The Fall of Númenor

With the story of Númenor, a retelling of the Atlantis myth is found in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium. Númenor was initially an almost paradisiacal island with happy and virtuous people who were blessed with long life. They acted as helpers and teachers to the people of Middle-earth and were worshipped by them like gods. But while the power of the Númenórians increased, their happiness diminished: insatiable greed for power and riches, as well as the unfulfillable longing for immortality, became the causes of the moral decline of the greatest world power of the Second Age. The people of the Númenor split into two parties and in Middle Earth they acted as lords and masters.

The lecture The Fall of Númenor describes the path from the rise to the fall of Númenor and also addresses the portrayal of the Númenórians in the Amazon series The Lord of the Rings – The Rings of Power.