The Battle of the 5+ Armies

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by Elmo

Tolkien is guilty of this. Didn't Isildur cut Sauron's ring off his finger with the shards of Narsil?

We have enough stupid, un-Tolkien scenes from TH to go over without bringing up stupid, un-Tolkien scenes from LotR.

[Elmo]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

We have enough stupid, un-Tolkien scenes from TH to go over without bringing up stupid, un-Tolkien scenes from LotR.

Did Isildur not use the shards? I've care enough about this ive checked three different wikis and they all say he did

[Zigûr]

It's become my impression that Gil-galad and Elendil severely wounded Sauron, perhaps fatally, Sauron burned Gil-galad to death with his hand and struck Elendil down, Elendil fell and Narsil shattered beneath him, and Isildur took the hilt and dealt the final blow to the crippled, unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, possibly dying, Sauron by hewing off his finger.

This is to say, I feel that Isildur didn't wield the broken hilt of his father's sword in some daring act of martial prowess but rather as the best instrument he had to hand for the blunt act of amputating his enemy's digit.

"Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?" Unless Isildur is lying, I feel like this explanation is at least one which reconciles the three ideas we hear in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion that:

a) Elendil and Gil-galad killed Sauron
b) Isildur "dealt the Enemy his death-blow"
c) Isildur used the hilt to cut the Ring from Sauron's finger

b) and c) might be separate incidents, however: maybe he stabbed Sauron with the hilt first or something to that effect and then severed his finger. I've found this bit confusing for years.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

It's become my impression that Gil-galad and Elendil severely wounded Sauron, perhaps fatally, Sauron burned Gil-galad to death with his hand and struck Elendil down, Elendil fell and Narsil shattered beneath him, and Isildur took the hilt and dealt the final blow to the crippled, unconscious or otherwise incapacitated, possibly dying, Sauron by hewing off his finger.

This is to say, I feel that Isildur didn't wield the broken hilt of his father's sword in some daring act of martial prowess but rather as the best instrument he had to hand for the blunt act of amputating his enemy's digit.

"Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?" Unless Isildur is lying, I feel like this explanation is at least one which reconciles the three ideas we hear in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion that:

a) Elendil and Gil-galad killed [sic?] Sauron
b) Isildur "dealt the Enemy his death-blow"
c) Isildur used the hilt to cut the Ring from Sauron's finger

b) and c) might be separate incidents, however: maybe he stabbed Sauron with the hilt first or something to that effect and then severed his finger. I've found this bit confusing for years.

It's pleasing to me to read Isildur's so-called "death-blow", if not as a lie, than at least indulging in some deluded braggodocio--an immediate symptom of the influence of the Ring. Before PJ's Fellowship, I wonder if it was common for serious readers of LotR to think Isildur engaged in personal combat with Sauron. I certainly had a little internal scoff at that scene, and later it surprised me when some said it fit their view of that event, at least in a general way.

The duel on the slopes of Orodruin is one of the most problematic scenes in the books for me though. I'd love to know what Tolkien's close-up view would have looked like, if he had one.

[Elmo]

As a 'serious reader of the Lord of the Rings' (rather than those who just read it for a laugh ) I always assumed Gil Galad and Elendil sacrificed themselves to throw down Sauron somehow leaving the Dark Lord open for Isildur to cut the ring off his finger. I never assumed the film version was correct... it is stated the Isildur alone of Men, supported his father in the last duel with Sauron so I assume he must have fought him in some form.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Oh aye, Elmo min, all I meant was that, since the diminishing Narsil did not by itself make the one who wielded it more deadly, it wouldn't be quite relevant for the Law of Diminishing Weapon.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

Originally Posted by Elmo

As a 'serious reader of the Lord of the Rings' (rather than those who just read it for a laugh )

Yikes, yeah, that sentence makes me sound terrible. Non-casual? Semi-solemn? Dour-ish? I can't figure out a better way to say the same thing.

Which most likely means I really am terrible. Snoot snoot.

[Elmo]

I believe the correct term is 'as obsessed with LOTR as Gollum is with the ring'.