but according to this it seem to have started much much futher back a lifetimes ago which I think would mean that the last elves there would mean the decline in them coming there would have been before the fall started. Western numeron is a stronghold of the faithful so in these land they would have welcomed them with open arms even if the very first rumbling begin then it would have been far away from here
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Westernesse: A Númenórean Colony Quest
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
- Location
- Texas
Imagine you have a really good friend. You go visit him all the time. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he starts treating you like absolute shit, shooting dark looks out of the corner of his eye, talking trash about you within earshot — the works. One day, he tells you to your face he thinks you're a liar and a selfish asshole, and says he thinks you want to kill him.
Would you keep going back to his house?
no but this was in western numeron a stronghold of the faithful. I get in other parts of numeron but here where they would be welcomed with open arms? Also were the kings men really that bad lifetimes ago which in numeron spans would be 500-thousand years?
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- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The political divide doesn't follow the meridian. The Faithful were strongest in Andunie, not necessarily Eldalonde (which, as the name suggests, where elves were accustomed to land - it is a Quenya cognate to Sindarin Edhellond on the mainland), or Hyarnustar.
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500 was the king himself, Elros, not the rest of the people. And even if so, just by letting such wide beliefs of the kings men, were already making the people lose more and more of their years, as for the western part, it dosent really matter, if most of Numenor is following the trend, odds are that soon all of Numenor would do the same, west or no.
In at least once source detailing the lives of the Kings, I think the Elves are mentioned to stop coming to Númenór except in secret during the reign of Ar-Adûnakhôr? Who also banned the teaching of Elvish and sounds like an all-around lovely chap. Although I think this is from stuff in the Unfinished Tales which is technically therefore "unpublished" - the Akallabêth is a lot less specific and gives more of a general narrative. It may be contradicted by other writings.
The continuity of this Quest significantly backdates that. Which is a decision I think makes sense, as it makes things a lot more interesting, and also the backstory for the The Last Lord of Eldalondë was an absolute mood.
Still kind of gutted that we did not get to choose him as a Companion, to be honest- although I also love Izilbeth and Ûrîphêl too. Imagine bringing him with us to Rivendell!
He would absolutely have ended up killing or falling madly in love with the first Elf he met. No possible in-betweens.
- Location
- Australia
I mean, Aule had to offer the dwarves up to Eru before they got souls and they still got confiscated so that they wouldn't affect the line-up of Firstborn and Secondborn. Something something they would have been slaves instead of children iirc.
Sounds a bit familiar hahaha
Hey maybe there a chance he will hear about us and decide to come over since we are neither faithful or kingmen?
- Location
- Texas
The elves stopped coming to Númenor the moment the strife began, even when there were still Faithful to receive them.
We even have a specific point for this — the reign of Tar-Atanamir the Great, who first began to speak openly against the elves and the Valar. The Eldar who came to visit during his reign reported to Manwë that the Númenóreans had started taking tributes from the shores of Middle-Earth and harassing the Middle-Men, and also that they now spoke openly against the Valar and the ban on sailing West.
Manwë tried to engage and sent emissaries to warn Tar-Atanamir that the Doom of Men was A.) Not tied to access to Valinor and B.) Was beyond the Valar's power to affect, and certainly the elves. But it didn't matter. He was not satisfied — and so he was called also 'the Refuser'. By the time of his son, Tar-Ancalimon, the Númenóreans had stopped speaking Quenya, the first great colonies at Pelargir and Umbar were founded and fortified, and the long hand of Númenor began to stretch across the world. Tar-Atanamir was called last of all 'the Unwilling', for he spited the Valar to his dying, and ruled into senility and madness rather than give up the throne to his son.
It is in Tar-Atanamir's time that the first among the Númenóreans must have begun to seek other avenues to unending life — because some few hundred years later, in the reign of his son, the first of the Ringwraiths emerge.
In the history of our quest, the Númenóreans know all too well who the first of the Nine was. For Tar-Atanamir had a brother, a Prince of the Star prouder and rasher and more unwilling even than he. While his brother the king accepted the judgement and went to his death in spite, he could not — would not. Tanarmil he was called of old, but long after he should have died a natural death, he claimed the kingship of Númenor as his birthright. He declared himself in the Black Land of Mordor, and those among mortals who accept his claim hail him as Ar-Murazôr the Undying, King of the Men of the West.
All others call him the Witch-King.
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That's true, but in the case of the Dwarves, they straight-up stopped moving or thinking when Aulë wasn't actively investing them with his will and puppeteering them. That isn't really how we see Orcs act, and they seem to be capable of a lot of independent acts of creation and rebellion (and most notably, song). It is possible to claim that this is because of the generalised malice of Morgoth that infuses Arda, and is constantly, passively puppeteering the orcs around, (and that hatred is rebellious, so this even explains Rrc rebellions), and so Morgoth and Sauron would not need to invest attention in this way.
Which is a completely defensible viewpoint, just one I personally really don't like. It really does not seem to fit with the Orcs as they are portrayed in The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, in the scenes where we are in close proximity with them and see them bickering/squabbling (or even singing), with what feels like quite independent minds.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I will say I find the Corrupted Elves theory compelling for its folkloric connections.
Consider: Orcs and goblins are the same thing. Orc is just another word for goblin, these were always meant to be based on the folkloric goblins in Tolkien's mind.
So, let's dig into that.
"Goblin" is just one word for a hazy grouping of creatures in the folklore of Western and Northern Europe that heavily overlap with elves, house spirits, knockers, etc. The word goblin probably comes from a Germanic root word for "rock hollow"; compare the Welsh coblynau and the German kobold, both related creatures, or the English words for "cove" and "cave".
The goblin is mostly distinguished from his fellows for his malice, with various household misfortunes being ascribed to him. However, the goblin could be propitiated and sometimes even took on a benevolent role, providing conceptual crossover with house spirits and elves. Goblins were heavily associated with underground places, especially mines, where they overlapped with knockers, a kind of cave spirit that could be invoked to prevent cave-ins and other misfortunes.
So the image we have is a creature that lives underground, especially in mines, from which it periodically emerges to cause misfortune. Sounds pretty strongly like the presentation of the goblins in the Hobbit, thought Tolkien added other influences both aesthetic and thematic such as making them industrious, in a sense standing in for the industrial working class.
However, the goblin also pretty clearly emerges from a nebulous pre-Christian conception of various spirits, and there are associations between goblins and elves; there are even versions of the goblin myth which are very similar to elf myths to the point of crossing over entirely. Back in the day when myths were less defined, it's possible what we consider to be a goblin was another kind of elf, or vice versa.
As a linguist and folklorist I think Tolkien would have been aware of this connection and it's almost certainly the reason why he chose elves of all races to be the original stock from which sprang the orcs.
Consider: Orcs and goblins are the same thing. Orc is just another word for goblin, these were always meant to be based on the folkloric goblins in Tolkien's mind.
So, let's dig into that.
"Goblin" is just one word for a hazy grouping of creatures in the folklore of Western and Northern Europe that heavily overlap with elves, house spirits, knockers, etc. The word goblin probably comes from a Germanic root word for "rock hollow"; compare the Welsh coblynau and the German kobold, both related creatures, or the English words for "cove" and "cave".
The goblin is mostly distinguished from his fellows for his malice, with various household misfortunes being ascribed to him. However, the goblin could be propitiated and sometimes even took on a benevolent role, providing conceptual crossover with house spirits and elves. Goblins were heavily associated with underground places, especially mines, where they overlapped with knockers, a kind of cave spirit that could be invoked to prevent cave-ins and other misfortunes.
So the image we have is a creature that lives underground, especially in mines, from which it periodically emerges to cause misfortune. Sounds pretty strongly like the presentation of the goblins in the Hobbit, thought Tolkien added other influences both aesthetic and thematic such as making them industrious, in a sense standing in for the industrial working class.
However, the goblin also pretty clearly emerges from a nebulous pre-Christian conception of various spirits, and there are associations between goblins and elves; there are even versions of the goblin myth which are very similar to elf myths to the point of crossing over entirely. Back in the day when myths were less defined, it's possible what we consider to be a goblin was another kind of elf, or vice versa.
As a linguist and folklorist I think Tolkien would have been aware of this connection and it's almost certainly the reason why he chose elves of all races to be the original stock from which sprang the orcs.
- Location
- Texas
No matter the origin it's really clear that orcs act as a thematic counterpoint to the elves throughout the Legendarium. The elves preserve and grow, the orcs build and burn. They are two endpoints of the see-saw on which Middle-Earth balances. The elves have hated the orcs since before the sun arose — in Sindarin, they're called the Glamhoth, literally the 'din-horde' or the 'howling host'. Most elvish words for enemy are derived from this — to be wicked, to be a foe, is to be like the orcs.
Anyway, my main point I wanted to touch on was that industrial connection. It's really really really clear that the orcs don't speak like anyone else in the Legendarium — not the high loquaciousness of elves or the simplicity of Hobbits.
But they do sound like a very specific group of people.
'Git'. 'Rotter'. 'Mate'. Orcs in a whole lot of modern fantasy just 'talk like this', an affectation taken from both Tolkien and later works like Games Workshop's Warhammer Games. But…why?
Well, let's see. What could Tolkien be trying to say by having the endless legions of put-upon, miserable, wretched, almost pitiable slaves working in dark mines and black mills to build awful engines for an all-seeing, ever-present, and utterly merciless master talk just like 20th century British workers?
I certainly have no idea.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As Tolkien wrote, "We were all orcs in the Great War."
Not necessarily true in that part, "
When Ar-Adûnakhôr succeeded his father, however, he was the first King to break with tradition and took his title in Adûnaic.[4][1] Tar-Herunúmen, a name in Quenya was still recorded in the Scroll of Kings, because the kings feared that a break with this ancient custom could cause evil to befall.[5][1]
His names were perceived as blasphemous and ill-omened[4] by the Faithful Númenóreans, because they mean "Lord of the West", a title that the Faithful only used for one of the Valar, especially Manwë.[1]
During his reign the Elven-tongues were no longer used, nor permitted to be taught, but were maintained in secret by the Faithful. After that elven ships from Tol Eressëa only came seldom and secretly to the west shores of Númenor." Anf as well their were times when they still came even after this, though by far less in number and definitely in secret, " Ar-Gimilzôr was a great enemy of the Faithful. He completely outlawed the use of the Elven tongues. In addition, he did not permit the Eldar to come to Númenor and punished those who still welcomed the Elven ships[1] that came from Eressëa, that still came secretly to the western shores of Númenor where most of the Faithful lived, because he considered these Elves to be the "spies of the Valar" and hoped to keep his deeds and counsels hidden from the Valar. Eventually, Ar-Gimilzôr's distrust of the Faithful caused him to exile all the Faithful that he could identify to the east of Númenor near the haven of Rómenna. There he kept them under surveillance." By this point though, no more ships of the elves came, so while I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment, it is not "technically" fully accurate, so just a heads up.
also according to the wiki it appears to be Tar-Ciryatan who started the settling of middle earth, the tributes though since he does have a elf name he appears to still have supported the elves
Ciryatan was the son of Tar-Minastir.
He scorned the yearnings of his father and eased his restlessness by voyaging east, north and south to Middle-earth before he took the sceptre.[2] In the time before he took the sceptre, the War of the Elves and Sauron began in Middle-earth in S.A. 1693,[5] Sauron invaded Eriador in S.A. 1695[6], the realms of Eregion fell and Sauron advanced to Lindon and besieged Rivendell.[7] His father Minastir sent a navy under the command of Ciryatur to Lindon to aid the Elves in 1700.[8] Ciryatur's forces utterly routed Sauron's army in the Battle of the Gwathló and reinforcements from Lindon and Tharbad helped defeat the enemy and Sauron retreated back to Mordor.[7] Starting around the year 1800,[9] the Númenóreans, who had tasted power in Middle-earth in the battles with Sauron, began to establish permanent settlements on the western coasts of Middle-earth[7] and turned their havens into fortresses, which held wide coastlands in subjection.[10]. The Númenoreans became too powerful for Sauron to attempt to move west out of Mordor for a long time[7], so Sauron extended his power eastwards.[9]
It was said that Ciryatan constrained his father to surrender the sceptre before he would have done so of his free will.[2] Tar-Ciryatan built a great fleet of royal ships and his servants oppressed the men of Middle-earth and brought large quantities of metals and gems back to Númenor.[2] It was during his reign when the Númenoreans began to speak openly against the ban, which forbade them to sail to Tol Eressa and Aman and the mortality of Men.[11] Those were considered the first signs of the coming of the Shadow over the bliss of Númenor.[2]
He surrendered the sceptre in 2029[2] and was succeeded by his son, Tar-Atanamir.[4]
He scorned the yearnings of his father and eased his restlessness by voyaging east, north and south to Middle-earth before he took the sceptre.[2] In the time before he took the sceptre, the War of the Elves and Sauron began in Middle-earth in S.A. 1693,[5] Sauron invaded Eriador in S.A. 1695[6], the realms of Eregion fell and Sauron advanced to Lindon and besieged Rivendell.[7] His father Minastir sent a navy under the command of Ciryatur to Lindon to aid the Elves in 1700.[8] Ciryatur's forces utterly routed Sauron's army in the Battle of the Gwathló and reinforcements from Lindon and Tharbad helped defeat the enemy and Sauron retreated back to Mordor.[7] Starting around the year 1800,[9] the Númenóreans, who had tasted power in Middle-earth in the battles with Sauron, began to establish permanent settlements on the western coasts of Middle-earth[7] and turned their havens into fortresses, which held wide coastlands in subjection.[10]. The Númenoreans became too powerful for Sauron to attempt to move west out of Mordor for a long time[7], so Sauron extended his power eastwards.[9]
It was said that Ciryatan constrained his father to surrender the sceptre before he would have done so of his free will.[2] Tar-Ciryatan built a great fleet of royal ships and his servants oppressed the men of Middle-earth and brought large quantities of metals and gems back to Númenor.[2] It was during his reign when the Númenoreans began to speak openly against the ban, which forbade them to sail to Tol Eressa and Aman and the mortality of Men.[11] Those were considered the first signs of the coming of the Shadow over the bliss of Númenor.[2]
He surrendered the sceptre in 2029[2] and was succeeded by his son, Tar-Atanamir.[4]
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Honestly, for me the death kneel against the Orcs as automatons is that it was stated that all beings save the Elves were found on both sides of the War of the Last Alliance, which, ipso facto, means that you had orcs fighting with the Free Peoples. Now, that does not require that these orcs be redeemed or anything like that. Indeed, it is perfectly possible, and probable honestly, that it was due to some inter-orcish warfare rather then any opposition of principle to Sauron.
Nonetheless, it still demand that the Orcs have a degree of autonomy, of sentience and of free will that simply don't fit them being automatons. Everything else can be explained away as Morgoth wishing to have his Orcs mimick the behaviours of the children of Eru in some matters for his own twisted reasons but nothing can explain the Orcs actively fighting against Sauron without them making the decision to do so themselves.
Nonetheless, it still demand that the Orcs have a degree of autonomy, of sentience and of free will that simply don't fit them being automatons. Everything else can be explained away as Morgoth wishing to have his Orcs mimick the behaviours of the children of Eru in some matters for his own twisted reasons but nothing can explain the Orcs actively fighting against Sauron without them making the decision to do so themselves.
- Location
- Texas
As Skippy said, some of that is from post-Silmarillion information, in the Unfinished Tales. The published Silm, which is my main source for this quest, doesn't include that, and indicates that the elves didn't come in any great numbers after Tar-Atanamir. The wikis often conflate numerous contradictory sources, and I'd caution against using them as infallible sources (though I'm certainly not infallible myself, and consult the wikis on plenty).
Tar-Ciryatan started the oppression in general, but Umbar was fortified and Pelargir founded in the reign of Tar-Ancalimon, and Atanamir started taking heavy tribute. Technically colonization started way back during the reign of Tar-Aldarion.
Also, you've got to remember that Númenóreans lived hundreds of years, and the reigns and lives of the royal family overlap by centuries, plural. What Tar-Atanamir put into practice on the throne was what he'd already been doing for centuries under his father, and what his son put into practice was what he'd been doing for centuries under his father and grandfather.
The "we were all Orcs" line is, as far as I know, apocryphal. The closest attested source we have is in a letter to his son Christopher whilst he was on active service in WW2, regarding the Allies, but it is a bit more nuanced. Honestly, I doubt Tolkien would have been entirely comfortable with the idea that his beloved boyhood friends died occupying the same estate as Sauron's foot soldiers.
But the idea expressed in the line is so good that we almost wish he might have said it.
One problem with taking stuff like this completely at face value is that a lot of the detail about the Númenorean kings is that it is from the Unfinished Tales, not the published Silmarillion or the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings. This is not necessarily a problem - lots of great stuff is not in those books. The story of Aldarion and Erendis, for example, is in the Unfinished Tales. It is one of the most impactful pieces Tolkien wrote, touching on themes of imperialism and the relations between men and women, and one of our best views of the Númenoreans as a people.
It also contains this utterly devastating speech from Erendis about her husband's constant voyaging:
This is possibly the best single expression of the flaws of Númenor ever written, and note that it is dated long before the King's Men ever emerge.
However, the problem is that the Númenor in this Aldarion and Erendis is not necessarily quite the Númenor in the published Akallabêth, or other writings. Tolkien worked and re-worked ideas across his life, rarely putting them down for good - the Balrogs and Elves in The Fall of Gondolin are really not the same Balrogs and Elves as in The Lord of the Rings, although they share names and some concepts. It is funny, given how Tolkien is kind of legendary for his worldbuilding in fantasy circles, that he really was never very unconcerned with a totally consistent "canon" - or in any case never achieved it. The reason why most of these writings are in compilations like the Unfinished Tales is because they were extremely challenging to fold into a cohesive whole.
Even the illusion of continuity is only really possible because of the editorial (and in some cases authorial) work of Tolkien's son Christopher, piecing things together into a consistent version of the legendarium - which you can accept or not. (Fans often do reject some of Christopher Tolkien's choices.) There is sometimes a tendency amongst fans to think that the last word on a topic must be the "best" one, but frankly I am not even sure that is true all the time. Many of Tolkien's writings are ultimately separate works with decades between them, and bridging them together will always demand choices about what to accept. As fans, we have to make those choices, especially if we want to create expansive fanworks which draw from many writings at once.
Ultimately, @Telamon has made some editorial, authorial and artistic choices for the universe of this Quest, and I think they're good ones.
But the idea expressed in the line is so good that we almost wish he might have said it.
One problem with taking stuff like this completely at face value is that a lot of the detail about the Númenorean kings is that it is from the Unfinished Tales, not the published Silmarillion or the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings. This is not necessarily a problem - lots of great stuff is not in those books. The story of Aldarion and Erendis, for example, is in the Unfinished Tales. It is one of the most impactful pieces Tolkien wrote, touching on themes of imperialism and the relations between men and women, and one of our best views of the Númenoreans as a people.
It also contains this utterly devastating speech from Erendis about her husband's constant voyaging:
This is possibly the best single expression of the flaws of Númenor ever written, and note that it is dated long before the King's Men ever emerge.
However, the problem is that the Númenor in this Aldarion and Erendis is not necessarily quite the Númenor in the published Akallabêth, or other writings. Tolkien worked and re-worked ideas across his life, rarely putting them down for good - the Balrogs and Elves in The Fall of Gondolin are really not the same Balrogs and Elves as in The Lord of the Rings, although they share names and some concepts. It is funny, given how Tolkien is kind of legendary for his worldbuilding in fantasy circles, that he really was never very unconcerned with a totally consistent "canon" - or in any case never achieved it. The reason why most of these writings are in compilations like the Unfinished Tales is because they were extremely challenging to fold into a cohesive whole.
Even the illusion of continuity is only really possible because of the editorial (and in some cases authorial) work of Tolkien's son Christopher, piecing things together into a consistent version of the legendarium - which you can accept or not. (Fans often do reject some of Christopher Tolkien's choices.) There is sometimes a tendency amongst fans to think that the last word on a topic must be the "best" one, but frankly I am not even sure that is true all the time. Many of Tolkien's writings are ultimately separate works with decades between them, and bridging them together will always demand choices about what to accept. As fans, we have to make those choices, especially if we want to create expansive fanworks which draw from many writings at once.
Ultimately, @Telamon has made some editorial, authorial and artistic choices for the universe of this Quest, and I think they're good ones.
as all great writers have to do / the choices have indeed
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bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
I think an elegant solution is that much like the corrupted umaiar and the ringwaiths the orcs are various souls that Morgoth had collected over the years and bound in thrall to the Shadow after being like literally bound as thralls in the black pits of Angband, and then called forth and reincarnated in the fleshly bodies of goblinkind produced through those breeding pits and dark alchemical arts, with this repeated again and again as the orcs undergo Gollum style abuse and ruin at the hands of what becomes their lord and master and thus feel compelled to turn away from the Door of Night and "voluntarily" damn themselves to the Void and to being pumped back into that hellish torture of orc-life over and over again. It seems like a particularly dark lord level of twisted evil to give the orcs just enough to know of their mutilation, to become embittered at their fate, and to become predisposed to lash back at the world in pain and despair and envy at the light and music and happiness they can't have/ they have been magically Stockholm Syndrome'd to think they can never have. Like Grendel coming to terrorize the people of Hrothgar because the good cheer and blazing hearths and drunken singing of Heorot physically and spiritually hurts the monster, as deeply as a man might feel a blade through their belly.
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Perhaps that is the case, and should it be there are some very wise words by Gandalf about not all of the palantíri being accounted for by the wise. For who is to say Sauron has not already been gifted one by the Nine who were once Numenorean lords, or acquired one from fallen Eregion where resided the grandson of Feanor.
For while Sauron in possession of a palantíri would never hope to gain control over one used by a King of Numenor like Sauron did for Denethor II it would be all to easy to control what a proud king of Numenor sees, and unlike Denethor their spite isn't directed toward Sauron while lacking the virtues of the steward like integrity in whose absence it is all too easy to direct their desire for wealth into untouched lands. All at the price of losing the occasional battle against a foe he was already at a disadvantage against to make the Kings of Numenor trust what they are shown, and in return his foes turn those who should be their friends into their enemies.
Furthermore with a palantiri in hand it wouldn't take much for Sauron to assume a fair form, and transform restlessness into voyages that sowed the seeds for the Shadow that would begin to take shape during his reign as King of Numenor. Just as the friendship of the Noldor for the Númenóreans didn't stop at the royal lineage so didn't their gifts, and thus the Shadow grows ever longer as many a proud lord grow confident that the treasures from their forefathers remain safe.
This is a semi-random aside, but when I was looking through the timeline of the various Durins to work out if we were likely in one of their reigns at present*, the Tolkien Gateway article also had the nugget that apparently that in the language of the Northmen, Durin is also their word for "King". Really shows the legacy of technology, culture and language that the Elder Races passed on to a lot of the Edain, not just the Númenóreans. (Although with them the legacy is definitely the most profound and transformative.) Seems to have been quite an enduring bond with Dwarves and the Northmen, too, when you look at the friendship that the Men of Dale have with Erebor.
There's not a lot more to say about it, I just though it was a really neat little find!
*(To which my conclusion was probably not, unless Durin III or IV lived in the neighbourhood of a thousand years or more. Which is definitely not impossible but does seem not super likely.)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm unsure how to handle the mixed messages of exploring Eregion. Our option suggests great potential while Galadriel suggests it is a viper's gift at best.
Admittedly I am miffed at their suggestions that only they know best too so I might be biased, but there are conflicting messages.
Admittedly I am miffed at their suggestions that only they know best too so I might be biased, but there are conflicting messages.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
How is this a contradiction? Material potential and moral hazard go hand in hand, just look at the Numenoreans for an example.
Fezzes
Knight of King Stannis Baratheon
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
I don't think we can afford to not explore Eregion. It's well and good for Galadriel to tut tut about the hubris and arrogance of Man in seeking things that should remain lost, but her authority goes nigh-unquestioned in her land, while we're a Shaper colony—who has, for some reason, called an inspection when they really don't have much actually Shaper-relevant to show for it—which was founded in part because they're interested in Eregion. I'd be surprised if there wasn't considerable political pressure on us to delve into it, especially since most of our reasoning for not doing so reads more or less as "The elves who are jealous of our ascent said it was scary so they could deprive us of more of their gifts, and I believed them" in the eyes of the people holding our reins.
I'm not about to go all "What is Aragorn's tax policy?" but to a certain extent Galadriel lives in a different world to us, and she doesn't wholly appreciate that we can't really avoid looking into Eregion without pissing off our sponsor, who is basically our life and death because the Venturers want us to go out screaming in agony. Or maybe she does appreciate that fact, but it still leaves us under nontrivial pressure to explore Eregion at some point regardless of what she says.
I'm not about to go all "What is Aragorn's tax policy?" but to a certain extent Galadriel lives in a different world to us, and she doesn't wholly appreciate that we can't really avoid looking into Eregion without pissing off our sponsor, who is basically our life and death because the Venturers want us to go out screaming in agony. Or maybe she does appreciate that fact, but it still leaves us under nontrivial pressure to explore Eregion at some point regardless of what she says.