Was Isildur Actually A Hero?

Comments · 573

• AL

  @AllAhabNoMoby · 1 year ago

  "The Disaster of the Gladden Fields" is one of the most moving stories in the entire Tolkien legendarium. His three eldest sons dying, the despair at being so outnumbered, the incredibly brave but doomed last stand and then the searing farewell at the end... I must have read it a hundred times and I will never get tired of it.

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• FR

  @frankphillips7436 · 1 year ago

  Of all the mistreatment of characters in the movies, I find Isildur second only to Faramir. <br>Thank you for the fair treatment of a strong and honorable man.

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• HA

  @HaveAnotherTacoPDX · 1 year ago (edited)

  Elrond said he should destroy the ring if it were his decision to make, but accepted that it was not his decision. In fact he went so far as to suggest that if Isuldur, his kin and his friend, could not turn the ring to noble ends, then he did not know who else ever could. Far from the movie&apos;s condemnation, this is high praise from Elrond.<br><br>It is important to know that Isildur was never defeated by the ring and forced to its will. But neither was he strong enough to bend the ring to HIS will. A stalemate. And all you need to know about what came after was that after so long fighting with the ring to bend it to his will and failing, Isildur was carrying the thing to Rivendell to seek Elrond&apos;s advice basically in how to destroy it. He knew that&apos;s what Elrond intended, after all. He had it, he tried to use it. He tried to control it, and then he chose to give the thing up and have it be destroyed. Who does that? Isildur does that, that&apos;s who.

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• PE

  @pennyjaquet8433 · 1 year ago

  Thank you for bringing the true character of Isildur into the light. &nbsp;His abrupt appearance and what amounts to slander in the otherwise good film, is heartbreaking against the truth. &nbsp;He is flawed by pride, but that flaw is what saves him until his death, and more should be made of it. &nbsp;No wonder Aragorn was proud of him.

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• BA

  @batwing-plays · 1 year ago

  He did what Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf were afraid would be unable to - resist the ring.

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• PA

  @paulbrickler · 1 year ago

  Finally, someone capable and willing to tell the story of Isildur properly. &nbsp;Doesn&apos;t it say in the books, that Aragorn was more like Isildur than anyone since?

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• ST

  @StrengthOfADragon13 · 10 months ago

  The movie turning &quot;I shall not decide now&quot; into &quot;I now decide not to&quot; is a brilliant change for the sake of clarity, quickly setting the stage for the impact of the ring on it&apos;s bearer, but does set Isildur as a villain or a fool. Which Tolkien masterfully makes use of more time, showing Isildur and the grand kings of men as great men who dealt with great dangers and temptations

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• TI

  @timb583 · 1 year ago (edited)

  I never got the impression that Elrond thought destroying the ring was absolutely necessary at that point rather than merely advisable. He only had a brief conversation with Isildur on the battlefield and that seems to be the end of it. There&apos;s no mention of him repeatedly reaching out to Isildur urging him to get rid of it. They probably didnt know that not destroying the ring would allow Sauron to return, as no one but Sauron had ever had the ring. They may have thought he was gone for good. Even Sauron didnt know the ring was so central to his continued existence! Given all this its really hard to fault Isildur for what he did.

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• HO

  @host_theghost507 · 1 year ago

  The movie is big on parallel scenes: Isildur&apos;s failure to destroy the Ring mirrors Frodo&apos;s failure to do the same. In the same way, the correct retelling of Isildur&apos;s selflessness also helps us to see Frodo&apos;s selflessness more clearly. Neither of them wanted to use the Ring, and that may be what allowed Frodo to get as close to the Cracks of Doom as he did.

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• AT

  @At_Ant · 1 year ago

  I don’t know how Robert cranks out his content so frequently. This is my nighttime listening, I love it!

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• SC

  @ScottHess · 1 year ago

  Something easy to overlook is that in the books we read, the way things worked out for Isildur is history. &nbsp;Elrond at the time of Isildur was not a wise ancient, yet. &nbsp;Isildur and Gollum and Bilbo are the only reference points we have for the One Ring and mortals, and none of their ring-related story had happened, yet. &nbsp;They might extrapolate from the elvish rings and the rings given to men - but the One Ring was made by a Maia for use by a Maia, so that&apos;s just educated guessing. &nbsp;Of course, it is quite reasonable to make the assumption that anything claimed off Sauron by a mortal was probably worthy of substantial suspicion, but I don&apos;t think it&apos;s clear how to propertly rank the scale of the issue. &nbsp;They didn&apos;t have Celebrimbor on hand to help size things up. &nbsp;Sauron had just been defeated and for all they knew, he was no longer a problem. &nbsp;Maybe the ring was now a free agent?<br><br>Meanwhile, at the time of the Council, Elrond is now ranked among the wisest and most learned of elfkind, clearly the time of Sauron is NOT past, we know what happened to the various keepers of the One Ring, and Gandalf has done decades of research. &nbsp;Keeping in mind that as a Maia, Gandalf can probably glean significantly more information from a bit of lore than anyone else would ever notice (remember the background music he is working with). &nbsp;So when The Council is making decisions, they really have a lot more to go on than Isildur did.

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• BI

  @billwhite9480 · 1 year ago

  Everyone also seems to forget that Elrond was just a herald at the battle. He wasn&apos;t even a major figure in the Last Alliance.

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