Rabbit in the headlights

[altariel]

Ah. Well, since I foolishly entered into this meme by posing some questions to edrys, here is the last bit of it.

"I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions, no more, no less.

Ask me anything you want.

Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this, allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything."

Comments

[altariel.livejournal.com]

1. Feminist icon. Heroine, not deserter. Lucky, lucky woman.

2. (I won't count Galadriel, because it's her rejection of the Ring that is her best moment, so I can pretend she's a LotR character.) Ar-Pharazon. I think he's misunderstood, and that history was written by the victors.

3. I do like teaching, and find it very rewarding when it's going well - although because I'm an introvert I do find it very exhausting. And I'm too chicken to teach school-age children. They'd have me for dinner.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Mmm. Teaching college must be so much more intellectually exhausting - but then that's the whole point of it, isn't it? :)

Teaching school *must* be scary. Children are bloody-minded, critical creatues.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Teaching college must be so much more intellectually exhausting - but then that's the whole point of it, isn't it? :)

:-D Plus they have about ten years on me, and can stay sharp past midday. The effects of this differential will only get worse, of course...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It makes for a much more interesting story, I think, if Ar-Pharazôn isn't characterized as evil, but as a player in a geopolitical game, with some other powerful players on the board (the Valar, Sauron, the remaining Elvish realms in M-e).

He attempts to make Númenor not solely reliant on the goodwill of the Elves and the Valar. Let's think of this as disestablishing the church ;-D

Ultimately, the gods destroy him for it. And Elendil (and company) get to sail off and say what a completely evil bastard he was, with little in the way of actual evidence to back up their claims. (Isn't there something about all the surviving sources about Númenor being brought or written by Elendil?)

I bet if we had access to more sources, we'd find Ar-Pharazôn had progressive social policies, and wanted to enfranchise the working class, that kind of thing.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

What an interesting thought!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It would make a great story, wouldn't it ;-D

[kathyh]

Wow! What a great idea. I love it. I hope you have a story in mind to showcase this *g*.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I do, in fact, have quite a long story in mind to showcase it - chapters scoped out, all plotted - but I doubt it will ever get written :-(

[kathyh]

Shame! It really appeals to my inner mediaeval historian. All those monks who ruined the reputation of kings by sticking the knife into them in chronicles. It makes so much sense to have a Middle-earth equivalent.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of Richard III as I was writing :-)

It probably wouldn't be too mediaeval though - I'm convinced Númenor had at least begun to industrialize.

[kathyh]

I was thinking of Richard III as I was writing :-)

He wasn't the only sufferer. A very similar thing happened to Richard II. Obviously monastic chroniclers didn't like the name Richard *g*. You could say that Elendil was more like King Alfred, who kept control of his own publicity!

I'm convinced Númenor had at least begun to industrialize.

It certainly should have done. No matter what Tolkien's prejudices against industrialisation may have been, no society could have been completely technologically static.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

No matter what Tolkien's prejudices against industrialisation may have been, no society could have been completely technologically static.

Over thousands of years too. Plus industrialization is the symbol of civilization going wrong for Tolkien. What is the Temple of Morgoth other than a great big factory complex, described by people hundreds of years later, who don't have the technical language to describe it? :-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'd really love to write it - the problem is there just aren't enough hours in the day :-(

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Obviously we need to make more hours!

The story idea sounds fascinating, and I really would love to see you write it some day.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Obviously we need to make more hours!

You hit on a formula for that, you'll make millions!

Fingers crossed I get the time to do it. As I say, the chapters are scoped, the characters are worked out, the plot is worked through... it's just that writing takes up so much flippin' time! :-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I've always been suspicious of him because I just don't understand anyone who thinks that immortality would be a good thing

Again, I think it's more interesting to think of what 'trying to get immortality' might mean. Does it mean that he wanted his name to go down in history, to be remembered after his death; for example, as the king who forged a new path for Númenor (and hence came into conflict with the Valar)?

Perhaps it's another translation back into pre-industrial terms of something which we would describe differently in modern terms. To take a current example: perhaps Ar-Pharazôn put a lot of money into what we would call medical research, e.g. to increase longevity. Perhaps the more traditionalist Elendili saw this as blasphemous, as interfering with nature.


Any chance we can convince you to write a story about this?

To do it properly (and I wouldn't want to do it badly) would just entail so much work (learning Adûnaic for starters!).