By Oshun
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Ar-Gimilzôr was the twenty-third ruling king of Númenor.1 He succeeded Ar-Sakalthôr in S.A. (Second Age) 3,102, over three thousand years since the Edain first sailed to the island of Númenor. He was the grandfather of the infamous last king of Númenor, Ar-Pharazôn.
The Akallabêth sets the stage for the ascendancy of Men in Númenor when it recounts how, "In the Great Battle when at last Morgoth was overthrown and Thangorodrim was broken, the Edain alone of the kindreds of Men fought for the Valar, whereas many others fought for Morgoth." Morgoth had been overthrown but Middle-earth was not free of the dark forces who had served him. "[M]any evil things that Morgoth had devised in the days of his dominion: demons, and dragons, and misshapen beasts, and the unclean Orcs"2 remained and threatened the peace and contentment of Men. Given this, the Valar decided to reward the Edain for their loyalty and heroism in the long struggle against Morgoth in Middle-earth and remove them from the threat of those remaining forces of evil.
These Men could see to the West of them the furthermost outpost of the land of the gods—the city of Avallónë on the island of Tol Eressëa—but were forbidden to ever visit that land. And most frustratingly for many over the course of years neither could they
escape from the doom of death that Ilúvatar had set upon all Mankind, and they were mortal still, though their years were long, and they knew no sickness, ere the shadow fell upon them. Therefore they grew wise and glorious, and in all things more like to the Firstborn than any other of the kindreds of Men; and they were tall, taller than the tallest of the sons of Middle-earth; and the light of their eyes was like the bright stars.3
Tolkien's fascination with the line and genealogy of the kings of Númenor was not simply an incorrigible nerd's obsession of fashioning a full and complete created universe within which to set his stories but actually a significant element in his principal storyline and its ultimate conclusion. If we follow the outline of the lives and times of the kings of Númenor up to and including that of Ar-Gimilzôr, we see the growth of what Tolkien refers to as a shadow falling over their paradisiacal island.
Ar-Gimilzôr was preceded by good kings as well as average ones, but increasingly the Númenórean rulers had been filled with envy and resentment of the immortality of the Eldar. Although the Edain had been gifted with a perfect physical environment—"the Land of Gift, shimmering in a golden haze . . . a country fair and fruitful"4 and personal endowments of beauty and remarkable talent and intelligence beyond those of ordinary men, they also had received that immutable restriction mentioned above. Even more galling to the more restless and questioning among the Númenóreans was the fact that they would grow old and die. They could never visit the Undying Lands and cannot reject the gift of death:
[T]he gods laid a Ban on the Númenóreans from the beginning: they must never sail to Eressëa, nor westward out of sight of their own land. In all other directions they could go as they would. They must not set foot on ‘immortal' lands, and so become enamoured of an immortality (within the world), which was against their law, the special doom or gift of Ilúvatar (God), and which their nature could not in fact endure.5
Over long years and the passage of the reigns of many kings "the yearning was grown strong in the hearts of the Númenóreans."6 They envied the Eldar's immortality and they resented that they were not allowed to visit the land of the Elves.
Over the centuries the men of Númenor slowly evolved into two main political tendencies. Ar-Gimilzôr fell into the camp of those who most resented the Valar and grew to resent what they saw as the privileges of the Eldar. They had begun to speak openly against the Ban and to declare that they should have the right to the life of the Eldar. People with this tendency came to be called The King's Men:
[T]he shadow deepened, and the thought of death darkened the hearts of the people. Then the Númenóreans became divided: on the one hand were the Kings and those who followed them, and were estranged from the Eldar and the Valar; on the other were the few who called themselves the Faithful.7
Those of a similar mind to Ar-Gimilzôr had for some time spoken "openly against the ban of the Valar, and their hearts were turned against the Valar and the Eldar; but wisdom they still kept, and they feared the Lords of the West, and did not defy them."8 Ar-Gimilzôr took concrete steps to cross the invisible line between resentment of the powers of the West and open rebellion. He launched a direct attack upon the Faithful who still revered the Valar and considered themselves to be Elf-friends. His persecution of the Faithful during his reign was based upon a suspicion and jealousy of their ties to the Elves of Tol Eressëa.9
Although the use of Elven languages had been diminishing for quite some time, Ar-Gimilzôr attacked with renewed vigor and ruthlessness any signs of reverence toward the Valar or interest in the Eldar particular among the Faithful. He banned the use of Elven languages throughout the Island. He also he forced the Faithful to move from the Haven of Andúnië to the eastern part of the island near Rómenna, where he could more closely monitor their behavior and connections:
He was the greatest enemy of the Faithful that had yet arisen; and he forbade utterly the use of the Eldarin tongues, and would not permit any of the Eldar to come to the land, and punished those that welcomed them. He revered nothing, and went never to the Hallow of Eru.10
He also neglected the White Tree, which grew in the King's Court in Armenelos and had been a treasured representation of the friendship between the Men of Númenor and the Western lands:
And a seedling they [the Elves] brought of Celeborn, the White Tree that grew in the midst of Eressëa. . . a seedling of Galathilion the Tree of Túna, the image of Telperion that Yavanna gave to the Eldar in the Blessed Realm. And the tree grew and blossomed in the courts of the King in Armenelos; Nimloth it was named, and flowered in the evening, and the shadows of night it filled with its fragrance.11
If one stops and thinks for a moment about the original significance of this gift, one understands the degree to which the majority of Númenor had already severed its once cherished ties to the Eldar and the Valar. The hallowed tree was allowed to wither and desiccate before it was restored by Ar-Gimilzôr's son and successor Tar-Palantir. Ar-Gimilzôr's wife, the Lady Inzilbêth was a secret follower of the Faithful for she was a descendant of the Lords of the Andúnië. Unbeknownst to her husband she had schooled their son in devotion to the Valar and loyalty to the Eldar:
No love was there between Ar-Gimilzôr and his queen, or between their sons. Inziladûn, the elder, was like his mother in mind as in body; but Gimilkhâd, the younger, went with his father, unless he were yet prouder and more willful. To him Ar-Gimilzôr would have yielded the sceptre rather than to the elder son, if the laws had allowed.12
Tar-Palantir only provided a brief respite from the wickedness and degeneration of his father's reign and the complete devastation and destruction wrought by Ar-Pharazôn. Ar-Gimilzôr had indeed paved the way for Ar-Pharazôn, under the influence of Sauron, to bring complete destruction upon the once idyllic paradise of Númenor.
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