AH FUCK
IT’S NOT OVER.
Tolkein straight up added more book after the end of his book.
It is as if the Silmarillion is a huge, complex wordburger
and the Akallabeth is an extra patty he just threw on top
getting your fingers all greasy
drawing unwanted attention to your already unhealthy meal.
It’s a pretty sweet story though.

So after the Valar come over and fix everyone’s shit
they reward all the humans who helped them
by giving them their own party island off the west coast.
This island is called Hawaii
oh wait no it’s not
why would it be called Hawaii
it’s called like four thousand other things
but none of those things are Hawaii
even though that’s exactly what it fucking is
but in case you’re taking a class on this or something
the island is actually called Numenor.
The elves also get an island called Avallone
but it’s slightly closer to Valinor
and everybody real estate is all about location
plus the elves can never die so that’s sweet too
oh and also the Valar tell the humans that they aren’t allowed to go west at all
because that would take them closer to Valinor
and humans are too gross to go to Valinor.

The humans are pretty stoked to be where they are
FOR A WHILE
but then people start to ask a very reasonable question:
they’re like “Hey
how come the elves can come over and party with us on our island
but we can’t go over to their island?”
and the elves and the Valinor are just like “Uh …
you just can’t, okay?”
and the humans are like “But that’s so unfair!
Why do you guys get to be immortal
while we are doomed to die in all the lamest ways?”
and the Valar are like “Are you guys kidding?
Dying is a GIFT.
We would LOVE to be able to die
the burden of generations of wisdom and partying can be too much at times
seriously we don’t understand what you’re complaining about.”

Obviously this answer does not please the humans
but they know better than to fuck with the Valinor
so instead they take out their aggression on the humans of Middle Earth
because those guys are all still hungry and confused
due to the aftermath of the huge war that just happened.
So after centuries of enslaving other humans and demanding tribute
the people of Numenor naturally become shittier and shittier
and their kings become the shittiest of all.
There’s a brief moment of non-shittiness
when this dude Tar-Palantir becomes king
but then he dies and passes the crown to his daughter
and his shitty brother forces her to marry him
which is illegal on SO MANY LEVELS
but I guess it doesn’t matter because then he’s king.
His name is Ar-Pharazon
and he is the last person who gets to be king of Numenor.

See, here’s what happens
Sauron, Morgoth’s most devoted follower
didn’t get banished when his boss did
so he’s just been chilling out in Middle Earth
making things objectively worse for everyone
and finally he raises an army
and gets real arrogant about it
and starts calling himself the king of men
but Ar-Pharazon is like “NUH UH
YOU CAN’T BE THE KING OF MEN
IIIIIIII AM THE KING OF MEN.”
and Sauron is like “Oh dang, you’re right
I’ll stop opposing you immediately
in fact, can I just come and live at your house
maybe be your trusted advisor?”
And Ar-Pharazon is like “Hmmmmmm
YES.”
You don’t become king of Numenor by being smart, friends
you become king of Numenor by heredity
and also by forcing your niece to marry you.

So now Sauron is Ar-Pharazon’s most trusted advisor
which means we all know where this is going already.
Sauron’s like “Now I know you’ve been worshipping the Valar
because of their benevolence and whatnot
but you know who’s even better?
MELKOR
Like, do the Valar demand human sacrifices?
NOPE.
Melkor does though.
SO METAL.”
And Ar-Pharazon
who definitely aspires to be the most metal king of Numenor
can see no problem with Sauron’s terrible advice.

So Sauron and Ar-Pharazon build a huge temple to Melkor
and start sacrificing all the nice people inside of it
and they burn down their copy of Celeborn, THE TREE OF LIFE
although some dudes manage to save a fruit from it first
and grow a little tree out of it
but that doesn’t matter basically at all.
Everybody’s lifespans start getting shorter
terrible diseases abound
people go crazy and murder each other
getting struck by lightning becomes a common occurrence
things become worse in pretty much every conceivable way
other than metalness, I guess.

But Sauron has not fucked up enough shit yet
so he goes to Ar-Pharazon like “Yo
You’ve been doing a pretty terrible job at king
but you know what buddy?
I believe in you.
You can do way worse.”
and Ar-Pharazon is all “SHIT YEAH I CAN
I’M THE KING OF MEN
I CAN DO ANYTHING.”
So then he decides he is actually going to ATTACK VALINOR.
Luckily, not everybody in the kingdom is as dumb as he is.
There’s this dude named Amandil
who grabs a bunch of other non-idiots
and he’s like “Okay, guys
I don’t know how shit got so bad
maybe it’s a combination of boredom, inbreeding, and arbitrary rules handed down by distant, uncaring gods
but whatever
the point is that shit is about to be horrible
and you guys all need to live.
I’m going to try and sail to Valinor and talk the gods out of doing something rash
because that ALWAYS WORKS.”

So Amandil’s sons head to Middle Earth
Amandil heads to Valinor
and so does Ar-Pharazon’ WHOLE DAMN FLEET.
Ar-Pharazon lands on that Elf island, Avallone
like “HAHA, MINE!”
and Manwe sees that and goes out of his fucking gourd
he calls up Iluvatar
who he hasn’t talked to in AGES
and is like “Yeah dude, just kill everybody.”
So Iluvatar
who, remember
has not interfered with creation SINCE THE BEGINNING
is just like “Yeah, okay”
and straight up splits the world in half
just to keep humans from getting to Party Island.

So Ar-Pharazon dies
all his dudes die
all the elves on Avallone
plus a few stray birds, but fuck birds.
Amandil’s guys are fine
because they got out while the getting was good
and Sauron is chilling in his temple in Numenor
laughing his ass off over this catastrophe
when all of a sudden
WHOOPS
Numenor falls into the fucking abyss
and Sauron does that thing Wile E. Coyote does
where he sits on nothing for a minute with his eyes closed
cautiously feeling the air around him with his feet
before resignedly opening his eyes and falling to his death.

EXCEPT HE CAN’T BE KILLED.
His hot bod gets destroyed, sure
but his mean ghost is fine
so he just runs back home
and turns into a GIANT FLAMING EYEBALL
which goes on to cause a lot more problems
but I’ll tell you about that shit next week.

So the moral of the story
is that you should probably just let your friends party at your place sometimes
because otherwise
some day
you may have to destroy them.