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…and Numenor went down into the sea, with all its children and its wives and its maidens and its ladies proud; and all its gardens and its halls and its towers, its tombs and its riches, and its jewels and its web and its things painted or carven, and its laughter and its mirth and its music, its wisdom and its lore: they vanished forever. And last of all the mounting wave green and cold and plumed with foam, climbing over the land, took to its bosom Tar-Miriel the Queen, Fairer than silver or ivory or pearls. Too late she strove to ascend the steep ways of the Meneltarma to the holy place; for the waters overtook her and her cry was lost in the roaring of wind.

Originally Posted by akhtene

My question is: WHY SUCH A POETIC, NOSTALGIC DESCRIPTION?

IMHO the wording and style of the first quotation are more suitable for describing fair things destroyed by the Enemy, some terrible loss that shouldn’t have been. And mind, not a word mentions actual rebels or traitors perishing in the catastrophe, or even being on the island at the time. Only children and women and the fruits of fairest culture, and I read it that JRRT laments them. Was it then a mistake, a terrible accident? It couldn’t possibly be, as Eru is the One who knows exactly what He is doing. A lesson then? But for whom? The victims could hardly be taught anything this way. The rebels whose families and riches those were? But they had already been taken from this world (dead or asleep). The Faithful – they didn’t seem to need any such lesson. The rest of the world just in case? But haven’t there been greater villains who deserved punishment but were let off to redeem? Sorry if I sound too harsh or lengthy, but I’m trying to sort things out.

I'm interesting in knowing *who* recorded the event of those last moments. No one that lived saw Numenor drowned. The King's Men were either on ships or going down with the Land of the Star. The Faithful were sailing eastward, though not of their own volition.

I think that the 'poetic' description could be due to a few things. Anyone else ever feel lonely, or the loss of something vague that pulls at the heart? Was there some loss of something beautiful that Tolkien was expressing in these words? Was it the loss of innocence, like that one day when you 'wake up' and realize that you are no longer a child, and that the world isn't truly all chrome and flying cars?

Or was Tolkien trying to describe the Biblical story of the Fall, when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden? In that story, the Garden is not destroyed, but man's access is forever denied (well, maybe), and so in a sense this gifted garden too was removed from the Earth. Both stories describe a sadness of things that might have been, but now no longer can be. A paradise for men, a place of ease and safety, a fair place of healing and goodness, is lost in the mists.

Maybe if it were written less poetically, the reader would think, "Good for them! Drown all of those faithless ingrates!" The sadness over the loss of what was once beautiful (even though it currently festered) just wouldn't come across.