In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Isildur is set up as a contemptible, even hateable figure. He is the character who is blamed for with holding the Ring for himself and not destroying it when he had the chance. Most other characters speak of him with dislike (Elrond, and even Aragorn is troubled that they are related and is afraid of becoming like him.) He is never shown in a good light. As a reader/viewer of LOTR, I greatly disliked Isildur myself. I just passed him off as an evil person. I didn't even really give him a chance.
Just lately, I read about him in the Sil. I read about his valor and courage, how he risked his life to get a fruit of Nimloth, the White Tree. and his character seemed valiant and heroic, much like Aragorn, and not at all like some hateable man overcome with greed.
This lead me to thinking: is Isildur really as bad as we thought he was? Think about it. We are blaming him for not destroying the One Ring. Blaming him for doing the same thing that anyone would do. Look at Frodo. Frodo faltered. He claimed the Ring for his own. Just like Isildur. And Frodo is not evil. So why does doing the same thing make Isildur evil?
Don't you think that Isildur should ge given a chance? Don't you think he had a good heart, but in that one moment, was overcome by the ultimate temptation? And don't you think ithat it's unfair to assume he is evil because of it?

Hadn't thoguth about this, but now that u bring it up, I do agree. Havent read sil....(need 2, though. ) but i agree w/ u. thanks 4 bringing this 2 my attention, Tinuviel!!

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"Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness."

Hallo Pip! It's good to see you around!
Gee, I sound kind of crazy and ranting in my first post. But I was just thinking about it and it's really not fair to the character that everyone assumes he's bad all the time.

^No you don't!! I agree w/ you!! lol

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"Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness."

It's much the same discussion as goes for Boromir. Both are valiant men, brave and noble, however, the Ring is a stronger match for any mortal to resist, forged as it is by the Dark Lord himself.
Aragorn is the first (and only one of the Men) who is aware of the real power of the Ring and that knowledge helps him a lot in dealing with it.

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You're right Ea. It is very similar to Boromir. A lot of people dismiss Boromir as evil as well. I think that he was given more of a chance though. At least he seemed nice at the beginning, and we were shown his repentance in the end. With Isildur, we only see the bad side. No scenes of remorse, nothing. Simply that he did not destroy the Ring. At least with Boromir, we end up liking him in the end. Poor Isildur never had the chance.

I personally never thought Isildur was evil. No one would be able to resist the ring that close to Mount Doom, and he later regretted taking it.

Boromir had evil moments, but in the end he redeemed himself by fighting to protect the hobbits.

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You thought of Isildur and Boromir so evil because they never resisted to the ring and wanted to take it for themselves as it is the ring's effect on both. I never thought of Isildur as a bad man since he is the ancestor of Aragorn. You guys missed one thing in the movie. The man,Isildur, took the ring from Frodo neither dwarfs nor elves. If Isildur was so evil, he had not moved his army to Mount Doom where he knew that he could meet Sauron. He never ran away and fought courageously till he had the ring from Sauron. As for Boromir, courage is always with him but he was powerless against the will of the ring. At the end, all I meant to say that what Isildur and Boromir did the wrong was of ring's making

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I never thought of Boromir as completely evil. I just thought he made some bad decisions. I never blamed him for trying to take the Ring. With Isildur, I just never thought about it. I didn't think. I just decided he was evil. After considering it, I relaized how wrong it was to automatically assume he was evil. So basically, I made this post to see if anyone else had made this mistake, and to give other people who read it a sort of warning against it.

I have never thought of Isildur as evil. I personally thought that his depiction in the films was incorrect, as he is made to look evil. If you read the books carefully you will notice that Tolkien never has any of his characters consider Isildur as evil. At no point does Tolkien make Isildur sound evil. He just made a bad choice. He was corrupted as so many others were. He was just unfortunate that his corruption led to a great evil enduring.

Let's face it, if it weren't for Gollum, Frodo would not have destroyed the Ring. In fact, Frodo didn't destroy the ring, it fell into the fire by accident, as a result of Frodo and Gollum fighting over it. If there had been a Gollum equivalent for Isildur, it could have been destroyed.

If you look at Isildur's life, you can see that he was a hugely valiant man, who performed great deeds against the evil of Sauron, both in Numenor, and in Middle-earth. He thought he had destroyed Sauron, and took the ring 'as a wereguild' to pay for the death's of his father and his brother.

His designs or intentions were never evil, he was just taken by the power of the Ring.

This is a great topic!

I really hated Isildur for a while, and was always very angry at him (at the LotR exhibit I went to, the entrance was between "The Argonath," and I refused to pose for a picture in front of Isildur-- I insisted on being in front of Anarion). But recently, I read Unfinished Tales, and had a change of heart. There's a section in there on him, on his death. And he, at the end, realizes also that he was wrong in what he did. In the movie he is certainly portrayed as being rather evil (my siblings and I joke that when he wouldn't throw the Ring into the Cracks of Doom, Elrond should have just thrown Isildur in!). But I think that's not really true.

And Boromir I certainly don't consider evil. Everything he'd ever known, ever been taught, was teaching him that the best idea would be to use the Ring. So the Fellowship's Quest was going directly against everything he'd ever known.

How many of us would stand strong under the Ring's temptation? We'd all like to say we'd do well, but we can't know that. So for that reason I also don't think Gollum is necessarily evil-- it's far more the Ring. Throughout the story, it's the Ring, not the people who bear it, which causes evil.

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That is a very good point. Gollum is another character that a lot of people think is evil. I suppose that the Gollum half, the half consumed by the Ring is evil, but we see that the Smeagol half is still good. There is still good in him.
Boromir was undoubtley not evil. His intentions were good. But again, the Ring corrupted him. I don't think that this makes him a weak character. In the end, he fought valiantly, admitted his mistake, and defended his friends. He was a great character. But that's for another thread.
Isildur was likewise corrupted by the Ring. The Ring is like most other evil things. It betrays you, even when you think it is your ally. the Ring was ultimately the cause of Isildur's death. It slipped from his finger into the Anduin as he tried to swim away from Orcs.
Here is an interesting question:
Boromir first started to have an interest in the Ring because he wished to use it to defend and save his city from the forces of Sauron.
Isildur took the Ring because he wanted it as compensation for the death of hos father and brother, and as a trophy of his victory against Sauron.
Both of these instances are similar. the thing that is the same in each is: pride. Boromir's pride in his city and in his strength as a warrior. Isildur's pride in his bollodline and in his strength as a warrior. That one little piece of pride was all the Ring needed to corrupt the hearts of Men.
Perhaps that is part of the lure of the Ring. All it needs is one small piece of a human frailty, and it uses that weakness against that person. Once that tiny part of control is there, the Ring has no trouble in taking a person completely.
Thoughts anyone?

I wouldn't consider Isildur evil at all. At least, he did not intend to be seen as so. He just wanted what was best for his people, and he happened to think that taking the Ring was the right thing. Unfortunately, for him it was his undoing.
Besides his want of power, and concern for his people, he was also under the influence of the Ring. Everyone can be caught in the spell that the Ring creates. The Ring does not spare anyone.
Just as it was hard for Frodo to give up the Ring, it was hard for Isildur also. He didn't think at all of what his actions would do to the world, so he had no reason to have a guilty conscience. Maybe if he had felt some guilt for it, he would have made the journey that Frodo took for him.

"...... he would have made the journey that Frodo took for him."
I love that Larael. I never thought of it that way, but in a way, Frodo did make the journey for Isildur. He made it for all of the Ring bearers.
I agree that all people are affected by the Ring. Even powerful people, such as Gandalf and Galadriel feel drawn to it. We shouldn't blame Isildur for also feeling that pull. We shouldn't even blame him for giving into it. he was mortal. As are we. Think about it. Would we be any better? Would be able to wilfully destory the Ring? No one could do that. No one could destory the Ring of their own free will. Isildur is just like the rest of us, just like every personwho struggles against temptation and gives in.

Isildur was definately not evil. I never really disliked him, even after the movie, which was before I read the books (any of them). Personally, I think he was a really awesome guy who had a weak moment and gave into some serious temptation. Afterwards, on the march back, he knew the best thing to have done would have been to throw it into Mount Doom. He acknowledged also that the Orcs who attacked them were unknowingly drawn to the power of the Ring, and knew that his pride had sealed the fate of his men. He acknowledged his mistake, and his sons and soldiers sacrificed themselves to make sure he got the Ring away from the battle.
An interesting thing is that, in the movie, he is wearing all his heavy armor and stuff in the water, which would have pulled him to the bottom and drowned him, and the arrows would also have bounced off, if he was wearing that, too. In The Unfinished Tales, the Ring fell off while he was in the water, but he still made it to the other side. He did, unfortunately, come out near a pair of Orc Archers who were supposed to watch for those who tried to escape, and terrified them, since he was just a shadow rising out of the water, and he had the Elendilmir on his brow, and it was seriously glowing, according to the book (well, it didn't say it quite like that, but...).

Lol, Darrell - actually, according to the book, Frodo and Gollum never fought over the Ring - Gollum was just dancing around and danced over the edge, while Frodo was still laying on the ground holding his finger, or rather, the stub of his finger.

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Very good thoughts Aerandir. Apparently you've come a long way with the books from when you saw the movies.
The only account of Isildur's death I've heard is what I read in LOTR. I have only read LOTR, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion. But I really liked your account of his death. "Seriously glowing"
Actually, some people are saying that they don't think Isildur is weak. I disagree. I think that he was weak, but that he was no more weak than the rest of us. Everyone has their weaknesses. Everyone has moments where they falter. Isildur just happened to falter at that exact moment in time.
As I've said, I don't hate Isildur anymore. I rather like him now. He was a good and brave, but mortal man.