How the Shadow fell on Numenor

[akhtene]

I really appreciate the above posts, but perhaps just a couple more ideas
I’m afraid the seeds for the ‘darkening of Numenor’ were planted at the very time it was founded on the Isle of Elenna. Its first King Elros, given the choice, refused immortality, thus depriving his descendants of eternal life (as they believed). So having elven blood in their veins the Numenorian rulers were seeking immortality as something which could be theirs just if… And besides isn’t Eru himself to blame for it? He gave Men the Gift of death, but no-one, even the Valar themselves are aware of the nature of that gift. And if one doesn’t know want to do with a gift, they can’t appreciate it and may be even tempted to reject it. So that’s what the Numenorians could be trying to do – to reject the gift, the benefits of which they didn’t see (do you, by the way?).

And again, bringing the Edain to the place “removed from the dangers of Middle Earth” the Valar fully misinterpreted the nature of Men, who live short, but live fast and actively. I don’t suppose that the most valiant of Men (the ones who were thus rewarded by the Valar) could be long content with the role of just Elves’ disciples. They could as well get restless and bored. But what a deed could be worthwhile after the greatest Enemy of all had been done away with, and Sauron had been challenged and defeated? The Numenorians had come from the East. So in their pride and hubris, as Anardill put it, they started to look further west planning an invasion.