Reason Behind The Decline Of Arnor And The Rise Of Gondor.

[Kuruharan]

The tendency to infight and localize is what they would and did struggle against.

A point validated by the fact that Arnor already had fragmented before the appearance of the Witch-king. Arnor broke up in 861. The Witch-king didn't appear until 1300.

Without the Witch-king perhaps the situation would have stabilized into three successor states, but Arnor as a whole was doomed from the beginning because of geography and demographics.

Makes one wonder if things up north were really so hunky-dory during the Fourth Age after all...

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Makes one wonder if things up north were really so hunky-dory during the Fourth Age after all...

I'm not very optimistic about the restored North Kingdom.

Dúnedain of Gondor would have been needed to kick-start growth in Arnor, and Gondor itself was a shadow of its former population by the Fourth Age. I'd wonder how many Gondorians would actually have been willing to uproot themselves from the only life they'd ever known to go north and deal with the cold, snow, and a long-forsaken kingdom.

I think it's more likely the Men who ended up being the majority in Eriador were those with their origins in Bree or Dunland. I just can't see Arnor ever regaining its first-millenium Third Age glory, or even being on par with Fourth Age Gondor.

[Puddleglum]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I'm not very optimistic about the restored North Kingdom...

Perhaps not, but I think there are two factors that improve their chances.

First, there would now be a sense that they were one again and so be more able to share ideas, teaching, talents, etc. That had been largely lacking since the fall of Isuldur. They were no longer "The Two Kingdoms".

Related to that, while I agree few would want to "be" uprooted just to repopulate the north, it is entirely possible, that as the population grows in the south, more people will be attracted by the wide open lands available in the north - just as the American West was settled (tho without the dangers posed by American Indians). Which leads to the next factor ...

Second, With the fall of Sauron, the evil things that made the wild dangerous would be reduced and the population *COULD* again begin growing in the north (as well as in the south).

As Gandalf told Butterbur,

There will be comings and goings, and the evil things will be driven out of the wastelands. Indeed the waste in time will be waste no longer, and there will be people and fields where once there was wilderness.

Granted, that's an anticipation rather than a formal prophecy - but it does give a picture of the possibilities.

[Man-of-the-Wold]

The demographics of Eriador is of endless fascination, and in the earlier half of the Third Age, it probably had a more notable population base than we see in Frodo's time, but even that reflects somewhat recent declines in southeast Eriador and North-South interchange, with the ultimate end of Tharbad and displacement of people, as witnessed by the recent refugees in Bree. These I attribute to the policies of Saruman over a generation or so, in building up a sort of power base east and north of the Isen, bolstering the strength of the less civilized human elements, with feelers all the way to the Shire. A parallel being the hill-men of northeast Eriador, under the tutelage of Angmar, but ultimately wiped out with it.

Ultimately, the Kingdom of Arnor never enjoyed the population base, dynamics and resilience of Gondor, which had seemingly much heavier Numenorean settlement and denser indigenous peoples, so that from the beginning, it had the ability to support a number of cities and continuous areas of settlement, and to fight and grow. With these Southmen and later influxes of Northmen, the Dunedain of the South did intermingle, but reflective of Faramir's commentary, this was both inevitable and a blessing, however, mixed.

At some time or another Elves and Numenoreans can enjoy population spurts, such that by the WotR, mostly non-eldarin Elves are a rather dominant population group in Rhovanian. Ironically, long life seems sooner or later to work against sustained population growth, and in many ways, Tolkien's underlying and very Christian point is how the longer lifespans and ennobling of the Numenorean beyond the norm of men was a mistake, however, marvelous the achievements and potential for wisdom could be.

So, while intermingling is clearly portrayed as a saving grace for Gondor, I would not say that it is so in purely population terms. Human populations can bounce back from civil wars and such very easily if the conditions are right. What intermingling did for Gondor more than anything was to introduce fresh blood and clean out tendencies for decadence and arrogance.

In the North, the Dunedain may have represented a larger share of the population, but both they and the other men of the region were much smaller in number—say, less than one-tenth that of Gondor—especially after the War of the Last Alliance and the Disaster of the Gladden Fields.

Besides Breelanders and such, the only other people or allies that we know of were of Edainic, probably Beorian-related, decent. Of those remaining in Arthedain and Cardolan in the Third Age, I would submit that they did intermingle and were assimilated among the Dunedain of the North: although this evidently did not really include the royal line, which allowed for a truly remarkable person like Aragorn to arise.

But the people of Arnor in general were always simply just too thin on the ground to not decline in the face of Angmar and pestilence. Intermingling, had there been sufficient numbers with which to interbreed, might have helped, and early on, the Dunedain there were prone to the same excesses and self-inflicted sources of decline that occurred with the Kingdom of Gondor, but it was a ultimately a story of strategic vulnerabilities, bad fortune, and the numbers game working against Arnor.

[lindil]

Some of the decline may have been due to
* intermarrying, but who were they to marry [besides other Dunedain?] Breelanders? The culture's would have been very different in most cases. Other than the breelanders, the only Men north of Rohan we hear about are dunlendings [hillybilly breelanders more or less - they were both descended from the 'free edain ' of old, not from the numenoreans, and some scattered fisherman on the tip of one of the rivers.

We are never told of ANY population centers with non-Dunedain in the north other than Bree. I imagine Tharbad was a 'greater-Bree' in it's day. A meeting place for couriers North and South, the civilized Dunlanders, the remote fisherman, etc. Tharbad would have been, as long as 'Arnor' maintained it, the 'face' of the north kingdoms to the outside world.

*The Witch King - an heir of isildur [presumably having or knowing of the ring], was an especial reason for targeting the north kingdom. That and hatred of Elrond/Rivendell. This constant low-level warfare for how many hundreds of years? Kept a tap on the vigor of Arthedain and Cardolan. Who did remain allies w/ Rivendell and the Havens.

*Colder, harder lands populate more slowly than the bright sunny south!

As for who would [from Gondor] want to repopulate the North?

2nd sons of nobility who would not become minor Lords in their own right in the South spring immediately to mind.

Do not discount the fascination for the southerners that the mysterious homes of High King Aragorn and Queen Arwen would have had. Not too mention fascination with the Shire, Rivendell etc. In short Gondorians would have learned they [and Rohan] were NOT the only 'civilized' Men left.


So I think the days of hope, expansion, etc after the fall of Sauron would have fueled repopulated Arnor, for a while...

And what better way to get the attention of the new king than to volunteer to repopulate Arnor?

[Andsigil]

Unfortunately I'm coming into this thread a bit late, and only have had time to skim a few replies.

Has anyone mentioned Gondor's favorable geography? It is ringed by mountains, which act both as a barrier against invasion and a source for rivers. Combined with the rivers, the mild climate would allow the land to yield excellent harvests.

[Kuruharan]

I do think lindil has a good point about motivations for people to move north after the war. Its a pity that Elessar banned outsiders from the Shire. It could have become a Middle-earth Disneyland and tourist Mecca.

Or...maybe its a good thing Elessar banned outsiders from the Shire to prevent it from becoming a Middle-earth Disneyland and tourist Mecca.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Andsigil

Unfortunately I'm coming into this thread a bit late, and only have had time to skim a few replies.

Has anyone mentioned Gondor's favorable geography? It is ringed by mountains, which act both as a barrier against invasion and a source for rivers. Combined with the rivers, the mild climate would allow the land to yield excellent harvests.

Let's not go painting Arnor as a barren wasteland, though--comparable to Greenland in Eric the Red's day. The Shire clearly had a mild climate--with excellent farmland, rivers, little snow, high produce. While it is true that the North Farthing was a bit cooler, I don't think it was far enough north to make a great difference, nor that Annúminas and Fornost were so much farther as to make them utterly uninhabitable.

In any case, even if the re-settlers of the 4th Age were deterred from going as far as Annúminas, there is no reason they could not have focused resettlement on Cardolan--at the latitude of the southern parts of the Shire and comparable and nearer to the presumed Dúnedainic settlements in the Angle--or even in southern Cardolan, about Tharbad. We know that Aragorn re-established Annúminas as Arnor's capital, but we don't know how much of the incoming settlers went that far north--Gandalf seems to imply to Butterbur that this would happen, but perhaps it was merely the increase in business at Bree that would follow, as the way station on the way to Annúminas and the Shire.

Indeed, it would make good sense to me for Eriador to have been resettled from the South. Tharbad and the coast would have had better opportunities for trade, thanks to the sea, and Gondorian settlers might have found the land just the other side of Andrast more familiar and homelike--and also less of a distant journey. Tharbad also continues to make great sense as the meeting of the nations--now including Rohan as well as Gondor and Arnor.

What's more, with Rohan now in the picture (the Éotheod did not settle the Mark until a few hundred years after Arnor fell), I do not see the Dúnedain wishing to lose control of Minihiriath, as both kingdoms experienced a population boom. I think they would have preferred to see Rohan expand past the Anduin than over the Isen. What's more, southern Cardolan was proximate to Dunland. Even granting the favourable relations between the Dúnedain, on the one hand, and Rohan and Dunland on the other during Elessar's reign, it would have made sense for the Reunited Kingdom to have put its energy first on repopulating the crucial central region--which, in any case, might have been more favorable to Gondorian settlers.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

The tendency to infight and localize is what they would and did struggle against.

That is, as I've also thought, the greatest factor to Arnor's decline and Gondor remaining relatively strong. Aside from the Witch-King doing lots of damage himself, and Gondor not having to deal with Sauron for thousands of years yet.

Once Arnor decided to divide politically, they were made weaker. It makes the successful "divide and conquer" strategy a lot easier for the Witch-King. If they could somehow unite forces against him, they may have been able to salvage some sort of a kingdom. But once splitting, and the infighting between Rhudaur and Cardolan over possession of certain lands, that spells disaster.

Now Gondor underwent similar infighting in the Kin-stife, and I also think it's shear size was an advantage. It was made weaker in the Kin-strife, but Gondor as a single politcal entity remained in tact. Castamir wanted all of Gondor, Eldacar said no. Civil war ensues, Gondor loses some of it's lands, but in the end this is how things in the world usually get decided. Gondor never broke apart and decided to divide up into separate kingdoms, they were just slightly weakened by losing mostly Umbar and creating future enemies.

Also, even after the end of Anarion's line in Gondor, this is where I give a lot of credit to Mardil and the following ruling Stewards. They maintained control and were accepted to rule in the King's place until the King returns. Having that type of political stability is priceless in keeping a strong, long-lasting kingdom.