After I finished up my last post, I went over to William Tychonievich's blog and read a poem he had posted about Humpty Dumpty. He changed the meaning of fall to refer to the season, rather than Humpty actually falling off of the wall. Humpty wouldn't come down from the wall (even though it was the law that he do so), choosing instead to enjoy a nice Fall sitting on top of the wall.
He would meet his end, however, when Fall transitioned to Winter, and the poor Egg froze.
I thought it was really good. Clever and funny, just from changing the meaning of 'fall'.
We raise chickens, and in Minnesota I am well aware of what happens to eggs in the winter months when they freeze. They crack. So, the end result for Humpty was the same. Well, almost. As long as he remained frozen, from a distance he would look just fine and hold together well (unlike his unfrozen, alternative-universe-self who fell and would have shattered and made a mess). Only in the Spring when he would thaw would we see him completely fall apart. Sometimes in the winter I will miss a crack in a frozen egg and just lay it on my counter, where it will in short order become a mess as it thaws to room temperature.
Anyway, a few interesting things crossed my mind as I was reading his poem. I have a few minutes now, so I am going to get them down so I don't have to later.
In his poem, William specifically calls Humpty "unrepentant". This really jumped out, because for probably a little over a week now I have been thinking through the idea of whether or not it is possible for Pharazon to repent. In my original Humpty Dumpty post, I went to some lengths to tie the character of Humpty Dumpty to Pharazon specifically, and to the Numenoreans generally. And here we had a reference to Humpty and his unwillingness to repent and follow the King's orders.
In the context of the poem, this lack of repentance ties very well to the actual story of Pharazon and the Numenoreans. Disregarding all warnings and counsel, both from actual messengers for the Valar (and Manwe as King) as well as signs, those people committed to a path that would see them try to obtain and remain high above all other things. Nothing would dissuade them from their path, and Sauron was in firm control of the situation.
Anyway, I won't rehash it all here, but I saw in William's re-write of that story perhaps an even better allegory to Pharazon and the Numenoreans.
But, as to the question, can the unrepentant Humpty-Pharazon ever repent? Is it too late for him, or is there another opportunity to repent and make things right? I think the answer has to be yes, he can repent. That is the conclusion I have come to, at least.
There is a difference between being the Shadow, and being sick and influenced by it. I believe Pharazon and those damned Numenoreans were in the latter category. Yes, he was prideful and arrogant, and he ended up doing very terrible things, including human sacrifices, burning the White Tree, assaulting and burning half of Eressea, and ultimately breaking the entire world. I mean, it is hard to top that list!
But, this was also all under the evil influence of Sauron, who used him as a tool for his own purposes. Pharazon's pride (and fear) was Sauron's entry point, but all of those terrible actions did not originate in the heart of Pharazon. Many were planted by Sauron. Given that, I do think there is an opportunity for Pharazon to repent. This is a redemptive story. If Asshat was given a chance or two by Gandalf after doing pretty horrible things in LOTR, I think Pharazon can also have a chance. What would redemption look like for Pharazon, though?
Well, I think in the future at some point the world will be restored as it was, creating once again a path for people to ascend to Heaven or Aman, if they choose This will include the restoration of Numenor, part of the 'highway' that will come out of the depths, as the wave that covers it is rolled back. For Pharazon, perhaps repentance and redemption would involve playing a role in making that happen. Righting the previous wrongs, and fixing what he was responsible for breaking. It would be a good story for him. It would be a similar arc to that of Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah, who Mormon called the 'vilest of sinners', but who ultimately repented and worked all their lives to bring souls to God. I think the path could look something like that for him.
Repentance is something that must happen as a living Being with a body, so if this were to actually be a reality, than Pharazon would need to also be around on our Earth, I think, as events would unfold. So, where we would see some of the other characters I have mentioned returning (Joseph-Pippin, Hyrum-Merry, Faramir, and even other Numenoreans like Queen Miriel), we might also expect to see Pharazon hanging around.
I think this makes sense.
Europa and the frozen egg
Moving on from Pharazon, and to Numenor as a whole, I had this strange thought and picture come into my mind as I thought through this notion of a frozen egg sitting on top of a wall from William's poem,
The image that came to mind was Europa, which orbits the planet Jupiter.
Europa has come up before here. I mentioned the planet briefly in discussing Numenor, when I suggested that the world might be now something similar to Europa, which is on of Jupiter's moons covered by a large ocean and surrounded by a sheet of ice. In that post, I wrote:
I have Numenor still sitting 'under the wave' that destroyed it in the first place. By this, I mean, that not only was it sent out to space somewhere and submerged into that kind of 'great sea', but that it is also literally was submerged or surrounded by a sea of water and ice. At least that is the image that comes to my mind now, for whatever reason. As in, I literally have this sense or image of Numenor as a planet surrounded by ice that just developed today. I really don't have anything to back that up other than a hunch. And by a planet of ice, I was thinking something that would be similar to a planet like Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons. Just as an example - I am not trying to identify a specific planet here, just illustrating that at least one such planet exists.
So that is where my mind went with Numenor, and I think it has remained that way, though I haven't really given it more specific thought.
Europa is actually constructed, in some ways, like an egg. It has a rocky core, submerged under an ocean, which is then surrounded by a shell of ice, with estimates varying as to just how thick that ice is. Interestingly, scientists believe the ocean is liquid salt water, just like ours. They estimate that there is about twice as much water under that ice shell than all of Earth's oceans combined, at least according to a few online sources.
So, I first pictured this cracked, frozen egg on top of a wall that could not come back down, per William's poem, and then this image and thought was replaced by the planet and concept of Europa. Here is a picture taken recently by Juno in 2022:
The surface is covered by fissures and cracks, potentially a reaction of salt, water, sulfur, and radiation, but not entirely known. For my purposes, though, we have an ice shell that has developed cracks, just as you would see happen on an egg that has been sitting on a wall too long into winter.
I feel like I am channeling something very Velikovsky-esque here, but any chance Europa isn't just an example of Numenor, but is in fact Numenor, still buried under the wave and surrounded by ice? The frozen egg sitting on top of the wall that at some point will need to both come back down and be put back together?
If I take seriously that these worlds existed and still have to be in a physical location somewhere, I guess why not. Just throwing it out there. As with everything else, we will see.
For trivia, close-up high resolution photos NASA was able to get of the moon-planet, as well as Jupiter and the other moons, were from Voyager 1 and 2. These were twin spacecraft (another twin theme), and they year they reached Jupiter and Europa was in 1979. Voyager 2 sent back the first close pictures revealing ice cracks on July 9.
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