Despair

In my article "A living hell: The eerie 12th House" from Asteria 2 I talked about despair as being a theme of said house. However, I did not go into it in too much detail because if I had done so, the entire article would've derailed and it wouldn't have tied well together. Moreover, I am no Tolkien nerd and, as you're about to see further on as I go ahead with the examples, they come from good ol' JRR's magnificently complex universe. Even more so, besides having seen the LORT and The Hobbit trilogies, I knew very little of the actual in-universe facts from the actual perspective of Tolkien's writings, besides what I could recall from having read about it long ago on the Encyclopedia of Arda site. 

But even if I had gone back and read from there, I felt it wasn't enough for me to understand the complex nature of the characters I'm about to speak of. Later I came across this cool chap who's doing a wonderful job at sharing Tolkien's stories for everyone, including people like me who hate to read. I, on the other hand, am not good at telling stories. Instead, I am good at woowoo and making fun of magicianists.

But before I go ahead with the examples it is essential I share a bit of backstory because it contains the underlying causes for what is about to happen to two of the characters that, independently represent thee centerpiece of each example. Keep in mind, I might very well corrupt some of the facts although that's out of negligence and haste. 

In short, the One Creator aka Eru Iluvatar created the Ainur which were gods (Valar) and angel-like beings (Maiar) and invited them to co-create. The most powerful of these gods (Melkor, later known as Morgoth) sowed seeds of malice within the creation and some of the other entities joined him. Then Eru invited all those who wished to inhabit that creation to enter it and shape it as they see fit. A bunch of Valar and some Maiar went there and created stuff, but Melkor also went there and started corrupting and destroying stuff just because he wanted to. By the way, feel free to give these guys a thumb's up too (at least) for their wonderful work of animating the story.

Fast forward and the Valar except for Melkor retreated to the west of Arda, the planet they co-created (Aman aka Valinor aka the Undying Lands), while Melkor remained in what became known as Middle Earth. At some point the Elves awakened in Middle Earth and they were known as the first children of Iluvatar. They were created to be immortal and although they could die through violent causes, they would eventually regain a physical body and would live forever with the Valar in Aman (or until the end of all creation). The Dwarves, Ents and Great Eagles were created by the Valar and were brought to life by Iluvatar who allowed them to exist, just as he allowed Melkor's corruptions to exist. Besides the Balrogs and Warewolves that were Maiar spirits entrapped in physical bodies, Melkor continued his corruption of the land and ended up corrupting some of the Elves too, resulting in the appearance of Orcs. 

Fast forward again to when Men awoke as the second children of Iluvatar. Unlike Elves, they were created to be mortal which means they had a finite life spam. But whereas the Elves would be reincarnated, in lack of a better word, the souls of Men would leave Arda altogether after they died and would probably end up living in "Heaven" alongside Iluvatar (probably because Tolkien was a good Catholic). Anyway, it seems death was actually a gift Iluvatar gave solely to Men, but Melkor saw this as an opportunity and used it to corrupt the newly awakened beings. 

But unlike the corruption of the Elves, which occurred through horrific tortures, the corruption of Men occurred through fear. As such, Melkor inoculated into them the fear of death and used it to twist their minds into making them following him (as if he were some sort of savior or something). It is a no brainer the Elves could not have been corrupted through fear of death, since they would eventually come back to life at some point.  

While some Men served Melkor, others eventually met the Elves and befriended them. They became known as the Edain and their consciousness would benefit greatly from their interaction with the age-old Elves whose wisdom and skills ennobled those Men. The Edain fought alongside the Elves against Melkor, the latter ended up being defeated at the end of the First Age when a great flood came over the western parts of northern Middle Earth. 

Iluvatar awarded those Men a newly formed land, an island he raised in the middle of the great sea that separated Middle Earth and Aman. His only condition was that the Men who received the island as a gift would not sail west to Valinor. Now, the Numenoreans, as they became known, were way more cooler than all other Men. Without going nazi or anything, they really seemed as being of a superior race to all other Men. Not only were they much taller, but they were also more versed with respect to skills, bravery, prowess, etc. Additionally, they lived much longer than other Men and a good example of that is that Aragorn, the last in the line of kings that could be traced back to Numenor was in his 80s (I think) when he became King of Arnor and Gondor and he would eventually live for another 150 years or so. 

The Numenoreans' kingdom span throughout most of the Second Age and they established trading with the Elves of Valinor as well as colonies in Middle Earth. But their earthly paradise soon started to experience decay and you can learn more about it in the video of the cool chap I tagged at the beginning of the article. It seems that decay was caused by an increased attachment to earthly riches, as they came across precious metals in Middle Earth, their island providing them with all sorts of natural riches except for such metals. So what is essentially a second house theme since the Numenoreans desired to acquire more precious metals, drew those Men away from what was previously a harmonious existence and they ended up subjugating other Men in Middle Earth for the purpose of gaining more wealth. They also flipped off the Elves. 

At any rate, the more they acquire, the more they feared losing it and this fear is an eighth house theme. But the eighth house is also the house of death and, naturally, they started to fear death which coupled with the fear of losing their riches made them even more susceptible to corruption. Their society eventually became divided between the majoritarian King's Men and the Faithful, the former rebelling against the gods and resenting the Elves while the latter remaining true to the old ways. Finally, the tenth house came into play when Sauron (formerly known as Mairon), a Maia spirit who, after having had his ass kicked while serving Melkor in the First Age,  declared himself king of all Men as he basically ruled over much of Middle Earth. This infuriated the Numenorean king, Ar Pharazon - iirc "Ar" means "King" so imma refer to the guy simply as Pharazon.

Pharazon was apparently super pissed, most likely due to his pride, and he soon raised a mighty army and set off to Middle Earth to fight Sauron. But upon the arrival of the Numenorean army at his doorstep, Sauron surrendered without a fight and was taken back to Numenor where he was imprisoned. Yet this was Sauron's plan from the start, since he had already made up his mind on destroying Numenor and, using his ingenious wickedness, realized the only way he could do it was from the inside. Btw, although I have no proof of this, I'm quite sure good ol' George was inspired by Sauron when he created Sidious, at least in part.    

Sauron skillfully used Pharazon's fears against him, especially the fear of death and he began to manipulate the Numenorean king with ease. Soon enough he became Pharazon's chief advisor and many Faithful were sacrificed to Melkor, with apparent hope it will make people immortal. But besides putting the final nail in Numenor's coffin in regards to morals, Sauron also destroyed Numenor literally although by having them cause the destruction themselves. 

Since he knew the Numenoreans were forbidden to sail to Valinor, Sauron convinced Pharazon to invade the Undying Lands to become immortal. The king, having fallen more and more into despair as he witnessed his years growing shorter, built the greatest feel ever and made preparations for war. However, once the mighty armada reached Valinor, Iluvatar drowned their entire fleet, flooded the whole of Numenor, detached Valinor from Arda, and made the entire world in the shape of a globe whereas before it was flat. Most of the Numenoreans died in the cataclysm, Sauron alongside them.

Only some Faithful who sailed to Middle Earth and established the kingdoms or Arnor and Gondor remained of the mightiest kingdom of Men, as well as a few colonies in Middle Earth. Sauron too returned since he was immortal, only to be defeated in the War of the Last Alliance a couple hundred years or so later, but even then he was not dead dead. We know what happened then with Isildur and the ring and so on. So we can see how despair caused by fear of death caused even the greatest Men to fall.

The second example comes from the end of the Third Age when the same Sauron unleashed his full might against Gondor and especially its capital, Minas Tirith. By then Gondor had not had a king for a long long time and Arnor had been destroyed for even longer. Instead, a steward ruled in Gondor and as we know from the movies, in 3019 T.A. that steward was Denethor. I learned from the wonderful YT videos that Denethor was not quite the asshole the films portrayed him to be. I mean he might've been, but he also had Elven blood and so he was wiser and smarter than other Gondorians.    

However, he too sank into despair but unlike others, his despair was not due to Sauron's corruption. Instead, it was due to his deception. Denethor started using the palantir to probe into Sauron's mind and the visions he got drove him on the brink of madness, another twelfth house theme. This is because Sauron twisted the visions and, the way I see it, what Denethor ended up seeing rendered him hopeless in regards to be the future. 

I'm speaking from my point of view alone since again, besides having watched the movies and some YT vids I haven't read the books, but I got an image of a man who saw everything as being futile. For example, he saw a black fleet sailing up the river towards Minas Tirith and was sure the corsairs of Unbar (former Nomenorean colony of the King's Men) were going to enforce Sauron's army. In reality, Aragorn had defeated the corsairs and was sailing in their ships to the aid of Gondor. 

To me he seemed like a man who was convinced everything was doomed and, unlike Pharazon who's sole goal was to cling on to life, Denethor was willing to put an end to it. He eventually did so by burning himself alive in his madness. By comparing the two further, whereas Pharazon had no hope in regards to Iluvatar's plan concerning the souls of men, Denethor had no hope in regards to the free people's strength to defeat Sauron. And, as I said in the article from Asteria 2, despair is a result of losing hope. 

In both Pharazon and Denethor's case, the twelfth house theme manifested strongly although due to different causes. In both cases though, it greatly affected the microcosm of each respective character. As a result, the character reacted by inflicting change both in their microcosm and in the macrocosm - I forgot to say Denethor wanted to burn his son Faramir alive alongside him.

Anyway, I wanted to write this article as a complementary read for those who've read my article in Asteria 2 in order to help them create a clearer picture of what I wrote there. On the other hand, I wrote this for all ye magicianists out there who snobbishly resent anything that alludes to psychology in magix. Fyi, imbeciles, when you step inside the circle you're the creator and you create the world around you as you see fit (even if spells don't always work!), so your microcosm thus becomes the mind of Iluvatar. Your twelfth house would thus be Melkor and if you're not careful it can spawn a Sauron too. 

So stop trying to come across as some kind of wonder wizard because you're not Gandalf! Otherwise you risk ending up like some self-important dumbass who's preaching all sorts of delusions while pushing his products.

Hate on, dum-dums!

The Great Gazoo