heyo. This one is a really in-depth question, pertaining to one plot-point in the Silmarillion, and i'm wondering if anyone on here could help me with this
So at the end of the First Age, the Valar make an offer to the Edain, the men who aided the Eldar against Morgoth, to send them to the island of Numenor, which would become the greatest kingdom of men.
My question is, how were there any Edain left to begin with? Or how, at least, were there enough left to start a population that, in the span of a few generations, had become a populous and mighty kingdom? Because the Silmarillion details the events of the Dagor Bragollach, in which the first house of Edain, the house of Beor, was basically destroyed because their highland kingdom got caught in the lava-flow from Thangorodrim, with a few of the folk of Beor going to the other houses of Edain, in dor-Lomin or in Brethil.
But then dor-Lomin falls after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and is occupied by the Easterlings. Most of the adult men of the house of Hador of dor-Lomin died in the Nirnaeth anyway, and then the women were taken by the Easterling men, and the children made into slaves.
Then we have the house of Haleth in Brethil, which the Narn i hin Hurin details was vastly diminished in the time after the Nirnaeth, with their lords Brandir and adopted lord Turin dying at the end of the Narn. Soon after this happened, there was the Battle of the Thousand Caves, where Thingol dies and the Girdle of Melian that protected Doriath (and aided in the protection of neighboring Brethil) was withdrawn, and the realm of Dior falls soon after in the second Kinslaying, and Dior's daughter Elwing fled with the remnant of their people to Arvernien, and only Elves are supposed to dwell at Arvernien, which aside from the Green-Elves of Ossiriand, was then the last free realm in all of Beleriand, not under Morgoth's control.
So the question is, how were there any Edain left at all by the time the Host of the West came to overthrow Morgoth? Because there were Edain there, and fit to fight in enough numbers to be notable. And then how were there enough Edain left to people Numenor? Because in Unfinished Tales and the Tale of Aldarion and Erendis, it specifically states that Erendis was a descendent of the House of Beor, the first one that was destroyed, and destroyed most completely of the three, and this was about 1000 years into the Second Age
So, what's going on here?
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
