End of the Second Age

[jammi567]

Why did the second age end where it did. Why didn't it end when the numonorians believed that sauron was dead after the drowning of numenor?

[Alcuin]

The Eldar marked the ends of the Ages. Year One of the First Age begins not with the Rebellion of the Noldor but the first rising of the Sun. The end of the Second Age is the overthrow of Sauron and Isildur’s seizure of the One Ring, not the downfall of Númenor: over 120 years pass between the downfall of Númenor and the overthrow of Sauron.

Likewise, the end of the Third Age, according to the Eldar, was not the downfall of Sauron and the destruction of the One Ring, but the departure of Elrond and the other Keepers of the Three Rings 2½ years later. The King’s Reckoning in Gondor, however, set the beginning of the Fourth Age with the end of Sauron and the One Ring

[jammi567]

So it was upto the elves, not the people who had their home distroyed and believed sauron to be dead, who decided when the ages ended. that's just wrong.

[Earniel]

Why is that wrong? Men and Elves are allowed to have their own time reckoning, I'd say. It was Men's choice to follow the Elves in their reckoning or not. I sincerely doubt the Elves pushed it on them. I'm guessing the Numenoreans found it easier to follow the Elves' reckoning after the fall because at that time their alliance was renewed so to speak. With the fading of the Elves over the Third Aera, you see Men preferring their own accounting, even the Hobbits kept a different one from the rest of Men.

[jammi567]

Ohhhh, ok then.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

So it was upto the elves, not the people who had their home distroyed and believed sauron to be dead, who decided when the ages ended. that's just wrong.

No. The Eldar are A) Firstborn and B) superior. Therefore, not wrong.

[jammi567]

Are you having a laugh with superior! if you notice, men for the whole of the first and second age (minus numenor) are innocent, and are always caught up in the elves evil actions.

[Alcuin]

...if you notice, men for the whole of the first and second age (minus numenor) are innocent, and are always caught up in the elves evil actions.Men aren’t innocent in any fashion. The entire human race engages in a primal rebellion against Eru before ever they encounter the Elves. Then, while most of Second Age Men in Middle-earth take Sauron for their god-king, the Númenóreans rebel against Eru and assault Valinor.

Neither were Elves without sin. They also rebelled, but against the Valar, the appointed Authorities of Arda. They slew one another in three Kin-Slayings despite all they knew and understood.

But the Tale of the First Age is told primarily from the perspective of the Elves, who maintained the histories of those days. The Elves alone knew anything of the time before the rising of the Sun. The Last Alliance of Elves and Men was the direct descendent of the ancient alliance of the Eldar and the Edain. No doubt the Dúnedain measured time before and after the Akallabêth; but the days of settled life did not begin until Sauron was overthrown. Everything changed at that point for both Elves and Men in Middle-earth: Arnor and Gondor took their different paths, and Elves and Men took different paths.

Finally, you should consider that the Tale of the Lord of the Rings is told almost exclusively from the point of view of the Hobbits of the Shire, and they were in turn heavily influenced twice by the Eldar of Rivendell: first in that Bilbo’s histories of Middle-earth and whole view of the end of the Third Age were based almost exclusively on what he learned in Elrond’s household; and secondly, in that what the hobbits learned from Aragorn and the Dúnedain were colored by the fact that for over 1,000 years, the Chieftains of the Dúnedain were succored by Elrond and lived in a perpetual alliance with Rivendell in which they were by necessity the junior partners: again, everything the Northern Dúnedain reported would be viewed from a mostly Elvish perspective, including that which Aragorn knew: this in turn would influence scholarly and sagacious opinion in what the hobbits learned from sources in Gondor.

That, I think, is ultimately the explanation. The conceit of the story (that is, the fictional source of the story, rather than its actual construction by Tolkien over 60 years in the real world) is that it its whole rationale is that it is a collection of three different works written essentially by two hobbits with assistance from a third and a few men and elves.

Within the Tale, we are dealing with these three works: There and Back Again, Bilbo’s story of the Quest of Erebor; The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King, Frodo’s story of the Quest to destroy the One Ring; and Translations from the Elvish, Bilbo’s study of the works maintained by Elrond and the Eldar of Rivendell.The other information contained in the books was contributed by Sam, Merry, Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, and the scribes of Gondor (including one of the grandsons of Faramir and Éowyn), but altogether, this information was dwarfed by that written down by Frodo and especially Bilbo. Except for his autobiographical [wink, wink] story of his adventure with Thorin & Co., everything Bilbo wrote was exactly what his title said: translations from Elvish. Everything Frodo wrote was heavily influenced by Bilbo and his view of the world.

Now step out of the conceit and into the real world. Tolkien is studying language: he invented Quenya and Sindarin as experiments in how languages work and evolve. To do this, he created a world in which they could exist and evolve. Because he is essentially interested in Elvish languages, he creates a series of Elvish tales to describe his thought-experiment. That’s clearly an oversimplification of Tolkien and his writing, and in the sense that it truly grasps what he was doing when he made up all these stories, it describes at best only part of what was happening. But if you’re asking why the overwhelming perspective of Tolkien’s work is Elvish, including the delineation of the Ages of Arda, I think it is essentially correct.

Ultimately, this is a story, a myth for English-speakers, who lost forever their own myths in the deeps of the past, the Dark Ages. It is told this way by the man who crafted the myth.

[jammi567]

Wow! nice explanation. thank you for that. helps to clear things up.

[Gordis]

So it was upto the elves, not the people who had their home distroyed and believed sauron to be dead, who decided when the ages ended. that's just wrong.
Very probably Men did start the new time reckoning with the downfall of Numenor(though it is not mentioned anywhere), because they believed Sauron to be dead, never to return. But the sly Elves knew better, because they knew about the existance of the One Ring, and expected Sauron to return. Soon Men understood their error (the hard way), so they started to follow the Elves. :)

[jammi567]

logical thinking, i guess.