I know Tolkien loves his moral absolutes, but Numenor is more interesting this way! Also the more I thought about Miriel's life the more I realise how utterly set up to fail she was by the narrative, and of course she'd be mad. I don't think I'd call it love between her and Pharazon (not the way I write it, anyway) but they appreciate each other for politics and cleverness and they work together and so they can rule better as a couple than either of them would on their own. Because if they actually had warred for Numenor, apart from all the damage done to the country, when it was over whoever won had to either kill the loser or exile them and spend the rest of their life watching them in case they started a rebellion. So it would make sense to both of them to marry and weather the scandal instead. (And besides, between Miriel being the heir and Pharazon being the darling of the people, and nobody wanting a civil war, is anyone going to say anything outright? I'm sure the Faithful were aghast but they are not very good at politics at the best of times.) But this thing about not marrying anyone closer than your third cousin sounds really impractical and something only the high-up nobles and royalty would do; I doubt the peasants bothered with it. Especially when you're living on an island with a limited population and have a thing about racial purity.
By "legal double rule" do you mean that Miriel had a set of positions and duties as Queen instead of just supporting Pharazon? Because I imagine all the consorts had something like that in place. I've been using Tuckborough.net for information and I agree with their theory that Miriel gets the Ar prefix as an acknowledgement that she was the heir (which is interesting to think about - if Pharazon is admitting her status as the last king's heir right after he overrules her claim and takes the throne for himself). But this is the first case in Numenor of someone who is not the heir taking the throne while the heir is still present, so maybe they were making it up as they go along.
(I should warn you that Miriel is not telling the reader things so much as going on an extended rant...) Good luck with the research!
I see that your Míriel and your Pharazôn are quite reasonable people -or at least they were before Sauron came. Most pretendants of the throne would have so killed each other. Maybe getting along since they were young helped. Anyway, your Míriel is lovely as an angry revisionist, which is great. She shares my view of the Faithful being anachronistic and not even knowing it, though I tend to see Palantír himself as more than just a stargazing guy (there´s a difference between trying to change the world by holding hands and praying and trying to change the world through war and politics, even if you fail in both cases). But the way Tolkien describes it it could work both ways. "Akallabêth" referring to Míriel as some kind of cultural myth of a sacrificial woman is a fascinating idea.
But this thing about not marrying anyone closer than your third cousin sounds really impractical and something only the high-up nobles and royalty would do; I doubt the peasants bothered with it.
Actually, I think it would be even more difficult for the nobles, since there were much fewer of them. But only first cousin was incest, AFAIK.
By "legal double rule" do you mean that Miriel had a set of positions and duties as Queen instead of just supporting Pharazon? Because I imagine all the consorts had something like that in place. I've been using Tuckborough.net for information and I agree with their theory that Miriel gets the Ar prefix as an acknowledgement that she was the heir (which is interesting to think about - if Pharazon is admitting her status as the last king's heir right after he overrules her claim and takes the throne for himself). But this is the first case in Numenor of someone who is not the heir taking the throne while the heir is still present, so maybe they were making it up as they go along.
Yeah, they pretty sure were making it up as they went along, and of course we will never know if whatever they did was supposed to become institutionalized in sucessive reigns.(*sigh*) What I mean with "double rule" is a system where both consorts are equally ruling kings. It happened in Ptolemy Egypt (as a result of ancient Egyptian traditions meeting Greek culture) and its basis was incest, both siblings-consorts being "direct heirs" of the royal blood. Of course that does not mean that both did actually rule (when both tried to rule one usually ended up killed by the other at some point), or even that they ever shared a bed, but it was their official title. This went hand in hand with the belief that these kings and queens were not normal people, but gods, who were the only beings who were not affected by the incest interdiction. I think that the situation with Pharazôn and Míriel, with the double royal title and the incest, parallels that quite closely, and we do know for sure that Pharazôn believed he could triumph over the gods, aka the Maiar and Valar. The basis of the typical Deluge Myth (and more clearly in the Atlantis story in which Tolkien based this one) is hubris -men forgetting their place, and there is a good round example of that. Geez, now you got me wishing to write again! And I should be working... :(
By "legal double rule" do you mean that Miriel had a set of positions and duties as Queen instead of just supporting Pharazon? Because I imagine all the consorts had something like that in place. I've been using Tuckborough.net for information and I agree with their theory that Miriel gets the Ar prefix as an acknowledgement that she was the heir (which is interesting to think about - if Pharazon is admitting her status as the last king's heir right after he overrules her claim and takes the throne for himself). But this is the first case in Numenor of someone who is not the heir taking the throne while the heir is still present, so maybe they were making it up as they go along.
(I should warn you that Miriel is not telling the reader things so much as going on an extended rant...) Good luck with the research!
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But this thing about not marrying anyone closer than your third cousin sounds really impractical and something only the high-up nobles and royalty would do; I doubt the peasants bothered with it.
Actually, I think it would be even more difficult for the nobles, since there were much fewer of them. But only first cousin was incest, AFAIK.
By "legal double rule" do you mean that Miriel had a set of positions and duties as Queen instead of just supporting Pharazon? Because I imagine all the consorts had something like that in place. I've been using Tuckborough.net for information and I agree with their theory that Miriel gets the Ar prefix as an acknowledgement that she was the heir (which is interesting to think about - if Pharazon is admitting her status as the last king's heir right after he overrules her claim and takes the throne for himself). But this is the first case in Numenor of someone who is not the heir taking the throne while the heir is still present, so maybe they were making it up as they go along.
Yeah, they pretty sure were making it up as they went along, and of course we will never know if whatever they did was supposed to become institutionalized in sucessive reigns.(*sigh*) What I mean with "double rule" is a system where both consorts are equally ruling kings. It happened in Ptolemy Egypt (as a result of ancient Egyptian traditions meeting Greek culture) and its basis was incest, both siblings-consorts being "direct heirs" of the royal blood. Of course that does not mean that both did actually rule (when both tried to rule one usually ended up killed by the other at some point), or even that they ever shared a bed, but it was their official title. This went hand in hand with the belief that these kings and queens were not normal people, but gods, who were the only beings who were not affected by the incest interdiction. I think that the situation with Pharazôn and Míriel, with the double royal title and the incest, parallels that quite closely, and we do know for sure that Pharazôn believed he could triumph over the gods, aka the Maiar and Valar. The basis of the typical Deluge Myth (and more clearly in the Atlantis story in which Tolkien based this one) is hubris -men forgetting their place, and there is a good round example of that.
Geez, now you got me wishing to write again! And I should be working... :(
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