Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
I could look it up in Letters, if my copy was to hand, but Tolkien wrote (IIRC to Eileen Elgar) that NO one could destroy the ring at the Sammath Naur. It was beyond the strength of will of any, even a Gandalf. Frodo (and by extension Isildur) cannot be faulted for not doing the impossible.
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It's in 246, which was the source of my earlier comment (though I also didn't have the book nearby).
Quote:
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I do not think that Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum--impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted.
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Although Isildur's experience with the Ring was unquestionably brief when he had it in hand in Mordor, not a long struggle as with Frodo, we must recall that the temptation of the One increased with the innate power and pride of the wearer.
Gandalf recognized that when addressing Boromir's attempt to take the Ring from Frodo by force.
Despite Elrond's words in the Council about Isildur's "refusal" to destroy the Ring when he could, he says nothing about why he or Círdan didn't simply take it from Isildur. They were
afraid to touch it themselves.