In Defense of Aldarion

It’s fun hearing Alan Sisto and Sara Brown on the Prancing Pony Podcast judge Aldarion and Erendis by the standards of a 21st-century two-career couple. It’s not surprising that pre-modern Númenoreans fall short, especially since Aldarion is in line to be a king, and Sara has told us before how little she thinks of kings. But we ought to be a little bit fair to Aldarion, and try to infer how he’s doing by his own standards.

How good was Aldarion at being a crown prince? The duties of a crown prince are almost the same as the duties of a king, except doing them as an apprentice. I can think of six big ones. There could be more, but they’d just be guesswork, given how few details we know about what was going on on the island.

1. Secure the succession

This is the top priority for any royal heir. Alan and Sara haven’t really talked bout this, as of Episode 388, but to be fair, J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t pay much attention to it, either. (cf. Boromir, Faramir, Théodred, Éomer…) Aldarion doesn’t have a leg to stand on here. It’s a shameful dereliction of duty to trust the grace of the Valar to keep you alive until some century when you feel like having a child.

2. Manage the royal bureaucracy

To the extent that Númenor is like an ancient kingdom (probably Egypt), Aldarion is guilty here, too. Except that there are few things Tolkien thought less of than bureaucracies (Letter 52), so Númenor may not have had one for Aldarion to master. 

But now we get to the things Aldarion was paying attention to.  Setting up the Guild of Venturers was a very clever thing for the crown prince to do. It covers four things I could think of that he ought to be doing.

3. Lead large groups

Leadership is the sine qua non of a king. It’s essential for the heir apparent to practice it before it becomes a matter of survival. If the crown prince doesn’t spend his time doing something like a Guild of Venturers, you get Henry the 8th, and nobody but tour guides wants that. Tar-Meneldur makes a fair point that Aldarion needs to learn to lead the women of Númenor too, but the skills aren’t very different.  Besides, this seems to imply that Meneldur wasn’t expecting war.

4. Secure resources for the country

People always want more than they have. We’re humans. That’s what we do. A country with a growing population will need more stuff, and a good king finds ways to provide it. Of course, if everyone in Númenor is like Aldarion they won’t have a growing population, but then they just die out and nobody sings songs about them in the Third Age.

4. Expand the country’s power (or “splendour” in Tolkien’s word)

We have to look into the future to see why this is important. At the time of the story, though Meneldur doesn’t find out until the end, Sauron is threatening Middle-earth and Gil-Galad is worried. Without Aldarion’s focus on building naval power, what use would Númenor be in a fight? 

6. Keep the population of unemployed young men manageably small

Bored young men are bad for a country’s stability, as a glance at the newspapers might suggest. Historically, people have tried all kinds of things to keep them out of mischief.  The Guild of Venturers must have been a good safety valve. Aldarion deserves credit for finding a productive use for whatever surplus manpower was loafing around the docks.

I’d say a record of 4 wins, 1 loss, and 1 unknown is pretty good for a prince, so maybe we should lighten up on Aldarion just a bit.