeth, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings.)

Interestingly, Ar-Pharazon and those Numenoreans who landed on Aman with him weren't destroyed, either, though their fate was far worse than that of the Faithful who escaped the Downfall but had to labor hard in Middle-earth. The rebellious Numenoreans who had broken the ban were buried in the Caves of the Forgotten, to stay there until the Last Battle: they got a taste of immortality, that is, and I bet they would really understand the meaning of the gift of Iluvatar by the time they would be released. So, they didn't fail, either: just got taught a very hard lesson.
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Thus one should consider: "Being angry with another person, what can you do to him? Can you destroy his virtue and his other good qualities? Have you not come to your present state by your own actions, and will also go hence according to your own actions? Anger towards another is just as if someone wishing to hit another person takes hold of glowing coals, or a heated iron-rod, or of excrement. And, in the same way, if the other person is angry with you, what can he do to you? Can he destroy your virtue and your other good qualities? He too has come to his present state by his own actions and will go hence according to his own actions. Like an unaccepted gift or like a handful of dirt thrown against the wind, his anger will fall back on his own head."
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