The Last Mortal Contest

[Greenwood]

It is another of the many instances of Tolkien's great talent as a writer. He gives his readers the essential information (Gil-galad and Elendil dead, Sauron defeated and Isildur taking Sauron's Ring) while leaving the exact details to the readers' imagination. Those precise details really are irrelevant to the story and each reader can see it the way they want without being "wrong".

 

[Inderjit S]

I still go with my original position-that Elendil and Gil-Galad fought Sauron and overthrew him but he killed them both with the "heat of his body"-Cirdan, Elrond and Isildur were situated close by, and Isildur rushed forward, perhaps in grief for his father, and chopped the ring off a 'dead' or nearly dead Sauron. (He was incarnate after all.) Gil-Galad was indeed "killed first", "by the heat of Sauron's body", or so Isildur recounts it, Elendil himself was slain in a similair fashion, though I guess they were able to kill Sauron by injuring him many times in battle, till they were both killed-as was Sauron, or he was at least weakened.

 

[Greenwood]

I still go with my original position-that Elendil and Gil-Galad fought Sauron and overthrew him but he killed them both with the "heat of his body"-Cirdan, Elrond and Isildur were situated close by, and Isildur rushed forward, perhaps in grief for his father, and chopped the ring off a 'dead' or nearly dead Sauron. (He was incarnate after all.) Gil-Galad was indeed "killed first", "by the heat of Sauron's body", or so Isildur recounts it, Elendil himself was slain in a similair fashion, though I guess they were able to kill Sauron by injuring him many times in battle, till they were both killed-as was Sauron, or he was at least weakened.

That is certainly a plausible scenario.

 

[Telëlambe]

Yeah it sounds good but we have come to the hair-splitting stage here,
the real question is why Elrond, Cirdan and Isildur Did'nt join in...

 

[Inderjit S]

Most problably because Sauron challenged Elendil and Gil-Galad to combat, after he saw his forces being driven back or routed. (It is probable that he was able to break the siege and drive the alliance back for a while, or perhaps they kept a small besieging force under some captain (Anarion may have been the captain of old, until he was slain by a missile from Barad-dur) who were driven back by Sauron's armies until he came to the main host somewhere near or between Mount Doom and Barad-dur and was being driven back, until Elendil and Gil-Galad, who I guess would be commanding the centre came to his banner and were "challenged" so to speak, but then again how do we manage to make this fit in with the fact that the Last Mortal Contest took place on the slopes of Mount Doom? I guess there are two options-that the Last Alliance forces were driving back Sauron's main forces, but he was able to excriate himself from the battle with his vanguard and makes his way to Mount Doom, where I guess the vanguards of Elendil and Gil-Galad went after him, and Elendil and Gil-Galad, together with the other three were able to come to Sauron himself-and the two High-Kings were challenged to combat, perhaps seeing his army being driven back Sauron seeked to dent the moral of the Alliance forces by slaying their leaders. Or perhaps the Alliance was situated elsewhere, they met the forces of Sauron, and Sauron was again able to excriate himself and the same scenario came to be-that the main hosts battled somwhere close to Mount Doom and Barad-dur but the vanguards of the High-Kings went off to challenge Sauron's vanguard. Perhaps Isildur left Elendur in charge of his men, since Elendur was always at his side, apart from the fight at hand. (And Gil-Galad and Elendil left able deputies too.)