Thursday, 25 June 2015

lord of the rings - Would Black Númeoreans be more powerful than Aragorn and the Dunedain?

No.



The Black Númenoreans were descended from Second Age "King's Men" of Númenor, and a footnote to Return of the King Appendix A notes this about them:




(Umbar) was a stronghold of the King's Men, who were afterwards called the Black Númenoreans, corrupted by Sauron, and who hated above all the followers of Elendil.




The Númenoreans who were corrupted by Sauron had fallen; they had shorter lifespans, gave up their lives unwillingly, and were even borderline insane, as the Akallabeth notes:




For whereas aforetime men had grown slowly old, and had laid them down in the end to sleep, when they were weary at last of the world, now madness and sickness assailed them; and yet they were afraid to die and go out into the dark, the realm of the lord that they had taken; and they cursed themselves in their agony. And men took weapons in those days and slew one another for little cause...




The same footnote I cite in my first quote goes on to say:




After the fall of Sauron their race swiftly dwindled or became merged with the Men of Middle-earth, but they inherited without lessening their hatred of Gondor. Umbar, therefore, was only taken at great cost.




So any notion that the Black Númenoreans were more pure-blooded (perhaps because of the events of the Kin Strife) must be discarded: they weren't.

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