Isildur's Heirs???????

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Darth Vicious
Watching FOTR and TTT i was under the impression that Aragorn was Isildurs son but then i realized that Isildur died 3,000 yrs ago right after the war so then Aragorn cant be his son but my question is, we know that eventually Aragorn assumes the role of king but How come nobody stepped up to take leadership before Aragorn? Why didnt his father and ancestor became King?

grishnakah
Good question



Maybe because of the same reason that aragorn didnt smokin'

Darth Vicious
Which is? I still dont understand his reasons!

GABRIEL05
perhaps Aragorns kinfolk were afraid. They knew the prophecies and legends they probably thought themselves too weak to resist the power of the ring.

Aragorn#1
Aragorns(II) father is Arathorn(II), iam not sure who Arathorns father is but heir means hes of the same blood not necessarily his father but ill see what i can find out Arathorns father... (II)= the 2nd

eldarion
Heir of Isildur through thirty-nine generations. = aragorn

Isildur and his 4 sons were all slain in the disaster of the galladen fields. I am not sure, but at least 1 of them had a child before this happened and then their mother and teh child went into hiding as I understand it...I'll try to find more later.

Darth Vicious
Thanks guys!

turin
boy thats a question that requires a huge answer. when isildur, his father elendil, and isildurs brother fled the destruction of numenor they established to realms, arnor and gondor. arnor was ruled by elendil in the north and gondor ruled by isildur and his brother (forget his name) well after the last allaince isildur being the only surviving one left gondor in the hands of his nephew and went to rule arnor. he was cut down in the gladen fields but his son was left in imladris. well his son valandil took up the rule of the north. after many generations the kingdom of arnor diminished split up and was finally thrown down by the witchking of angmar, but the heir indured and remained in his kingdom as kind of a refugee. well in gondor the line of the heir failed (earnur being the last king killed by the witchking in minus morgul). so the stewards took over rule and did so for hundreds of years. hopefully that helps. isildurs family tree only had one branch still going and that was in the north. thus aragorn is the only remaining heir.

Aragorn#1
wow i was off! he he, hey i tried sorry wink big grin whistle

fini
*fini waits for exa's answer*

Kitoky
Turin pretty much has got it packed.

Discos
*bump*

sorry I was just bored and found this topic, can the steward deny the claim of the thrown to the King?

as one of the heirs did in fact try and claim kingship but was denied

Cynethryth

Agent Elrond
In case anyone can't picture this, here's Aragorn's Family Tree:
Aragorn II Dunedain
Arathorn II
Arador
Argonui
Arathorn I
Arassuil
Arahad II
Aravorn
Aragost
Arahad I
Araglas
Aragorn I
Aravir
Aranuir
Arahael
Aranarth

Arvedui Arthedain
Araphant
Araval
Arveleg II
Arvegil
Argeleb II
Araphor
Arveleg I
Argeleb I
Malvegil
Celebrindor
Celepharn
Mallor
Beleg
Amlaith

Earendur Anor
Elendur
Valandur
Tarondor
Tacil
Arantar
Eldacar
Valandil *forth son*
Isildur Anarion
Elendil
Amandil

Thorondor
it's back to front stick out tongue

Discos
lol it sure is,

but cheers anyways AE

Agent Elrond
well, it was easier to trace it back, than to trace it to him, so that's why it's like that

Discos
very well roll eyes (sarcastic)

but as Cyn said was quite the answer to my question

I'm dead...
erm, kinda bumping this thread up. smile I'm in the mood for typing long stuff. shifty

Exa, feel free to correct some of my details. smile

Long story short:

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

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"wink.

***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 Dunedain 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 he decided that 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 Disaster 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 (Earnur) 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 (The Witch King) fall"wink.

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 without 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 country Rohan; Gondor wanted to creat a new buffer country in a sparsely populated region; Rohan only got created 500 years before LOTR begins).

Exabyte

Ushgarak
Easy to call Earnur a fool, but he led the army that destroyed Angmar.

If Aragorn was the greatest in his line since Arvedui, then Boromir was considered to be the like return of Earnur.

The dispute between Gondor and Arnor about whether Arvedui's claim was good was based on a dispute over two things:

1. Whether the line of descent could pass through the female. Arvedui said yes, Gondor said no.

2. Whether Isildur intended for Arnor and Gondor to be divided. Arvedui said no, Gondor... kinda didn't reply because they were losing the argument, and stopped talking to him.

Tolkien makes it clear that Arvedui was in the right- the descendant of the High King of a Unified realm and with every right to take that throne- and then choose to leave someone to rule in his stead if he so wished. Because Gondor chose badly, the chance was lost for the the great rebuilding of the Kingdom of man to happen then, instead of 1000 years later under Aragorn.

Exabyte
Ok, fool is kinda the wrong word... but I think he should have tried to keep his emotions down a little. He flew into a rage too easily, couldn't really control himself when somebody made fun of him, like the Witchking did.

Earnur-Boromir is an interesting comparison yes their characters are pretty similar

Ushgarak
"Boromir, five years the elder, beloved by his father, was like him in face and pride, but little else. Rather he was a man after the sort of King Earnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms; fearless and strong, but caring little for lore, save the tales of old battles."

From the Appendices. I would not be surprised if this was actually a deliberate mirroring by Tolkien- save that that time around, it is Arvedui who dies first and Earnur who leads the triumphant battle afterwards- but is still killed later by his flaws.

I'm dead...
laughing

Thanks. big grin

Discos
what ever happened to Earnur? was there anything else wrote on him after just waltzing into the Morgul no expression

Exabyte
No, there was nothing, no info bout his death, thats why they had the Stewards - otherwise they wouldve made somebody else king, some relative of him or whatever, but as nobody knew if hed ever return, they just made the stewards rule in the meantime... for the next 1930 years shifty

Discos
lol fair enough,

Ush was sort of right - "fool" indeed

walking into bleeding Minas Morgul, wise up erm

its like being an english fan sitting in the germany stand at a football match (the match being Germany Vs England)

Ushgarak
He was a proud man, and he was getting old.

I bet if you had told him he would die there, he would have said better that than to drift into old age and infirmity.

Discos
mmm......good point,

are you saying he knew his time was up so he just died in "bestway seems fit to him"

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