Fans of JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth have their first look at Numenor in Amazon The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of power season 1, and many noticed how much it looked like Minas Tirith. Numenor had never appeared on screen before, and it was not used as a setting in Tolkien’s The Hobbit Or The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, making The reigns of power One of the earliest depictions of the legendary location. The kingdom of Númenor was the main location of much of The Rings of PowerThe third episode of season 1, “Adar,” quickly became one of the most important Middle-earth locations in the show.
Despite being an entirely new venue for screen adaptations of Tolkien’s work, diligent fans of The Lord of the Rings May have noticed a few familiar sights, such as a White Tree. The tree featured in Númenor bears a striking resemblance to Nimloth, shown in Minas Tyrith in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. However, while viewers only familiar with The Lord of the Rings Cinema may have found this detail surprising, those familiar with Tolkien’s literary works did not. There is a simple explanation why Númenor looks like Minas Tirith – Gondor was founded by the island’s refugees after Númenor was destroyed.
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How Numenor and Gondor are connected
The last survivors of Númenor built Minas Tirith
The similarity between Númenor and Minas Tirith is no coincidence. Even Numenor does not appear in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he still provided a rich backstory for the island kingdom. Tolkien’s world-building has long been unmatched, and the history, culture and geography of Númenor are all provided in The Lord of the Rings‘ Appendices, as well as in The Silmarillion And Unfinished Tales.
The founding king of Númenor was Elrond’s brother, Elros, who chose to live among mortal men rather than the elves. In fact, a majority of Numenoreans are descendants of Elros, many with half-elven DNA such as Aragorn. Despite playing a huge role in the study of Middle Earth, Numenor never appeared in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Peter Jackson’s adaptations due to the fact that it was destroyed in the Second Age as punishment by Eru Ilúvatar for Numenoreans breaking the ban of the Valar.
Despite the catastrophe killing most of the Numenarians, those who were considered loyal, loyal to Valar and the elves, managed to escape. Elendil and his sons, Isildur and Anarion, led the faithful onto nine ships, taking with them part of the tree that would later become Nimloth and Narsil. As the ships sailed towards Middle-earth, Elendil became separated from Isildur and Anarion, whose ships were bound south. Upon arrival on Middle Earth, Elendil united the colonists of his ships with the middle-men of the land, where two kingdoms were established: Gondor and Arnor, the kingdoms in exile.
Minas Tirith was built by the Numenoreans after their fallAs well as Osgiliath, Minas Morgul and Annuminas. Ultimately, this explains how Nimloth came to be in Minas Tirith, and provides an explanation for why the architecture of Númenor is so similar to Gondor. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of power.
How the similarities between Númenor and Minas Tirith play out in the franchise
The architecture of Numenor foreshadows the disaster to come
Like most aspects of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The similarities between Numenor and Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings Movies share one key purpose – foreshadowing. As a prequel, many of the events and places in Rings of power are positioned as reminders to the audience. Unlike the characters in the show, viewers know that while Sauron’s quest will ultimately fail, there is much doom and gloom on the horizon for the peoples of Middle-earth.
For any place in The rings of power But is this truer than Numenor. While the Southlands becoming Mordor is certainly a tragic upheaval for those living there, Numenor is destined for destruction. Before the show ends, Numenor will be destroyed, with its only remnants at the time of the Third Age and the events of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is the architectural legacy it leaves in Minas Tirith and Gondor.
The visual design of Numenor in The rings of power So similar to Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings Serves as a constant reminder of what’s to come for the Numenoreans, and also helps tie Amazon’s prequel series into the story of the movie trilogy. Each similarity reinforces the point that the Numenoreans viewers see in The rings of power are the ancestors of the inhabitants of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings.
Why the locations of Numenor and Minas Tirith share so much
Numenor was a high point of human culture
The rings of power Takes place thousands of years before the events of the lord of the rings So many viewers have also wondered why Minas Tirit still looks so similar to Numenor. This is a reasonable question. To make comparisons to the real world, Minas Tirith with similar architecture to Numenor would be like modern Cairo is still architecturally indistinguishable from the days of the Pharaohs and the Great Pyramids. However, Middle-earth is not the real world, and there are reasons why humanity has not evolved much architecturally between the time of Númenor and the Third Age, when Aragorn claims his rightful place as the kind of Gondor.
Minas Tirith was built by the surviving Numenoreans soon after they arrived in the Middle-earth mainland after the destruction of their island home. During this time, human culture on Middle Earth entered a period of stagnation, especially when it came to architecture. Middle-earth humanity simply did not go through the same process of continuous progress that was seen in the real world. For the people of Gondor, Númenor also exists in their culture as a legendary, semi-mystical time when the whole race of humans was elevated. This means that the people of Minas Tirith were loath to dispose of anything left by the Numenoreans, including architecturally.
A final point to consider as well – Gondor has been, throughout almost all of its existence, faced with Orc raiding parties from Mordor (as well as other threats). This left very little time to strip Minas Tirith to its foundations and rebuild it. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is shown to be a time of significant change for humanity in Middle-earth, but the process slows significantly between the end of Amazon’s prequel and the events of the lord of the rings Which is why Minas Tirith resembles Numenor so heavily.