Isildur: tragic hero or feckless wanker? (Or, yet another Tolkien thread)

Cafe Society
1

In the interest of obsessiveness I’ll recap the story. Isildur was the son of Elendil the Tall, the Dunadan who founded the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor in Middle-earth. Isildur was already a full-grown man and fell warrior before the founding of hte aforementioned realms: not least of his exploits was retrieiving a fruit of Nimloth, the holy tree from which the White Tree of Gondor was descended, requiring him to battle alone against many warriors among the King’s Men.

But that is not what Isildur is best known for. He is, rather, remembered for his failure to destroy the One Ring of Sauron, which he obtained after his father and the elf-lord Gil-galad threw down the dark Maia during the Last Battle. Some Tolkienites feel this was inevitable under the circumstances; others say he could have acted otherwise, and his failure to destroy the Ring exposed the true weakness of his character.

What say you? Was Isildur a tragic hero or feckless wanker?

My answer: tragic hero. My reasoning follows.

In the first place, I’m not convinced it was possible for any Child of Iluvatur to choose to destroy the ring. Its magic was very strong, inherently corrupting, and in large part dedicated to preserving itself; even knowing of its existence was dangerous. Consider that Saruman fell from grace because of the Ring without ever seeing it, and that Smeagol, within moments of seeing it but without knowing its identity, was moved to murder for it. I think Isildur was doomed from the moment he claimed it as weregild for his father and brother.

Secondly, even if you think Isildur might have, in theory, been of a strong enough will to destroy the Ring, to do so he would have needed more information than he could have possessed at the time. I don’t believe that he or any mortal of his time knew Sauron’s true origins, nor that he had concentrated so much of his power in the Ring. Seeing Sauron’s physical body dead, he naturally assumed that all his works were dead with him, and that this death was permanent.

Thirdly, I don’t think Isildur could have had any opportunity to destroy the Ring before it got his hooks into him. Only the fires of Mount Doom could have undone it, and Sauron did not fall within the bowels of the volcano. Taking it to Orodruin would have required both time and physical custody of it, and I don’t think even Galadriel could have mustered the willpower to destroy it.

Anyway, that’s just me. Thoughts?

2

I tend to agree with you on this. The Ring’s power was subtle, and, as you note, at that time, neither Isildur, nor anyone else on the “good guy” team, was likely to have known how much of Sauron’s power was invested in the Ring.

3

Not how much, no, but both Elrond and Cirdan urged Isildur to cast the ring into the flames of Mount Doom immediately after Sauron’s fall. You ignore two smart Elves like that at your peril. I take nothing away from Isildur’s earlier accomplishments, most especially retrieving the fruit of Nimloth and nearly dying for his troubles, but he erred badly - disastrously - in not destroying the Ring when he could, and when two of The Wise told him he should. Countless numbers of the Free Peoples, Isildur among them, later paid the price.

Saruman knew of the Ring for years and became extraordinarily covetous of it. Smeagol had no particularly strength of will before he came by the Ring, and of course he built his entire existence around it over the long years that followed. But Galadriel, Gandalf, Faramir and Samwise all showed that the Ring was not instantly irresistible. Isildur, as Elendil’s son, had at least as much strength of will as the latter two, I should think.

4

Isildur may have been suspicious of the Elves’ motives, thinking that the Elves may have had selfish motives for keeping a powerful item out of the hands of Men.

5

We now know that was a groundless fear. Again, he erred.

6

How much did the elves tell Isuldur about the ring? Did they explain why they thought the ring should be destroyed? While the decision to destroy it or not was Isuldur’s, the elves bore some responsibility in giving him the information needed to make a wise decision.

7

Tragic hero, certainly.

That said, however, it’s perfectly clear that a man with sufficient strength of character could withstand the ring’s power. Look at our case study during the Fellowship. Both Aragorn and Boromir knew of the Ring, knew the power of the Ring, could be tempted by the Ring (it could save all that they loved!), and had easy access to the Ring (only one small hobbit really in the way). Yet only the one with cracks in his character made the attempt to take it. Aragorn, who DID have character and to spare made no effort to seize the ring but instead stayed focused on the mission.

The most amusing thing about the way things played out is that, had Faramir been the one to go to Rivendell things would likely have worker our much worse. Faramir, also, had the character to withstand the Ring. So Frodo would have done to Gondor with Faramir and Aragon and the lot and likely been destroyed in the all out attack that was coming. There would have been no Rohan to bail them out, no legions of the deada, no nothing.

Boromir’s weakness was Sauron’s undoing. The Ring created the seeds of its own destruction.

8

I don’t think anyone’s arguing that it wasn’t an error. The question is whether it was a tragic error or a feckless one. If Isildur was acting, in his view, to safeguard Men from the age-old enmity of the Elves, I think that pushes him toward tragic hero. Particularly since such discord serves Sauron’s purposes so well.

9

Tragic feckless wanker hero, IMHO.

A maximum guy all around, but the eucatastrophe of his un-ringing Sauron (thanks in no small part to the fell blows of Gil-Galad and Elendil) temporarily unbalanced him.

That unbalance, along with a lack of appreciation for the facts that the ring was truly mighty in and of itself and not just when wielded by Sauron, plus Sauron wasn’t really gone gone, led him ( IMHO) to disregard the urgings of Cirdan and Elrond to destroy the ring.

10

Probably I should have written under the circumstances. I think it unfair to judge Isildur by the standard as Aragorn (orFaramir, who was obviously much wiser than either), because the latter two had a lot more information to go on than he did. It’s like saying that Isaac Newton was a lesser mind than Albert Einstein because the latter devised the theory of relativity–even though Einstein’s work was based on Newton’s and all the other physicists in the centuries between them.

11

All true and fair, but it should be noted that Aragorn had an overarching motive beyond his strength of character. He could never win Arwen’s hand if he had taken the ring. He met Galadriel’s searching gaze unflinchingly, and you better believe she was testing to see if he was seeking to use the ring, because he already knew his heart’s desire and the ring was fundamentally incompatible with being with Arwen. He also had the knowledge of how ancient magic had been the ruin of his house and the memory of his mother dying to invest him with the hope of the Dúnedain also added to his ability to resist the ring.

A common criticism of the ring is that it isn’t shown to have much corrupting power. It’s kind of hit or miss really. Isildur picks up the ring even though it was “hot as a glede” and burned him so badly he still felt the pain days or weeks later as he took down his notes. Maybe he saw it and saw a chance to get a magical power he could use to rebuild the kingdoms he had come into rulership of. As noted by the OP it established such a strong hold on him that he refused Elrond’s counsel to throw it into the cracks of doom even though he was surrounded by the evidence of the evil power the ring contained and had seen his father, brother, and the Elven king slain. Partly this could be because he took it at the very foot of mount doom and its power there is supposed to be near its apex, where it was forged. Hundreds of years later, and leagues away, it moved Smeagol to murder within moments of his first contact with it, and Deagol to extreme posessiveness. Even Bilbo took to uncharacteristic lying about the ring and being secretive when he found it. Obviously, Boromir, Saruman, and Denethor were well documented as being overwhelmed by the temptation of the ring.

Then there is the opposite case. As noted here, Galadriel is sorely tempted, but able to resist because she’s innumerable years of age, had studied at the feet of Varda, had been part of the wars in Beleriand, and had seen the ruin the lust for the Silmarils had wrought. The hobbits aren’t tempted both because of their innocent love for Frodo(and old Bilbo) and their natural resistance to things not of the good earth and simple ways. Aragorn I already mentioned, but what of Faramir, Legolas, Elrond, and Gimli? All of them aware of the ring, none of them moved to murder to posess it or seemingly even sorely tempted by it. Bombadil is a special case which doesn’t really need mention, and it’s assumed Goldberry falls under the same exemption. The only mortal member of the fellowship we see struggle with desire for the ring was Samwise(Gandalf’s temptations and reasons for refusal are well documented), and we can see that in his case it’s his love for Frodo which pulls him back. That and his own clear-eyed self assessment. So where were Legolas’s dreams of grandeur? IIRC there was a mention of having lived under the shadow of Dol Goldur, which would tamp down desire to live as a dark lord, but he doesn’t have the kind of overriding motives that Aragorn, Gandalf, or Galadriel do. Gimli seems to have even less, but never seems tempted to create a dwarven kingdom. Faramir had lost a brother to desire for the ring, but treats the subject more academically than viscerally. Presumably Glorfindel knew of the ring, and didn’t make a play for it, but he’s a footnote in elf-lord form.

So, like so many of the imponderables in LotR, it depends on how you view the ring as to how you view Isildur. If you think he should have been a Merry, or a Pippin, then he was a feckless wanker who should have been able to resist the siren’s call. If you think he was a mighty warrior overthrown in the midst of his turmoil at having his father, brother, and numerous others slain in a pitched battle, and you’re a bit more generous with the interpretation.

Enjoy,
Steven

12

Bolding mine.

Even Frodo, at that very spot, decided to keep the ring.

13

I’m inclined towards feckless wanker, myself, simply because Isildur did have more than enough information on hand to know that the Ring was potentially dangerous. It’s true he didn’t (and couldn’t) know the details, but remember that he’s just fought a desperate war in a world where magic is very real, against an enemy with formidable magical powers. Common sense suggests that any personal possessions of that enemy should be treated as if they were radioactive - Isildur didn’t know what dangerous enchantments they might hold, but that’s the point. When in doubt, the prudent thing to do would be to toss the Ring in the fire.

14

This totally reminds me of one of the questions on The Definitive Middle-earth Test:

15

My response to this criticism is that the Ring is like nicotine.

Isildur, being probably the first person other the Sauron to ever hold the ring, was easy prey to its blandishments; he’s like that first person who ever took a smoke. He put it on and was immediately harmed by it (burned as a glede but was also unable to relinquish it; but he retained enough of himself to write about it in his journals or whatnot. Smeagol encountered it knowing even less than Isildur and was entirely in its grip. Aragorn, Galadriel, and Faramir all had Isildur’s example to help them–and, of course, even that didn’t save Saruman. (But then, Aragorn & Galadriel at least knew what evil the lust for the wrong had wrought on Saruman.)

16

It’s also worth noting, of course, that while Aragorn, Faramir, and others were able to resist the Ring, they never actually had it in their possession, which would certainly have made the task more difficult. Of course, they chose to never take it into their possession, but it’s not like Isildur (or anyone else) could have conveyed it to the Crack without doing so.

17

Add to that the fact that Galadriel is explictly offered the Ring by Frodo, and that Aragorn denies that he is the Ring’s true owner when Frodo claims the contrary. Certainly in the latter case, this may be seen as a bit of mental gymnastics–a deliberate attempt to avoid thinking of the Ring as properly his own, which would lead him down the same path as Saruman. Aragorn, Galadriel, Gandalf, and Faramir all know to do this because they know what happened to Isildur. Obviously they could not have known this if Isildur had NOT partially succumbed and left records–as might have happened if, say, an Orc had somehow acquired the Ring after the Siege of Baradur and been killed in the Anduin as Isildur was.

18

I think the Elves have to come in for some share of the blame. It’s easy enough after the fact to say that Isildur should have realized that, coming from Sauron as it did, the Ring was dangerous. Especially since the loss of the Ring was what ostensibly “killed” Sauron. It seems a no-brainer, to us.

But what is well-known to us was not well-known to Men. The Elves knew the power of the Ring from the moment it was forged and Sauron uttered the words inscribed upon it. But xenophobic as the Elves had become, they didn’t share what they knew with Men. Elrond told Isildur to destroy it, but he can’t have told him much, if anything, about why, because when Isildur wrote about the Ring, it’s clear he had no idea what it really was.

It can’t be because the Elves didn’t know. When you think about it, there is very little in the history of the Ring from the end of the Second Age, when Isildur took it, to the time of the Council of Elrond that would have told the Elves more than they had already known. Three beings carried it after Isildur: Smeagol/Gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo. Of those, it had corrupted exactly one (and he had been no great shakes to begin with). Gandalf’s research after Bilbo’s birthday party had been aimed at identifying the Ring, not discovering its nature. The Elves knew what the Ring was and they knew at the time of Isildur. Why was it not then common knowledge among Men as well? Because the Elves didn’t tell them.

19

I think you’re wrong here. Even though Isildur’s account of the ring had been lost, Denethor, Boromir and Faramir had a pretty good idea of what it was. They could only have got that knowledge from the records of the war of the last alliance.

20

I suspect the Gondorian chronicles of Sauron’s downfall mentioned the ring. This information would have been presented to the rulers and their heirs as part of their education, surely.

However, the nature of the ring and its corrupting power wasn’t necessarily clear to them at any point in their history. Nor the importance of removing it from Sauron causing his downfall.

Remember, Gil-Galad and Elendil had just delivered their blows to Sauron, throwing him down (tho they perished in the deed). Isildur giving a final coup de grace with the shards of Narsil might have seemed to them to just finish the job already largely done. (make sure to ignore PJ’s movie representation of the deed, it varies tremendously from what JRRT wrote)