[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

If Isildur is now going to have a have a sister, the broken-down examples I pointed at above dictate that he will be ground down and shown to be weak, so she can be that much more superior in every way.

Can the works of a man like Tolkien be allowed expression in their old form? Aren't they too full of male characters who don't deserve the spotlight? Don't so-called progressive messages impose themselves on every facet of entertainment today? Why should this be any different?

Isildur is weak.

Or rather, no. Isildur is three characters.

1/ The one who appears in LotR. He kills Sauron with his father's sword, takes the Ring, refuses to destroy it, and ultimately gets shot in the back while trying to sneak away while his soldiers and sons die. By this point, strong or weak, Isildur is a crown prince (and indeed High King), who must have come a long way from his life in Numenor decades before.

2/ The Silmarillion version, who gets nearly a whole paragraph(!) to himself. He sneaks into Armenelos and retrieves a fruit of the White Tree, nearly dying in the process. This is the strong version, though he doesn't "earn anything []he got".

3/ The version from the drafts, specifically The Lost Road. This one isn't even called Isildur - he's Herendil, son of Elendil, but he has the same narrative position. He's weak! He's practically a Sauron loyalist! "Is there a shadow? I have not seen it. But I have heard others speak of it; and they say it is the shadow of Death. But Sauron did not bring that; he promiseth that he will save us from it." In the notes associated with the text, he either winds up arrested by Sauron - or betraying his father to him.

If you want Isildur to be a character, not simply an archetype (good or bad), the only remotely Tolkienian way to do it is to combine these stories. He starts out led astray by Sauron and Pharazon - he finds his way to being the hero who rescues the fruit of Nimloth - and at the end he succumbs to the lure of Sauron's own weapon and power. He is weak - and then, through character growth, he becomes strong.

As to your comments about Tolkien being a man, whose male characters should be permitted to male in a manly fashion unmolested by women, well, a) , but b) Numenor is the place that idea holds up the least-well. Am I wrong to say it's the only place in the Legendarium where Tolkien wrote a fully fleshed-out story of conflict between men and women? He covered the same theme many times - Nerdanel, Yavanna, Haleth, and of course Eowyn - but the only one who gets an entire story to herself is Erendis.

Originally Posted by The Mariner's Wife

Men in Númenor are half-Elves (said Erendis), especially the high men; they are neither the one nor the other. The long life that they were granted deceives them, and they dally in the world, children in mind, until age finds them - and then many only forsake play out of doors for play in their houses. They turn their play into great matters and great matters into play. They would be craftsmen and loremasters and heroes all at once; and women to them are but fires on the hearth - for others to tend, until they are tired of play in the eve*ning. All things were made for their service: hills are for quarries, river to furnish water or to turn wheels, trees for boards, women for their body's need, or if fair to adorn their table and hearth; and children to be teased when nothing else is to do - but they would as soon play with their hounds' whelps. To all they are gracious and kind, merry as larks in the morning (if the sun shines); for they are never wrathful if they can avoid it. Men should be gay, they hold, generous as the rich, giving away what they do not need. Anger they show only when they become aware, suddenly, that there are other wills in the world beside their own. Then they will be as ruthless as the seawind if anything dare to withstand them.

Thus it is, Ancalimë, and we cannot alter it. For men fashioned Númenor: men, those heroes of old that they sing of - of their women we hear less, save that they wept when their men were slain. Númenor was to be a rest after war. But if they weary of rest and the plays of peace, soon they will go back to their great play, manslaying and war. Thus it is; and we are set here among them. But we need not assent. If we love Númenor also, let us enjoy it before they ruin it. We also are daughters of the great, and we have wills and courage of our own. Therefore do not bend, Ancalimë. Once bend a little, and they will bend you further until you are bowed down. Sink your roots into the rock, and face the wind, though it blow away all your leaves.

So Isildur might have a woman close to him who objects to him going to war? Who doesn't just let him go about his business, but has a will of her own and does not necessarily bend to the desires of men?

Gosh. I wonder where that idea came from.

hS

(PS: Curiously, there are actually two women of "Herendil's" age mentioned in The Lost Road: Almariel, "whose hair is of shining gold, and she is a maiden, and of my own age", who seems to be presented as his friend; and Firiel, "a maiden of [Elendil's] household, daughter of Orontor". Isildur's wife is mentioned, though not named, twice in the Silmarillion, both times after the escape from Numenor. His mother is not mentioned at all. And, interestingly, there is a sister in the Andunie family who plays a significant role: Lindórië, sister of the Lord of Andunie and mother of Inzilbeth. She taught her daughter the ways of the Faithful, and she passed them on to her own son, Tar-Palantir, King of Numenor. Numenorean women are a force to be reckoned with.)