07 March 2019

Númenor!

By the Valar! It looks like the forthcoming Amazon Prime Middle-earth series may be set during the Second Age and will encompass Númenor.

If you go to the most recent map of Middle-earth and scroll over to the bottom left (southwest) corner you can see the legendary island kingdom of the high men:


And the map does not merely depict Middle-earth at the end of the Second Age, but an earlier time. This is because it includes Ost-in-Edhil and Eregion—the land of the Elvish smiths, including Celebrimbor (second only to Fëanor in his skill), which was destroyed by Sauron’s armies following the creation of the Rings of Power in the middle of the Second Age. (The surviving Elves fled the ruins of Eregion and, under the leadership of Elrond, founded a hidden enclave: Imladris, better known as ‘Rivendell’.)


For further discussion of this map and what it might portend for the series, check out this article at Tor. (Among other things, the article wisely cautions us against becoming too excited about the prospect of a series set during the Second Age. Perhaps there will be only some ‘flashback’ scenes set during the Second Age, but the story itself will take place well into the Third Age.) 

UPDATE: This Polygon article seems confident in asserting that the series will be set during the Second Age. And an Amazon Prime tweet from earlier today says: "Welcome to the Second Age." Hmmm....

2 comments:

  1. Well, if Elrond is a point of view character, we can see flashbacks all the way back to the First Age. Flashbacks to Eregion and Numenor in the Second Age are even easier; after all, Elros was the first King of Numenor. How often did Elrond visit the island and the line of his brother?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've never understood why people want tv shows and movies made out of books. They're never remotely as good as the books.

    ReplyDelete

Blog Archive

About Me

My photo
I'm a Canadian political philosopher who lives primarily in Toronto but teaches in Milwaukee (sometimes in person, sometimes online).