🧝Elrond And Isildur

[John]

what if elrond pushed Isildur into the fires of mount doom?

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

I asked this a while ago and got some decent replies:

https://thetolkien.forum/threads/why-didnt-elrond-kill-isildur-and-destroy-the-ring.18072/

The scene you saw in the movie was a PJ imagination like most of the parts in the movie.

From Council of Elrond:

Isildur took it, as should not have been. It should have been cast then into Orodruin's fire nigh at hand where it was made. But few marked what Isildur did. He alone stood by his father in that last mortal contest; and by Gil-galad only Círdan stood, and I. But Isildur would not listen to our counsel. - This I will have as weregild for my father, and my brother, he said; and therefore whether we would or no, he took it to treasure it. But soon he was betrayed by it to his death

 

[grendel]

what if elrond pushed Isildur into the fires of mount doom?

That pretty much would have ended the Third Age right there, I suppose. Sauron would have been vanquished, the Three would also have lost their powers, and the Elves would have little reason to hang around Middle-Earth.

 

[Hisoka Morrow]

That pretty much would have ended the Third Age right there,

Or the already set 4th Age would have become the 3rd Age. XD

 

[Alcuin]

Would Elrond killing Isildur have been a Fëanorian kind of action? Wouldn’t that have split the Faithful Dúnedain who followed Elendil and the Eldar? It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing Elrond would do. Isn’t this akin to, “What if Sauron retrieved the Ring and won the war?”

 

[Rōmānus]

what if elrond pushed Isildur into the fires of mount doom?

I would say Elrond did so while Isildur was off guard. At least in Unfinished Tales he was accounted “a man of strength and endurance that few even of the Dunédain of that age could equal.” (Disaster of the Gladden Fields) I do not think Elrond would want to have to deal with the might of Arnor and Gondor, nor kill his nephew. Besides Isildur was not acting crazy even though it was a reckless decision (likely not one wholly in his hands) to take the Ring.

 

[Muskrat]

It seems to me that “good” characters in LotR believe in Kantian or virtue ethics (do the right thing whatever the consequences) as opposed to utilitarianism (do the act that produces the best consequences for everyone). I do not think the thought of killing Isildur or forcing him to destroy the Ring ever entered Elrond’s mind. He did not try to force the Fellowship into any specific course of action even if that might save the world. Kant(who famously held that one should tell the truth to a murderer searching for his victim) would have applauded.

 

[Deimos]

Q: what if elrond pushed Isildur into the fires of mount doom?

Tolkien would have been saved a lot of bother....3 volumes worth, to be exact.

 

[The Witch-king Of Angmar]

This is a great idea for an AU story where Elrond pushed Isildur and the entire "history" from there on took a completely different turn. Who knows what might have happened - who is to say that there wouldn't have been another evil force lurking somewhere, a force that would have been even more difficult to beat than Sauron was? Ah, so intriguing.