Understand the rise and fall of Númenor as a parable about mortality, pride, and the temptation of immortality.
Guide to this part
The fall of the kings of Men
“Akallabêth” is a separate part about the Second Age and Númenor, the island kingdom of Men. For their loyalty in the War of Wrath, the Valar gave the Edain an island in the ocean, nearer to Aman than any other land. The Númenóreans (the Dúnedain, “Men of the West”) grew mighty, wise, and long-lived, but stayed mortal.
One ban lay on them, the Ban of the Valar: never to sail west out of sight of their shores, toward the Undying Lands. Death is not a curse for Men but the Gift of Ilúvatar, a release from the world; yet this the Númenóreans could not accept.
Over the centuries envy of the Elves' immortality and fear of death grow. The people split into the King's Men (proud, estranged from the Elves and Valar) and the Faithful (Elendili), friends of the Elves. The last, mightiest king, Ar-Pharazôn, brings Sauron to Númenor as a prisoner; the cunning Sauron becomes his counselor and corrupts him: Morgoth-worship, blood sacrifices, persecution of the Faithful.
Sauron persuades Ar-Pharazôn that immortality can be seized. The king's great fleet breaks the Ban and lands on Aman. Then Ilúvatar (Eru) acts directly: the world is changed, Aman is removed from the circles of the world, and Númenor sinks: Atalantë, “the Downfallen.” Only the Faithful escape, led by Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anárion; they reach Middle-earth and found Arnor and Gondor.
Lesson notes
The fall of the kings of Men
“Akallabêth” is a separate part about the Second Age and Númenor, the island kingdom of Men. For their loyalty in the War of Wrath, the Valar gave the Edain an island in the ocean, nearer to Aman than any other land. The Númenóreans (the Dúnedain, “Men of the West”) grew mighty, wise, and long-lived, but stayed mortal.
One ban lay on them, the Ban of the Valar: never to sail west out of sight of their shores, toward the Undying Lands. Death is not a curse for Men but the Gift of Ilúvatar, a release from the world; yet this the Númenóreans could not accept.
Over the centuries envy of the Elves' immortality and fear of death grow. The people split into the King's Men (proud, estranged from the Elves and Valar) and the Faithful (Elendili), friends of the Elves. The last, mightiest king, Ar-Pharazôn, brings Sauron to Númenor as a prisoner; the cunning Sauron becomes his counselor and corrupts him: Morgoth-worship, blood sacrifices, persecution of the Faithful.
Sauron persuades Ar-Pharazôn that immortality can be seized. The king's great fleet breaks the Ban and lands on Aman. Then Ilúvatar (Eru) acts directly: the world is changed, Aman is removed from the circles of the world, and Númenor sinks: Atalantë, “the Downfallen.” Only the Faithful escape, led by Elendil and his sons Isildur and Anárion; they reach Middle-earth and found Arnor and Gondor.
Atlantis, the Gift of Death, and a bridge to “The Lord of the Rings”
Tolkien's Atlantis. “Akallabêth” (in Adûnaic) and “Atalantë” (in Quenya) mean “the Downfall / the Downfallen.” Tolkien deliberately wrote his own Atlantis myth: the island of a proud people, swallowed by the sea for its presumption. The image of the towering wave haunted Tolkien's own dreams.
The central idea is about death. The paradox: death, which Men so dread, is called the Gift of Ilúvatar, and the craving for immortality is the Fall itself, the Enemy's trap. The Elves' immortality is not a blessing but a “weariness of the world.” This is a deeply Christian idea of humility before the Creator's design.
Eru acts directly. For the first time in the legendarium it is not the Valar who act but the One himself: only the Creator can change the very shape of the world. After the Downfall the flat world becomes round, and the Straight Road to the West stays open only to Elven ships.
A bridge to “The Lord of the Rings.” Here the whole Third Age begins: Elendil, Isildur, and Anárion are the founders of Arnor and Gondor; Aragorn is Elendil's direct descendant. Sauron's body perishes in the Downfall, but his spirit escapes and returns to Mordor, stripped of his former fair guise. The palantíri, the sword Narsil, the very greatness of Gondor are Númenor's legacy.