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How and why Isildur dies in the movies is wrong — Here's What Tolkien Actually Wrote

The Grey Pilgrim

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What They Didn't Tell You About ISILDUR in the Lord of the Rings Movies

Isildur didn't die refusing to destroy the Ring. He died trying to give it away.

Unfinished Tales reveals Isildur was thirty days into a four-hundred-mile walk to Rivendell to surrender the Ring to Elrond when orcs ambushed his company at the Gladden Fields. His own words to his son, mid-battle: "My pride has fallen. It should go to the Keepers of the Three." The films never wrote that scene — because it never happened on screen at all.

This video covers:
What Isildur actually said to Elendur before he died, verified word-for-word from Unfinished Tales
Why the Elendilmir kept him visible even while wearing the Ring
How the Ring's "betrayal" in the river was closer to a mercy than a curse
The steel closet in Orthanc — what Saruman found at the Gladden Fields, and what he may have burned

Sources: The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales, Appendix B, and the Peter Jackson trilogy.

#LOTR #Isildur #Tolkien

6 Comments

@NancyHayes-g9t 2 months ago

Thank you for covering this. I love the movies, but they turned Isildur from a hero to a coward. Something else people don’t seem to consider is that if Isildur were as corrupt as the movies show him, the ring wouldn’t have needed to betray him. It could keep on corrupting him, and Gondor might never have been a kingdom who fought against Sauron but was, instead, one of his closest allies. Sauron caused Numenor’s downfall; causing Gondor’s when the ring had centuries to corrupt its kings would have been child’s play.

@LostTime1215 2 months ago

According to books, Isildur stayed in Minas Anor instructing his nephew on how to be king of Gondor and then was marching north to Annuminas to take up the high kingship of Arnor not to give the ring to Elrond. Remember the ring takes hold of people quickly as a way to protect itself. He took it as weregild for the loss of his father and brother. The movies rewrote the books quite bit but the one that was true was Isildur did take the ring and refused Elronds counsel to destroy the ring.

@FullTimePatient37 2 months ago

THANK YOU HEAPS ❤ I haven't read the books yet so I'm very glad you're covering this

@brucetucker4847 1 month ago

Isildur set out with the intention of turning the Ring over to Elrond (although the main reason for the trip was to return to his own kingdom in the north). What actually would have happened when he got to Rivendell is another matter.