The decision to compress the timeline might have affected Numenor's lore

[Victariongreyjoy]

The most likely explanation is that Numenorean history has, in fact, been compressed. It's possible that they removed some kings, but it,s far more likely that they reduced Numenorean lifespans, so the early kings would still have unnaturally long lifetimes by human standards (Elros still over 200 years, many of the early kings well into their 130s), rapidly dwindling to human lifespans once they rejected the Valar (lifespans still above 100 years before they embraced Adunaic names, but fading to 70s-90s afterward). Just my theory.

[Galadriel55]

Obviously, the "compressed timeline" would have affected Numenorian history - in the sense that they do not seem to have the established footholds and relationships with the mainland denizens as they do in the books. They don't have a history of fighting Sauron, or building colonies. Miriel seems to be the first to pioneer Middle-earth involvement of any kind. [Which, as a side note, begs the question of how they lived - for an island whose big thing is seafaring, it's a little odd to never sail out of sight of one's own shores]. However, I feel like one of the things the show bungled pretty bad is that they couldn't decide exactly how long the Second Age was at this point in time, and what did or didn't happen. By putting literally every development possible all at the same time, they deprived an Age of a history. So how many mortal generations passed since Morgoth's downfall? Who knows! Because some unnamed amount of time passed without anything to fill it, and it may be 200 years or it may be 20,000 with equal success. It can't have been too short a time, because Numenor has to have forgotten its origins, but it can't be too long a time, because some themes like Galadriel's whole thing and the "watch the southlanders" attitude seem like they should have gotten stale a long time ago, even for an Elf - and because Numenor really should have more ties with ME by now, if even just for trade - and because why has literally nothing managed to happen in all this time. It's just hard to fathom a whole Age devoid of history.

So, my answer is - Numenorian history and all of history has gone to pieces. Someone in the math department divided the timeline by zero and now five is equal to thirteen and seven cubed is negative four and pi is finite and the time-space continuum has been warped irreversibly such that events which make sense in the direct aftermath of the War of Wrath and events that only make sense after an age of collective history are happening at the same time. It's trying to make history happen at the same time as the present. It's like presenting the rising conflict of WW2 before WW1 has had a chance to happen - heck, Napoleon is still riding around in his bicorn, and everyone just went home after the Fall of Rome. It doesn't work. The timey wimey only stretches so far before it stops making sense.

So, my personal take is that it's futile to guess how time passes when we don't have a sense of how much time has actually passed. What's the use of guessing if they removed kings from the genealogy or shortened their lifespans, if said kings have never done the things they were meant to do, never had the interactions and historical impact they were meant to have?

[Victariongreyjoy]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Obviously, the "compressed timeline" would have affected Numenorian history - in the sense that they do not seem to have the established footholds and relationships with the mainland denizens as they do in the books. They don't have a history of fighting Sauron, or building colonies. Miriel seems to be the first to pioneer Middle-earth involvement of any kind. [Which, as a side note, begs the question of how they lived - for an island whose big thing is seafaring, it's a little odd to never sail out of sight of one's own shores]. However, I feel like one of the things the show bungled pretty bad is that they couldn't decide exactly how long the Second Age was at this point in time, and what did or didn't happen. By putting literally every development possible all at the same time, they deprived an Age of a history. So how many mortal generations passed since Morgoth's downfall? Who knows! Because some unnamed amount of time passed without anything to fill it, and it may be 200 years or it may be 20,000 with equal success. It can't have been too short a time, because Numenor has to have forgotten its origins, but it can't be too long a time, because some themes like Galadriel's whole thing and the "watch the southlanders" attitude seem like they should have gotten stale a long time ago, even for an Elf - and because Numenor really should have more ties with ME by now, if even just for trade - and because why has literally nothing managed to happen in all this time. It's just hard to fathom a whole Age devoid of history.

So, my answer is - Numenorian history and all of history has gone to pieces. Someone in the math department divided the timeline by zero and now five is equal to thirteen and seven cubed is negative four and pi is finite and the time-space continuum has been warped irreversibly such that events which make sense in the direct aftermath of the War of Wrath and events that only make sense after an age of collective history are happening at the same time. It's trying to make history happen at the same time as the present. It's like presenting the rising conflict of WW2 before WW1 has had a chance to happen - heck, Napoleon is still riding around in his bicorn, and everyone just went home after the Fall of Rome. It doesn't work. The timey wimey only stretches so far before it stops making sense.

So, my personal take is that it's futile to guess how time passes when we don't have a sense of how much time has actually passed. What's the use of guessing if they removed kings from the genealogy or shortened their lifespans, if said kings have never done the things they were meant to do, never had the interactions and historical impact they were meant to have?

If I remember correctly, the showrunners did mentioned in the Vanity Fair article back in February, the timeline has been compressed down to a average human lifespan. I think it's likely the all the major events will happen during the last years of the Second Age, probably the show's timeline starts at 3341.

Back in episode 7, Brownyn said they were going to Pelagir, a old Numenorean outpost. So it means Numenor has been setting up small colonies already in the past. Not in a massive scale yet though. The show is saving it to Ar-Pharazon's expansionist chapter.

[Mithadan]

As Victariongreyjoy notes, RoP necessarily had to compress the timeline in order to present a story that was crisp and easier to follow for the average viewer. Let's define "average viewer" as someone with, at best, a passing familiarity with LoTR, either from the Jackson movies or from a read of the books. The average viewer would not necessarily be aware (and was not intended to be aware) of the compression of thousands of years of history into the brief span of time as portrayed. So, compression of the timeline was necessary from the perspective of presenting the story to the average viewer. This commercial necessity is potentially annoying to viewers who are more familiar with the actual timeline from reading the Silmarillion, Unfinished tales and, maybe HoME. The latter category of viewers (let's call them "Tolkienists") understandably have the tendency to compare RoP to "canon" (we always keep going back to "canon") and gripe about inconsistencies.

So, the better questions might be: (1) does the compressed timeline work for the average viewer; and (2) could RoP have been presented in a manner that would have made Tolkienists happier?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Two words:

Dumbed.
Down.