Isildur

[Huinesoron]

Isildur is weak, and that's what makes him interesting.

(Oh yes, I'm doubling down.)

How you see Isildur depends on how much of his story you accept. If you just take what's in LotR, then he's a pretty straight archetype: he's a noble warrior-king who is immediately corrupted by the One Ring. For LotR, that's all he needs to be - an explanation for why the Ring still exists, and a warning/foreshadowing of Frodo's similar failure at the last.

But then you go back to the Silmarillion, and you learn about his rescue of the fruit of the White Tree, and his grievous injury. You see that he was a very strong character, a brave leader of men and commander of ships. You come to see his failure as a tragedy, a strong hero broken by what must be nigh-unbeatable power.

But there's more to him than that. If you go back to the incomplete Lost Road, you find Elendil's conversations with his son, who at this point goes by the name of Herendil. And Herendil... supports the king. He's proud of Numenor's might. He warns his father about the dangers of being an Elf-friend. He voices a pro-Sauron viewpoint!

If you accept that Herendil is a proto-Isildur (which I think is inarguable), and that Tolkien would have retained these aspects of him (which I do), then... he's weak. He's drawn astray by the lure of power and might.

But he becomes strong. Sneaking into the palace and retrieving the fruit is an act of strength, because it's not about power. It's about saving something that is beautiful and sacred, but in practical terms useless. It's not just Isildur being heroic - it's the former Herendil getting over his focus on physical power and accepting that the 'useless' can actually be more important.

And that casts his failure at Orodruin in a whole new light. He's not just a hero who fell - he's a man who did overcome his baser instincts... but was consumed by them again at the last. It means that the temptation offered by the Ring was precisely the thing he'd thought he had rejected, but found that in its purest form he couldn't.

And (lest you think I'm over-interpreting) this isn't just Isildur's failing - it is the failing of Numenorean men across their whole history.

Originally Posted by Erendis, Queen of Numenor

Anger they show only when they become aware, suddenly, that there are other wills in the world beside their own. Then they will be as ruthless as the seawind if anything dare to withstand them.

hS