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Originally Posted by HerenIstarion
What Isildur has done, seems a repetition on a minor scale of what Sauron has done to his Ringwraiths, so oathbreakers leave an impression (left on me when I pondered the subject) of neither alive nor dead rather than dead proper.
It is just as good that in fighting fire with fire, Aragorn extinguishes both fires. Rare case, as usually the excersise is likely to bring more fire about
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My post(s) proper on this thread will have to wait till next week, but on this point it seems to me that what Sauron has done to the Ringwraiths seems pretty much summed up by the WK's threat to Eowyn - 'Thy flesh shall be devoured, & thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.' In other words, he is threatening her with the fate he & his compatriots have themselves suffered - that she will be made a wraith.
I suppose it adds a poignancy to his words, & brings out the horror of his own existence. I wonder if there was a hint of regret & suffering in his words to her. On one level he is describing his own state - but more of that, perhaps, in the relevant chapter.
Whether this is similar to what Isildur caused to happen to the Oathbreakers is another question. Clearly, even if it is similar, it is not the same, as they retain a hope of redemption. Perhaps this is because they did not surrender to Sauron completely, merely refused to fight
against him. They seem to have refused to serve the Good, rather than actively choosing to serve the Bad - a sin of omission, rather than comission.
Surely their flesh was 'devoured' & their minds/spirits left 'naked', but
not to the Lidless Eye. They are bound to their
Oath, their sworn word, not to Isildur himself. It is not so much, in my opinion, that Isildur, or even Eru, has rescinded their 'Gift', but rather that they themselves have bound themselve to a course of action in the world & that they cannot leave the world till that Oath is fulfilled. As we speculated in the 'Oaths & Oathbreaking' thread, it seems that Oaths in Middle earth had a power over those who swear them - even if they swear in fear. Their Oath binds them & it overrides the gift till it is worked through.
So, in short, I don't think the gift was rescinded or overridden, merely put on hold till they could do what they swore to do. Its almost like, as Bilbo & Smeagol experienced with the Ring - they didn't get more life, they just 'continued' existing. Their bodies died but their spirits (the part of them that swore the Oath, if you like) just 'continued', till the thing that bound them within the circles of the world had been removed.
Long way of saying I think H-I is right
