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.

[CSteefel]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

*cough*
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.

Good catch! And I am always getting ****ed at others for mixing up the movie and the book.

Of course, with Isildur it is not completely clear how much he knew about the Ring and its dangers. Certainly he knew it belonged to Sauron, but it is not so clear that he knew that the Ring would overthrow his mind. With Frodo, but also with Boromir, they have the benefit of extensive discussions with Gandalf and Elrond, and then later even with Galadriel, about the outcome of taking the Ring and trying to use it (Boromir chose not to believe this, while Frodo did).