Question about Aragorn being Isuldur's heir.

[KenM]

I thought Isuldur did not have and children, thats why Gondor was placed in the hands of the stewards. if this is true, how can Aragorn be Isuldur's heir and the true line of the king??

[The Moose]

sorry, but AFAIK, isildur did have some children, but i can't remember their names. they separated from gondor, and dwelt in arnor.

the house of the stewards came in about halfway through the 3rd age, when Earnur was challenged to a duel by the witch king. earnur initially refused, but after a period of several years, earnur eventually accepted the challenge. the challenge wsa in Minas Morgul. so, Earnur left Mardil (the first steward) with the charge of defending the city and the realm of gondor until the King should return. but earnur was killed by the witch king, and thus the house of the stewards continued right through until denethor and faramir

[aegon IV]

Aragorn is the descendent of Isulder 4th son vali... valin.. a cripes

1 cant remember the name.

[The Moose]

valandil is the name you're looking for.

isildur's other sons lineage didn't continue in the northern kingdom

[Lexia78]

Isildur has four sons. Three of the four die with him at The Disaster of Gladden Fields. Valandil, Isildur's youngest son, survives and becomes King of Arnor later on. That is why Aragorn is a ranger from the Northern kingdom of the Dunedain and not a Son of Gondor. Hope this helps. :)

[KenM]

Yes it did help, never could get into the books, but love the movies. They never really say Isildur had children in movies.

[The Moose]

that certainly helped me with what happened the the other 3 sons.

you don't happen to remember what happened to isildur's younger brother do you?

[Lexia78]

He died at the Siege of Barad-Dur ;)

[The Moose]

aha, knew that he died, but i wasn't too sure where. thanks

[Andrey83]

valandil was the 4th son of isildur. He was born in imladris. His 3 brothers where slain in the Gladden Fields.

[The Moose]

cool, thanks andrey

[Morphius DOH]

Is there any sites that show the lineages of important charachter and events that happened around then? I'm not familiar with some of these event and would like to read more about them.

[Andrey83]

Arda. Best site ever for information on middle earth. It has everything.

I dont remember the link, but go to www.theonering.net and link. There there is a link for it. Enclopdia (sp?) of Arda.

[Morphius DOH]

Thnx. And for those who want the direct link: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm

[Andrey83]

Ah, there it is :)

It takes some time to get used to the site, but once you learn to use it fully, it is the best there is.

[The Moose]

cool, thanks for the link Morphius

[The Prophet]

Long story short: Isildur wasn't really the king of "Gondor". The movies mess this up:

3,000 years pass between the Prologue and the War of the Ring (Ring Quest), 3,019 years to be exact.

Isildur was NOT the last king of Gondor.

Here's how it goes: remember those various references to "Numenor" and the "Numenorians"? (i.e. "the blood of Numenor is now spent; it's pride and dignity forgotten").


***Numenor was an island nation of Men; it is the "Atlantis of Middle-earth"--> this is more than just a small connection; the ELVISH (Quenya) name for Numenor is "Atalante", making it an obvious parallel to Numenor.


Anyway, remember that the Second Age ends and the Third Age begins with the first downfall of Sauron, as seen in the Prologue.

During the Second Age, about 100 years before it ended or so, Numenor sank into the Sea in a catacylsm (it's very complicated, but that will do).

The survivors were those who heeded warnings of disaster early, and were out on ships when it happened. The great storm that resulted blew their ships to Middle-earth, and they founded the "kingdoms in exile" (so called because they were 'exiled' now that Numenor was destroyed).

**The surviving Numenoreans that arrived in Middle-earth were now called the Dunedain (from Elvish; Dun=west, and edain=men, thus Dunedain=Men of the West, because Numenor was in the middle of the great ocean to the WEST of Middle-earth).

These first survivors are the ones that fight Sauron, but their descendants are just called Dunedain. You may remember this from some scenes where they talk about Aragorn being a Dunedain Ranger. Aragorn being one of their descendants.

***The leader of the survivors was Elendil: he's the King that Sauron kills in the Prologue.

Elendil's TWO sons were Isildur and Anarion, and the three of them led the surviving Dunedain.

They founded *TWO* kingdoms for the Dundedain in Middle-earth, along the coast: Arnor in the north (the Shire was part of it) and Gondor in the south.

Elendil was the High-King of the United Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor; both were one big country.

Elendil also directly ruled Arnor, while Isildur and Anarion jointly ruled Gondor.


***During the War of the Last Alliance against Sauron (in the Prologue) Anarion died in battle before the final battle, so he dies before the movie starts. Then Elendil dies, so Isildur is the last High-king.

*****Here's what the movies don't really explain: Anarion had a son, Meneldil.

Isildur decided that he still couldn't directly rule everything, so Isildur decided that while remaining High-king of the united Kingdom, he would ride back north to rule Arnor, while leaving Meneldil as King of Gondor.

Problem was, on his way back north, Isildur and his men were ambushed (as seen in film) during the Massacre of the Gladden Fields. Isildur himself had four sons, but three were with him during the ambush so they died too. His only living son was the young Valandil, who at the time was in Rivendell.


So Valandil son of Isildur became King of Arnor, and Meneldil son of Anarion was King of Gondor. They were first cousins. But while they were never hostile to each other, King Meneldil said he didn't think Valandil should be king of both countries; so Arnor and Gondor split into two separate countries.

___________

So for the next roughly 2,000 years, the Heirs of Isildur ruled Arnor, and the Heirs of Anarion ruled Gondor; ***The catch is that Isildur and Anarion were brothers, and that before the split their faither Elendil ruled a united kingdom.

Arnor was never powerful and only got weaker over time, while Gondor grew in power. So Sauron secretly sent the Lord of the Nazgul to create a dummy evil country to border Arnor called "Angmar", earning him the name the "Witch-king of Angmar".

Then things happened fast: in the year 1974 of the Third Age, Arnor, which had been shrinking for centuries, was destroyed as a country and it's last King, Arvedui, was killed; But Arvedui had a son and everyone knew it, it's just that so many died in the climactic fight with Angmar that their weren't really enough people left in Arnor to make a country. (Angmar also got destroyed, although the Witch-king escaped).
Arnor was destroyed, but the Heirs of Isildur lived on as the wandering Dunedain Rangers. They were (potential) kings with no country.

Gondor got more powerful over the years, but about year 2,000 of the Third Age, there was a King who had no children who decided to meet the challenge of the Lord of the Nazgul in single combat; he died ("never by the hand of man shall he fall").

Thus, the Heirs of Anarion, rulers of Gondor for 2,000 years, died out with no survivors.

The Ruling Stewards came to power after this, from a family of prominent nobles who were traditionally aides to the King.

****So you see the Ruling Steward didn't rule in the place of the loss of Isildur, they ruled in the place of the loss of the Heirs of Anarion.

So for 1,000 years before the events of LOTR, Gondor was a kingdom withot a king.


*********But Isildur (of Arnor) and Anarion (of Gondor) were brothers, and their father Elendil had been the king of both countries. Because Anarion's line had ended, only a descendant of Isildur could also be held to be the only heir of Elendil---> In the books, Aragorn is called "The Heir of ELENDIL" as much as he is called the "Heir of Isildur".


So at the end of ROTK, Aragorn is not crowned "King of Gondor" he is crowned "King of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor".

Using the resources of still-intact Gondor, Aragorn rebuilds Arnor in the north. The Reunited Kingdom is a vast empire ruled by Aragorn, that included all lands that once belonged to Arnor and Gondor at the greatest extent, excluding only Rohan to which it was permanently allied (Rohan used to be part of Gondor called Calenardhon before it was given away as a gift to the Horsemen of the Wild, the Eotheod, who were then called the Rohirrim and named their new county Rohan; Gondor wanted to creat a new buffer country in a sparsely populated region; Rohan only got created 500 years before LOTR begins).

[The Moose]

wow. that's all i can say. thanks a massive heap dude

[Undome-Elenamin]

Holy crap!The time you must've spent writing that and looking it up! Unless you have it all by memory which if you do deserves a WOW! I didn't know all of that. I knew about Isildur and Anarion and about Numenor but the rest was something I never grasped. Wow, thanks alot.

[Kerry from Cali]

The Prophet~

your post rocks! thank you so much for that wonderful, detailed analysis. You really helped explain so much!!!



:applaud: :applaud: :applaud:

[Dilophosaurus89]

Aside from the his three grown sons that were slain with Isildur, he had one other child in Rivendall

[HellaGood]

Wow, thanks for that big post! Very enlightning!

[The Prophet]

Holy crap!The time you must've spent writing that and looking it up! Unless you have it all by memory which if you do deserves a WOW! I didn't know all of that. I knew about Isildur and Anarion and about Numenor but the rest was something I never grasped. Wow, thanks alot.


Er, I do know all of this from memory: this is in no way complicated. The book explained it very clearly.

[Andrey83]

Originally posted by The Prophet
Er, I do know all of this from memory: this is in no way complicated. The book explained it very clearly.

Hm, let me put it this way.

The names of all the countries and cities in the whole world isnt complicated, but it is still impressive to know them all ;)

Hence, it is very impressive that you know all that you know.

Take the compliment! ;) :p

[Cloud Buster]

Prophet --

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

I say this because I've known what you just explained (while not in as much detail), and I didn't want to get into it here, because I didn't think I could explain it well. Furthermore, I really, REALLY am annoyed by the fact that Isildur is specifically named "the last king of Gondor" in the movies.

In fact, they were just vague enough about the ruling of Gondor to be accurate, until Legolas had to have a line that screwed it up in ROTK. When approaching the Paths of the Dead, Legolas explains the story of the Oathbreakers to Gimli. He says that they swore an oath to "the last king of Gondor". He goes on to say that when they didn't fight, "Isildur cursed them", which means he's saying that Isildur was the last king of Gondor!!

It drove me nuts, because I knew it wasn't right!! The line of stewards began because Earnur rode against the Witch King. I think you have one small detail wrong, (but I may be incorrect in my understanding also).

Gondor got more powerful over the years, but about year 2,000 of the Third Age, there was a King who had no children who decided to meet the challenge of the Lord of the Nazgul in single combat; he died ("never by the hand of man shall he fall").

Earnur rode to Minas Morgul to face the challenge of the Witch King in TA 2050. As I understand it, he appointed a steward to the throne before leaving, commanding the steward to rule in his stead until he returned. Earnur never returned from Minas Morgul, presumably he was killed by the Witch King (duh). But the steward, and those who followed in the line of stewards, were bound by the final order of the king -- to rule in his stead until the king returned. Hence, the "return" of the king.

At least that's how I understood it...but I could be mistaken, you're clearly better versed in this than I am, Prophet! ;)

[Anglachel_Sword]

Just an advice
Better read the books, they are easy to read, and pretty cool, very emotive. Web sites are sometimes gives one-person interpretations, not trustworthy, cos Tolkien depends on people own feelings .
All explanation are in the collection of books
People who says love LOTR only 4 the movies and haven´t read the books (all the books), sad, pretty sad, they´re missing all, the true about the story, including the magic in those books.

[Queen Arwen]

Originally posted by Cloud Buster
Prophet --

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

I say this because I've known what you just explained (while not in as much detail), and I didn't want to get into it here, because I didn't think I could explain it well. Furthermore, I really, REALLY am annoyed by the fact that Isildur is specifically named "the last king of Gondor" in the movies.

In fact, they were just vague enough about the ruling of Gondor to be accurate, until Legolas had to have a line that screwed it up in ROTK. When approaching the Paths of the Dead, Legolas explains the story of the Oathbreakers to Gimli. He says that they swore an oath to "the last king of Gondor". He goes on to say that when they didn't fight, "Isildur cursed them", which means he's saying that Isildur was the last king of Gondor!!

It drove me nuts, because I knew it wasn't right!! The line of stewards began because Earnur rode against the Witch King. I think you have one small detail wrong, (but I may be incorrect in my understanding also).

Gondor got more powerful over the years, but about year 2,000 of the Third Age, there was a King who had no children who decided to meet the challenge of the Lord of the Nazgul in single combat; he died ("never by the hand of man shall he fall").

Earnur rode to Minas Morgul to face the challenge of the Witch King in TA 2050. As I understand it, he appointed a steward to the throne before leaving, commanding the steward to rule in his stead until he returned. Earnur never returned from Minas Morgul, presumably he was killed by the Witch King (duh). But the steward, and those who followed in the line of stewards, were bound by the final order of the king -- to rule in his stead until the king returned. Hence, the "return" of the king.

At least that's how I understood it...but I could be mistaken, you're clearly better versed in this than I am, Prophet! ;)

No, I got the same impression as well, CloudBuster. And I am similarly enraged every time I see that scene in ROTK because one, Legolas is useless, and two, Earnur was the last King of Gondor. Isildur could not have cursed them since Isildur died millennia before Earnur ever needed the aid of the Men of the Mountain.

**By the way, the names of the three elder sons of Isildur can be found in either The Silmarillion or in the Appendices.**

For The Prophet:
I admire your extensive knowledge of the history of Middle-earth, and I agree that it is not as complicated as some make it out to be. However, I also have to add that having a love of genealogy, history, and Tolkien has a lot to do with being able to remember all this stuff without constantly getting headaches. That being said, accept my congratulations for getting this thoroughly grounded in the minds of everyone present.

[Drizzt240]

Wow, I just read every single post in this thread and you guys have all been great. YOu guys talked me into reading the books a second time because I didn't catch ALL of that stuff.