Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-29212138-20170526182111/@comment-25101089-20170527205805

Dragonovith wrote:

High King Ithilion wrote: "The Men of Númenor were settled far and wide on the shores and seaward regions of the Great Lands, but for the most part they fell into evils and follies. Many became enamoured of the Darkness and the black arts; some were given over wholly to idleness and ease, and some fought among themselves, until they were conquered in their weakness by the wild men."

This is damning evidence against the Numenoreans in Far Harad tbh. Also note that that army was *led* by the Numenoreans, not made of them. Furthermore, those Numenoreans were the exiled lords of Umbar.

Ithilion, Discussions Moderator (Auta i lómë) 19:27, May 27, 2017 (UTC) There are two ways to interpret that quote:

I think the quote leaves room to be interpreted like this.
 * All Númenóreans who settled in Far Harad were eventually conquered by wild men.
 * Of the Númenóreans who settled in Far Harad, only those who fell into evils and follies were conquered by wild men.



Let's remember also that these are supposed to be 'real' histories, translated from an imagined real-world Red Book - not categorical statements of an omniscient narrator. These words would have been written by some Gondorian scholar, who almost certainly could not have had full knowledge of the fate of every single Númenórean colony, large and small, near and far.

The statements on Umbar are decisive, as we would expect for the nearest realm of the Harad. But I do not think it contradicts the canon to imagine other Númenórean colonies in the far south, whose fates Gondor could only make educated guesses at, based on foreign rumours and hearsay. And some of those would have been Black Númenórean.

The next question, then, is whether it fits with the theme of Tolkien's works to imagine that Black Númenórean colonies survived into the late Third Age. It is true that things fade over time, and the glory of Númenor passes, and also that Evil is weak and ultimately impotent. But the Black Númenóreans did survive in Umbar as a distinct people as late as circa Third Age 1000. If they can survive ~1000 years, it's certainly possible they could have survived ~3000 elsewhere, in another southern haven which was more politically stable, away from the constant turmoil of struggle and conflict against Gondor.

The last question is - is it realistic? I don't think it's realistic to assume that a colony could have remained ethnically pure Black Númenórean over a period of three thousand years (unless it was entirely isolated - but it doesn't make sense to found colonies in isolated places). What I think is more realistic is that the Númenóreans would have interbred with the locals and yet retained their Númenórean identity, as I proposed in my earlier comment.