What was Frodo's temptation

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

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...

It's true that it didn't offer him power in the same way that it did Boromir, but by taking the ring as an heirloom it is symbolising that he has beaten Sauron, and "has the power to wear his ring", in a way. By making him take it and not destroy it, it is offering him the chance to feel powerful. Even more so with the weregild idea. He is claiming weregild off the most powerful being in ME at the time, so obviously it makes him feel powerful, like he is equal to Sauron and can dare to take something from him (Sauron is "dead" at the time, but still, it may have added to his ego a bit too much).

Of course, what I'm saying is that the Ring was giving Isildur the illusion of power, and Isildur's probable desire (defeating Sauron) had already been achieved. So, it just made itself look attractive to him, and convinced him that taking it would be consolation for his father's death (possibly a desire of his).

But yes, in no way was it suggesting to him such grand visions as it did to Boromir.



Note that I had not originally planned to put him there (in the first sentence), but because he was there later in the paragraph, for some reason I assumed that he should be there too, and changed the grammar accordingly. This is just a new thought after realising my mistake.