It seems to me that Elrond could have prevented the entire Third Age war if he had just killed Isildur and hurled him, along with the ring, into the fire at Mount Doom. Instead he lets him walk away with the ring, knowing that they’ll just have to face Sauron and doom again sometime in the future.
Is it just me, or doesn’t that make the entire events of the LOTR trilogy Elrond’s fault?
I think the act of contemplating and commiting murder would have made Elrond susceptible to the One Ring’s blandishments, and he too would have fallen to its power.
TRIPLE WORD SCORE!
Elrond coulda, but then there wouldn’t be much of a story…just like Mitzi hadn’t decided to take that bus across Australia, or A Smith had just squished a Neo at their first meeting, or that one Penguin had just let the other penguin…dance!
I still hear “Hobbits are a disease” and giggle a little.
ETA: I blame it all on Hugo Weaving.
Is it even clear that Elrond could have killed Isildur?
I agree with Skald that to do so would have been …unwise. Taking the Ring by evil means, even intending good, just opens the taker up to the Ring’s influence that much more readily. Plus, Elrond was already a major power and thus very vulnerable to the Ring.
Plus, I seem to remember an earlier thread in which we debated the possibility that even the great among the Elves didn’t really understand the power of the Ring at that point.
Skald, was the Ring fully powerful at that point? Its master had just been thrown down. As Sauron grew in power during the Third Age, so did the Ring. So was the Ring capable of full dominance right after Sauron was “killed?”
Somebody should hit the Qadgop signal, as I’m more a Silmarillion lover than a LOTR fan. It’s been a while since I’ve read the latter, and I’m not sure if the scene DCnDC alludes to actually takes place in the book.
That said, I tend to think that the very fact that the Ring still existed at that point – after the death of Sauron’s hröa–wouldl indicate that the Ring was, in a sense, more powerful than normal at that point. As I understand it, Sauron placed much of his own power into the Ring as well as using it to draw on external magickal energies (the Morgorth element in Arda). The upside of this was that it made him much mightier than he would have been normally; the downside, of course, was that the Ring’s destruction meant his own loss of ability to incorporate. (I purposefully did not write his own death.) While Sauron was in material form, he and the Ring would have been drawing on the same power source at times. With the Ring being the only drain on said power, I think it would have been mightier in some ways. Of course it could not act without a material host, but its prime directive–Keep yourself from being destroyed until the Master can reclaim you–would have been in effect.
That is part of why I think Isildur gets a bum rap. He quite literally could not have destroyed the Ring; neither could Elrond, or even Galadriel or Glorfindel. I doubt anyone short of Eönwë, Melian, or a Valacould have.
That’s an interesting thought: a finite amount of power shared between Sauron and the Ring. When one draws more power, the other must draw less.
[QUOTE=Elrond at his Council, FotR by JRRT]
I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hilt-shard of his father’s sword, and took it for his own…
…Isildur took it, as should not have been. It should have been cast then into Orodruin’s fire nigh at hand where it was made. But few marked what Isildur did. He alone stood by his father in that last mortal contest; and by Gil-galad only Cirdan stood, and I. But Isildur would not listen to our counsel.
‘This I will have as weregild for my father, and my brother,’ he said; and therefore whether we would or no, he took it to treasure it. But soon he was betrayed by it to his death; and so it is named in the North Isildur’s Bane. Yet death maybe was better than what else might have befallen him.
[/QUOTE]
Sounds as if Elrond did not believe himself capable of taking the Ring from Isildur. Surely if what Gandalf and Galadriel believe is true, he would have been incapable of destroying it if he had, and would simply have become another Dark Lord in Sauron’s stead.
ETA: assuming the Ring did not betray Elrond as it did Isildur.
Sounds as if Elrond did not believe himself capable of taking the Ring from Isildur. Surely if what Gandalf and Galadriel believe is true, he would have been incapable of destroying it if he had, and would simply have become another Dark Lord in Sauron’s stead.
[/QUOTE]
Well, I think he was physically capable of doing taking the Ring. He just wasn’t capable of destroying the Ring. And, at that moment, I think Elrond possessing the Ring is much, much worse than Isildur taking it. He might have had the spiritual power to seemingly wrest control of it entirely away from Sauron, but not the strength to remain uncorrupted. I think he becomes a new Dark Lord.
Until Galadriel takes it from him, of course, and becomes even worse.
Who wins - Galadriel or Elrond, in a straight-up fight with no One Ring interference? Elrond’s ring is supposedly Mightiest, but Galadriel is arguably the most powerful Elf in Middle Earth.
Perhaps Isildurs greatest (unintentional) act of goodness was to lose the ring for thousands of years. In that regard, the ring is to blame for its own fate, as it purposely abandoned him, leaving him to die at the hands of the orcs while leaving itself to be found by Smeagol.
Is it even possible to willingly destroy the ring? Remember that at the end it was more of an oopsie-doopsie than a deliberate act that destroyed the ring.
But still unable to get itself off a river bottom? Until Sauron had begun to gather again?
It seems to me the low points for the two coincided.
My hypothesis: Elrond and Cirdan didn’t fully understand the power of the One Ring.
Yes, they both bore the elven rings, and understood that Sauron could control them via the One if they tried to wield their rings. But Sauron was disembodied, and there was really no precedent for perserving a portion of one’s Fea in such an object (Voldemort not having been born yet.)
And Celebrimbor, who might have understood more, was gone.
But now all they knew was that they would use their rings again, the forces of the West were victorious after grievous losses, and it was time to move on. Cirdan and Elrond may have had an uneasy feeling about leaving the One intact, but no sure knowledge that it would corrupt their ally, the new king of both Gondor and Arnor. Why start another war by knocking him off?
All true. I suspect that, after Sauron’s downfall, various Elven wrights, loremasters, and so forth went through his papers and so forth, trying to understand how the Ring worked. But that entailed learning how to read the Black Speech and perhaps puzzling through whatever code he had written down his notes in, among other things; it was not the work of a weekend. By the time they understood the Ring’s workings, Isildur was long gone from the field of battle–maybe even already dead, and the Ring lost.
spark420, I think I specified that the Ring was more powerful in a sense with Sauron discorporate, and that it still needed someone with a physical body to do many things. I think its ability to corrupt those near it was greater then, if only because it did not have to divide its energies among other tasks. Also, it may well have “decided” that the bottom of the river was as good a place as any to wait for Sauron to reform himself.
Or perhaps Tom Bombadil could, provided you could get him to pay attention long enough to the task to get it done, or even agree to meddle in the affair at all.
I left Bombadil out on purpose. He was so detached from mortal concerns that he wouldn’t have understood the need. Remember, at the Council, someone suggests giving the Ring to him, and Elrond specifically dismisses the idea. I expect that the White Council (Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Saruman, and some others I can’t be arsed to look up) had had the discussion of how to destroy the Ring if ever they found it, and the Bombadil option had been mooted ere then.
I think the Ring destroyed itself, and in that Tolkien was saying something about the nature of evil.
The Ring was malicious, and it didn’t want any master other than Sauron. It seems to have enjoyed betraying its bearer. It has rules to follow; it must obey its bearer, but it seems to have some degree of discretion as to exactly how to do that. Sort of like the Monkey’s Paw, the Ring seems to serve its bearer in the worst possible way. That’s how it gets its shits and giggles. Of course, its long term goal is to get back to Sauron, but any petty malice it can institute in the meantime, it does.
On the slopes of Orodruin, Gollum attacks Frodo. Frodo fights him off and
[QUOTE=JRRT in RotK]
‘Down, down!’ he gasped, clutiching his hand to his breast so that beneath the cover of his leather shirt he clasped the Ring. ‘Down, you creeping thing, and out of my path! Your time is at an end. You cannot betray or slay me now.’
Then suddenly, as before under the eaves of the Emyn Muil, Sam saw these two rivals with other vision. A crouching shape, scarcely more th shadow of a living thing, a creature now wholly ruined and defeated, yet still filled with a hideous lust ang rage; and before it stood stern, utouchable by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice.
‘Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom.’
[/QUOTE]
And a few pages later, Gollum touches Frodo again, and bingo! into the Fire of Doom.
I believe this demonstrates the essential short-sightedness of Evil. The Ring enjoys betraying its non-Sauron bearers, plus it is invoked by Frodo to cast Gollum into the Fire if he ever touches Frodo again. So it gets to betray and obey simultaneously, in a truly disastrous move for its new bearer, Gollum. This is the Ring’s idea of great fun. Unfortunately, it is also the Ring’s destruction; oops.
As the Professors says, “Oft evil will shall evil mar.” The Ring’s evil will did a whole lot of marring that day, because it took the quickie route to gratification rather than waiting for Sauron to come roaring down on Orodruin and taking the Ring from whoever managed to hold onto it, which would have in the long run been the Ring’s best option. But the Ring couldn’t be arsed to wait; it got its jollies where and when it could. Innate problem with Evil, you see.
That’s my theory, anyway. And perhaps only the Ring itself could have the will to destroy it, not counting the Valar.
The ring inscription notwithstanding, I doubt Sauron committed much to writing. What with him being an immortal who helped construct Arda, he had access to his complete memories and experiences.
This explains why the Dwarves prized the invention of letters more than their inventors, the elves. Dwarves died off. Elves didn’t start writing much down until they started getting slain on a regular basis.
I disagree. The fact that Gandalf, Saruman, and others know as much as they do about the workings of the Ring implies that they have checked Sauron’s research. Unless you are saying that they consulted with Aule, which I doubt for several reasons you can guess at.
ETA: Also, I think the simple fact that the ring inscription exists in the first place may indicate that part of its magic requires writing down.
OK, I’ll bite. What research, where and when, and also why (other than the usual determined hands-offedness of the Valar) couldn’t the Istari consult with Aule?
The inscription being an integral part of the magic is an interesting point.
ETA: I feel like a toddler jumping up and down trying to follow a discussion among adults.
Gandalf and Saruman could have easily consulted with Celebrimbor in Mandos before coming over to Middle Earth.
I just listened to an interesting lecture by “The Tolkien Professor” on podcast, all about which ME cultures may have used writing and which were less likely to, and how graven spells were important on a variety of weapons from different cultures. Check it out if you’re interested. He’s quite up on all the JRRT stuff; though on occasion I’ve noted a few holes in his arguments. 