What was Frodo's temptation

[Mnemosyne]

*cough*

Originally Posted by CSteefel

This interpretation implies, however, that the much more rapid failure of such figures as Boromir (especially) and Isildur (perhaps partly to be expected given the fact that his decision comes also on the brink of Sammath Naur, after witnessing the destruction of first his brother and then his father) to resist the Ring is really a result of the fact that their character flaws removed or at least lowered the obstacles to the Ring's domination of their personalities.

Focusing on Isildur here...

1). It does not come on the brink of the Sammath Naur. That was only in movieverse, creating the beautiful plothole of "Why didn't Elrond just push the idiot in???" It does take place in Mordor, but presumably since Sauron's just been completely dispersed I don't think it had the same kind of fell power that it did in Frodo's time.

2). Regarding Eonwe's point. There is no evidence that Isildur wanted to use the Ring for the increase of his own power per se--at least, not the way that Boromir did. After all, they'd just beaten the bad guys, right? It makes a lot more sense for the flaw the Ring exploited to deal a lot more with the losses in Isildur's life: father, brother, and all of Numenor. You could possibly argue that it offered him the power to bring those back in some way, shape, or form... maybe...

Just trying to set a few things straight here. Still irked at PJ's (and the subsequent shift in fandom perception) massacre of the tragedy of Isildur here.