[freeciv-data] Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Re: Fixes and additions for nation files

[Paul Zastoupil <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Someone brought his books today! :)

Thanks Brandon.

On Thu, Dec 12, 2002 at 06:26:37PM -0500, Brandon Craig Rhodes wrote:
> 
> "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> > That's OK, I'll pick nits right back at you.  The Gondorians don't
> > describe themselves as Dunedain in the books. :-)
> 
> And they avoid this description with good reason - the survivors from
> the downfall could not have numbered more than a few hundred, even
> assuming they were packed tightly on those seven ships; and they were
> vastly outnumbered by the people of the coast where they established
> their rule.  (Yes, there were Númenoreans living in the fortresses
> from which Númenor held the coasts in subjection, but these seem not
> to have been among the Faithful, and Faramir tells Frodo in IV.5 that
> `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.')  The surviving Númenoreans became the
> aristocracy of Gondor, and they numbered so few that only the royal
> house of Gondor seems to have attempted to maintain pure blood, the
> basis of their royalty:
> 
>    [Faramir said,] `And this I remember of Boromir as a boy, when we
>    together learned the tale of our sires and the history of our city,
>    that always it displeased him that his father was not king. "How
>    many hundreds of years needs it to make a steward a king, if the
>    king returns not?" he asked. "Few years, maybe, in other places of
>    less royalty," my father answered. "In Gondor ten thousand years
>    would not suffice."' (IV.5)
> 
> But this effort to maintain purity within a small stock depleted their
> strength until their line finally failed:
> 
>    [Faramir said,] `We of my house are not of the line of Elendil,
>    though the blood of Númenor is in us. For we reckon back our line
>    to Mardil, the good steward, who ruled in the king's stead when he
>    went away to war. And that was King Eärnur, last of the line of
>    Anárion, and childless, and he came never back. And the stewards
>    have governed the city since that day, though it was many
>    generations of Men ago.' (IV.5)
> 
> For the most part men of Gondor had little Númenorean blood at all,
> and even the aristocracy could claim only mixed descent:
> 
>    For [old age] [the men of Gondor] had found no cure; and indeed the
>    span of their lives had now waned to little more than that of other
>    men, and those among them who passed the tale of five score years
>    with vigour were grown few, save in some houses of purer blood.
>    (V.8)
> 
> Therefore it seems that only the royalty of Arnor and Gondor could
> ever have been described as Númenorean, and once the Southern line
> failed the title could only be claimed by the royal line in the North
> - and thus, at the time of the War of the Ring, by Aragorn and the men
> of his household.  In Gondor were no Númenoreans.
> 
> -- 
> Brandon Craig Rhodes   brandon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx   http://rhodesmill.org/brandon

-- 
Paul Zastoupil