Seeking the Wayward Children of Numenor - Page 9
© Michael Martinez
In the end both kingdoms declined. Arnor descended into a sort of brilliant decadence, ending in the squabbles of three princes who could not live together as their ancestors had been able to live beside Men of strange kin. Gondor eventually turned its aggression inward, embroiling itself in a war of pride and arrogance and nearly bleeding itself dry in the process. In both situations the final legacy of Numenor made its appearance: the darker nature of the Dunedain, their tendency toward division and self-destruction. Neither kingdom, born out of the ashes of the older realm, could quite shed itself of the Numenorean heritage which had brought an end to Numenor.
So the founding of the realms in exile seems more a respite than a resolution or reward. The Faithful could not escape their doom. Numenor didn't fail so much as proceed through a process of winnowing, and when the wheat was separated from the chaff Arnor and Gondor started the process over again. They were, like the seedling of the White Tree which Isildur brought to Middle-earth, seedlings which replanted the Numenorean culture in fertile ground. But they were also a step in transition in which the Dunedain were moving back toward their roots. Eventually, they would no longer be Dunedain, but would again be Men of Middle-earth.
And that is where Arnor and Gondor belong in the legendarium. They are the gateways by which Tolkien brought his Atlanteans home, and removed them from legend and restored them to the path of history. All or nearly all was forgotten of the Numenor which had been, both great and humble, because it was never really a part of Middle-earth, greatly though it had contributed toward the construction of that world, both literarily and historically.
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