Split Personality?

[Sauron the White]

from littlemanpoet

In any case, you are incorrect. The Alliance of the Free Peoples, though still relatively strong at the end of the Second Age, were on the verge of defeat, but Isildur cut the Ring from Sauron's finger.

Did not the free peoples army win the decisive battle seven years before? Did they not lay siege to the Barad-dur for the next seven years before dispatching Sauron? How is this on the verge of defeat? JRRT himself, writing in Of The Rings of Power in THE SILMARILLION says they had the victory and their siege was so powerful that if forced Sauron out from his fortress.

from Morwen

where in the LotR is it stated that the Ring was supposed to protect him or that it operates as a protective device? Where is this suggested?

Where is it stated or suggested that Sauron while wearing the Ring is invulnerable to attack making it impossible for Isildur to in fact cut it from hand?

And if neither of these things is stated or suggested then how is it a flaw if the Ring doesn't do something that it's never said that it could do?

This is the second post where you mention these questions and I do not know what I wrote to elicit this line of inquiry. I am not suggesting that the ring has the power to make anyone invulnerable. No way. I am not suggesting it was suppose to protect him from Isildur. No way - no how.

My point is very simple.

The entire LOTR revolves around the idea that the ring must be destroyed because if Sauron gets it he will then take over Middle-earth. Supposedly, the ring is the only thing standing in the way of his all out domination of all the peoples of the world.

But that is a serious flaw in the entire underpinnings of the novel and plot. You see , Sauron already had the ring and had it for a good long time. And while he did conquer some lands and the peoples upon it, he certainly was not able to do what everybody at the Council of Elrond fears will happen if he gets it again.

Premise: we have to destroy the ring or Sauron will get it and rule the world and kill or enslave us all.
Flaw: Sauron already had the ring for a long time and did not rule the world and kill or enslave everyone.

That is my point.