Lord of the Rings Challenge January Update

Note: These updates will contain spoilers to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. If you do not want spoilers, it would be best to avoid these updates.

Many years ago, I came across this site. The idea being that you could read about the events of all the ages of Middle Earth in chronological order. You get all your books, plug your editions into a calculator, and it'll tell you what to read when. You mark the sections in your books and then follow along. I did all that and started reading. After bouncing around three books to read all the stories of The First Age, I set the books down to take a break... and never picked them back up. So this year, I plan to finish the challenge.

I started with The Second Age of Middle Earth. The Second Age tells of the rise and fall of Númenore. The Chronological Path took me on a circuitous route from the Akallabêth in the Silmarillion, a number of Unfinished Tales, and some of the appendices in Return of the King. Essentially, the Akallabêth is a summary of Númenore. The Unfinished Tales have more fleshed out parts of the story. However, because this is in chronological order, we also learn of the making of the Rings of Power and a bit about Galadriel and some of the other Elves.

Much like when I read the First Age (which is not mentioned in this blog as I read it before I even started this blog), I knew little to nothing about the Second Age other than the fact that Aragorn is descended from the Númenorians. As a civilization, they start off very impressive. The reason they live so long is due to their lineage to half-elves from the First Age who's names I can't remember and don't feel like looking up. They live west of Middle Earth but east of Valinor. 

In general the story is a sad one. As great and proud as Númenore was, it eventually fell sway to the power of Sauron and fell. Hard. I also was unimpressed with many of the characters we learned about. Very few were likable. 

Following the Fall of Númenore, we enter the Third Age with Isildur and Anárion. This tells the story of how Sauron was defeated the second time and the Great Ring was lost. While we learn a bit more information about the surrounding details of that time, it's not much more than what we already know from LOTR.

Following that, there's a lot about Gondor and the rise of the Rohirrum. We learn of a few more wars. I swear, all these people do is go to war.

Right now, I'm in a bit of an area that's dull. I just really don't care about the wars. I have some thoughts on this chronological reading as well, but I think I'll save those for later. Next month, I hope to make my way through about half of The Hobbit!