“The span of their years” was decreasing during the
Second Age. It was much slower among the Lords of Andúnië than with their cousins, the
House of Elros (i.e., the
Kings of
Númenor). After the foundation of
Arnor and
Gondor, it was slower in Gondor than in Arnor: though the lifespan of
Aragorn appears to mirror that of a
king of Gondor, suitably shortened for his day. (I have an essay on that subject:
have a look.)
There is a concurrent
thread about how many Númenóreans there were before the disaster at the end of the Second Age. I have a
post there that describes the growth rate of a population with no war or disasters to reduce it. The Dúnedain of
the Third Age began with a terrible, costly war against
Sauron; then
wars with their neighbors; bloody civil wars in both Arnor and Gondor; and unnatural pestilence fomented by Sauron. (Though the pestilence is reminiscent of the
Black Death.) In his talk with
Frodo and
Sam,
Faramir hints that the Dúnedain of Arnor had practiced Black arts (Morgul), though those in Gondor did not, which probably reduced fertility
Tolkien’s world. (Cf. Queen Berúthiel and her childless marriage to King Tarannon Falastur of Gondor. Presumably Arnor, Rhudaur in particular, was influenced by
Angmar and its notorious
Witch-king, hastening the depopulation of Dúnedain in Rhudaur.) He also says that,
Childless lords sat in aged
halls musing on heraldry; in secret chambers withered
men compounded strong elixirs, or in high cold
towers asked questions of the stars. And the last king of the line of Anárion had no heir.
So pretty clearly, the Dúnedain of Gondor, or at least the House of Anárion, was not averaging two children per generation. Aragorn had no brothers, and it would appear that neither did his father, and that is possibly true also for his grandfather. (In Tolkien’s other writings,
Halbarad, who seems to have been Aragorn’s closest kinsman, was related to him on his mother’s side. I’d have to dig for the reference, so I beg you don’t press me on it: look for yourself in
History of Middle-earth.)
As for
Yavanna and her desire that
Radagast accompany
Saruman – well, had she not done so, how would
Gandalf have escaped
Orthanc? As for Radagast having “fallen” in the sense that Saruman did, Gandalf calls him, “the honest Radagast” at the
Council of Elrond:
At first I feared, as Saruman no doubt intended, that Radagast had also fallen. Yet I had caught no hint of anything wrong in his voice or in his eye at our meeting. If I had, I should never have gone to
Isengard, or I should have gone more warily. So Saruman … concealed his mind and deceived his messenger. It would have been useless in any case to try and win over the honest Radagast to treachery. He sought me in good faith, and so persuaded me.
That was the undoing of Saruman's plot.
Radagast, of course, sent messages to his friends as Gandalf had asked, and the Eagle bringing news to Orthanc rescued Gandalf from its pinnacle. And the
Ents defended defenseless
Rohan from the
Orcs that invaded across the Undeeps of
Anduin: without them, Rohan would have been ravaged while its army was riding to the Battle of the Pelennor Field. They also assisted
Beren in the
First Age after the
Dwarves of Nogrod killed
Thingol and sacked
Doriath.
Radagast was not “true” to his mission in that he was distracted by other interests in Middle-earth; but he was not “fallen”. In fact, I think he’s running a Ben & Jerry’s in San Francisco, still wearing sandals, a brown robe and hat, and carrying a staff.
