Ok, now I KNOW I’ve had a hard day coz I’ve just read this thread title as:
“ELVIS killed Isildur…”
Okay, let’s say Elrond issued the assassination order to off Isildur. Do you really think he would have said, “Oh, and just let the ring float to the bottom of the river to be forgotten.” Of course not - he’d have every elf in Middle Earth trolling the bottom of that riverbed.
Well, it’s true that Elvis’s whereabouts in 3441 S.A. have never been adaquately explained. And he did have a thing for flashy gold jewelry.
Actually, if Isildur had had the ring when Sauron started reforming, would he have allowed this upstart Man to keep it while he regained his strength? Yes. Why not keep the Ring where he knows where it is and it can do some “good.”
There’s no way Isildur would ever have become as powerful as Sauron, but he would have served nicely to keep the attention of the world while Sauron collected his marbles and Isildur lost his.
Did the Orcs know Isildur had the Ring when they killed him? Was he on a “Wanted” list? and what would have happened if one of those orcs had said "Oooo, shiny!’ and picked up the Ring?
I disagree. Even when Sauron was at the height of his power in the Third Age, powerful good guys like Gandalf and Galadriel feared taking the ring because they believed that they could indeed overthrow Sauron but turn into a new Dark Lord in the process. Furthermore, Sauron started getting nervous at the thought that just the heir of Isildur might have the Ring, and changed his (Sauron’s) plans to launch a premature attack on Gondor so as to deny this upstart the time to learn to use the Ring.
Compare this with Isildur, already the leader of a world-wide empire who (if he survived and kept the ring) could expect to command the allegience of the Nazgul and the Men of the East, and who would have a couple of thousand years to learn how to use the ring before Sauron could form (much less show) his face again.
All Sauron could do under these circumstances would be either (A) wait and hope for Isildur’s dominion to decay from within, and take advantage of rebellion and factional strife, or (B) insinuate himself into Isildur’s leadership and lead him to destruction the same way he did with Ar Pharazon. Either way, though, Sauron would be a ghost of his former self and would be facing an immense head start by Isildur.
Gandalf and Galadriel already had some innate magical power that would have made them much more dangerous. Isildur was just a Man. A powerful one, but a Man all the same. He would have withered away just as the wraiths did, or would have become like Gollum. He didn’t have any special protection from the dehabilitating effects of the Ring, whereas those two had been (lesser) Ringbearers and thus had at least some experience. Sauron was innately more powerful than Isildur, and the Ring would not have acted against him. He likely would have worked to corrupt Isildur, but when he got strong enough Sauron would have pulped him. Anyway, Sauron madethe ring, he would have forgotten more about using it then Isildur would ever learn.
I’m not saying that Isildur would have enjoyed becoming a Dark Lord–eventually, every day in his unnaturally prolonged life would have become a living hell, I’m sure. He might even fade away from the visible world entirely, like the Ringwraiths. But like the Witch-King of Angmar, this would not have prevented him from becoming a formidable lord of power and terror that Sauron couldn’t match.
As for your other points:
It’s true that Sauron was an immortal Maiar, whereas Isildur was a mortal man. But would this give him insurmountable advantage? Sauron himself was defeated and discorporated by mortals at the end of the Second Age, and his fellow Maiar Saruman was done in by a couple of hobbits at the end of the Third.
Is this right? It seems to me that if this were the case, Sauron wouldn’t have had to worry about anybody else on Middle Earth getting hold of the Ring.
I’m sure Sauron would be making schemes to this effect, but barring some rebellion in Isildur’s empire (as Triskadecamus suggested), I doubt if he would ever have the chance.
Unless the Ring had some kind of remote control Trojan Horse feature built in that Sauron could exploit, I can’t see how Sauron could use this knowledge against Isildur.
Tolkien is quite definite that, in a confrontation, not only Frodo but pretty much anyone would have handed Sauron the ring at once: “In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of ‘mortals’ no one, not even Aragorn.” [L #246 (332)]
Going by the FAQ page that cites this letter, Qadgop, it seems that Tolkien is saying that nobody could have withheld it from Sauron at that moment in history–when Sauron’s Third Age power was waxing and no mortals of Isildur’s stature were left in Middle Earth.
From the same source. Make of it what you will:
To elaborate, if JRRT thought it no sure thing at all for Gandalf to beat Sauron using Sauron’s ring, who else would have stood a chance?
Remember that Saruman was done in by an arrow, but only after Gandalf broke his staff, revoking his position and power as a wizard and a member of the White Council.
Um, Joe? Doghouse? Saruman had his throat slit by Wormtongue. Wormtongue got shot by arrows.
Even then, that just did in Saruman’s bod. his spirit tried to return to the West, but was blown away.
I erred in my flippant remark about Hobbits bumping off Saruman, though the Hobbits did have him at their mercy and held the power of life and “death” over him, which to my mind makes it six of one and a half dozen of the other in regard to the point I was making. All the same, I did say originally that Saruman was “defeated and disembodied”–not killed.
As for the breaking of Saruman’s staff and all that, I don’t know if that bears any relevance to Sauron–unless the Ring is somehow analogous to an istari’s staff.
Regarding your cites, Qadgop, I still read them as referring to who could have stood up to Sauron using the ring at that particular point in time. If Sauron were far diminished and the mortals of the moment were greatly increased in power, and if the Ring-bearing chief of the mortals had a running start of a couple of thousand years, it’s not clear to me that the same odds would hold true.
And addressing this in particular:
This supports my assertion that the Ring could be turned away from its original master, given the right circumstances. The ring wouldn’t automatically be Isildur’s Achilles heel just because Sauron originally made the thing.
I knew Santa wasn’t keeping a tight enough rein on the little guys. Either that or they should change the lock on the Keebler tree…
I knew it! :mad: Damn them Elvii!
Heh, yeah sorry for that!
The way I figure it, without having read the letters, is that the staff is more of a badge of office and maybe a focal point for power than a magical implement. BUT, it seems to me that Gandalf the White was sent back with a mandate from Eru to demote and de-power Saruman as one of his primary missions. He revoked Saruman’s office (after giving him a final chance to turn from his ways) and his power - making him very weak, with only a persuasive voice left - at Isengard. Prior to the incident at Isengard, Saruman could easily have made Hobbit soup if Frodo had confronted him. He was, to say the least, a formidable enemy (his original plan was to defeat Sauron himself and rule in his stead!). But he bowed to Frodo’s superior strength later on in the Shire.
Again, I could be wrong, but that is how I read it.
You may well be right. However one could hypothesize that Isildur’s using the ring to gain power might actually have re-energized Sauron faster too.
But who knows in the end?
I still think the role of Copäcabano has been overlooked. Legend tells us that shortly after the loss of the ring, Copäcabano sailed West, ostensibly for Tol Eressëa. But he actually landed in Havana.
Is that where his granddaughter Lóllä served as Shôgúrl during the Fourth Age?
She lost her youth, she lost her Tirion upon Tûna, and she lost her mind. But later she fell for Calaquendi Pëte, King of the Lemba beat. She eventually found healing at a rehab center on the isle of Lorellin in Valinor.