Who Really Killed Sauron in the Battle of the Last Alliance?

[jammi567]

As the title asks.

[Alcuin]

Isildur delivered the death-blow, as Gordis recounts in this post;Valandil cites Isildur’s claim (that Gordis quoted) in this post.


==> Can we emend this to a poll and vote on it? (This might evolved into an most interesting thread.)

[Butterbeer]

Humbug.

[Valandil]

I actually agree with BB's "humbug".

I tend to think that Isildur was taking undue credit (perhaps the earliest sign of the effects of the Ring). Although we have no 'blow-by-blow' account of this one - as we do when Merry & Eowyn tag-team on the Witch King, we do have some other brief descriptions. I think Sauron's "death" at this time should be doubly credited to the joint efforts of Gilgalad and Elendil.

[Alcuin]

Fair enough. Elrond, who was an eyewitness, and Gandalf, who was thoroughly familiar with the situation (quite possibly through conversations with Gil-galad either in Mandos or in Valinor) both credited Gil-galad and Elendil with slaying Sauron. Is Isildur bragging, exaggerating, or simply mistaken? Were the unwholesome effects of the Ring already working on Isildur? Do we have enough information to proceed?

[Gordis]

As I have said earluier, if Sauron were dead already, there would have been no Ring to take. Sauron's spirit would have "spirited" it away.

I think Isildur, Elrond and Cirdan found Sauron very badly wounded and dying.
So obviously dying as to stop the Elves from hitting the conquered Enemy.

Isildur couldn't rightfully claim the victory over Sauron, he only cut Sauron's finger with the Ring. He was able to do it with high precision, severing only one of the five fingers. Most likely Sauron offered no resistance at all, probably he was unconscious.

And surprise-surprise - cutting the Ring-finger happened to be the death blow.

Yet Isildur claimed the Ring not as his rightful spoil of war taken from an enemy he had conquered, but only as a weregild for his father.

[jammi567]

Originally Posted by Gordis

As I have said earluier, if Sauron were dead already, there would have been no Ring to take. Sauron's spirit would have "spirited" it away.

Really? I don't remeber reading anything about that? Then again, I haven't read the books in a while, so my memory might be a bit hazy...

Isildur couldn't rightfully claim the victory over Sauron, he only cut Sauron's finger with the Ring. He was able to do it with high precision, severing only one of the five fingers. Most likely Sauron offered no resistance at all, probably he was unconscious.

But surely if the Ring is the one thing that allows him to take a corpial shape, then that truely is the "death blow". As I seem to remember Gandalf saying somehere, if he hasn't got a shape, then Middle Earth is reletivly safe.

Yet Isildur claimed the Ring not as his rightful spoil of war taken from an enemy he had conquered, but only as a weregild for his father.

So? What's wrong with that?

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by jammi567

Really? I don't remeber reading anything about that? Then again, I haven't read the books in a while, so my memory might be a bit hazy...

in the letter 211 Tolkien writes:

Though reduced to ‘a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind’, I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring” back to Middle-earth after the drowning of Numenor.

Somewhere else Tolkien wrote that in Numenor "Sauron naturally had the One Ring." Sauron's body was destroyed, but his spirit carried the Ring with him to ME. So, he could do it again, escaping from Orodruin.

Originally Posted by jammi567

So? What's wrong with that?

Nothing at all. Isildur was a honest man.

[jammi567]

Originally Posted by Gordis

Somewhere else Tolkien wrote that in Numenor "Sauron naturally had the One Ring." Sauron's body was destroyed, but his spirit carried the Ring with him to ME. So, he could do it again, escaping from Orodruin.

Thanks! So, do you think that he was like the nazgul, invisible and such like, but able to carry physical things? Because I don't see how else he could do that.

Nothing at all. Isildur was a honest man.

Ohhhh, okay. It's just that you made it sound like that was a bad thing.

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

I'm with Val. Sorry Gordis. Elrond and Gandalf are much more reliable witnesses than Isildur, IMO. Also, just because Sauron's disembodied spirit could carry the Ring and other physical things, doesn't mean he could and would do so at the very moment of the death of his body. As one who has been embodied for as long as I can remember, I would expect sudden and violent disembodiment to be disorienting for awhile. But maybe that's just me.

[Alcuin]

There is a middle interpretation on this worth considering. Sauron could not be ultimately destroyed in Arda as long as the Ring remained. That was the point of the Council of Elrond: to rid the world of Sauron, the Ring had to be destroyed.

The text would seem to indicate that Elendil and Gil-galad did sufficient damage to Sauron to render him insensate. Elendil died in the deed (and fell over his sword, breaking it), but it seems to me that the text would lead us to believe that Gil-galad died from burns almost immediately after Sauron collapsed. I think that Isildur then took the hilt-shard of Narsil and cut the Ring from Sauron’s hand; and it would seem reasonable that, upon separation from his Precious, and having suffered as much physical damage as he already had, Sauron’s body decayed much as Saruman’s.

To me, this makes both Elrond’s and Isildur’s versions accurate.

Where are all the versions of telling of this part of the tell? LotR, UT, Sauron Defeated, Peoples of Middle-earth, and where else? Letters? Do all the versions basically agree? Does Isildur claim to have delivered the death-blow in only one version, or in more than one? Anyone remember, or do I have spend part of Thanksgiving holiday on this?

(Sorry to bore those of you uninterested in this – I find it interesting, and more fun than mining salt tonight.)

[Olmer]

Agree with Valandil.
But the joint efforts were of the Keepers - Gil-Galad, Cirdan and Galadriel. The power of their rings has helped to strip Sauron off his strenght. He couldn't use his Ring at Dagorlad, and it was not protecting him at the Gorgoroth plateou seven years later.
His power was seeping out of him by minutes, and, as Alcuin said, he collapsed immediately after spending much of his strenght on fight with Elendil and Gil-Galad.
Isildur just happened to be much closer to the drained of his vitality Sauron, then Elrond.
Otherwise the story of the Dark Lord would be quite different.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Olmer

Agree with Valandil.
But the joint efforts were of the Keepers - Gil-Galad, Cirdan and Galadriel. The power of their rings has helped to strip Sauron off his strenght. He couldn't use his Ring at Dagorlad, and it was not protecting him at the Gorgoroth plateou seven years later.
His power was seeping out of him by minutes, and, as Alcuin said, he collapsed immediately after spending much of his strenght on fight with Elendil and Gil-Galad.
Isildur just happened to be much closer to the drained of his vitality Sauron, then Elrond.
Otherwise the story of the Dark Lord would be quite different.

Olmer - are you saying that the three Elven rings could be used to fight against the One? I never knew you took that stance - and it's totally opposite of standard ring-lore. What statements or events do you use to bolster this view?

I had always thought the 3 Elven rings were basically 'set aside' for the second half of the Second Age - and that the Elves were only able to use them when Sauron did not have the One.

[Olmer]

Actually, it was my elaboration on yours idea : what if Sauron, upon realizing that created network of the objects is capable to disbalance the structure of the world, was trying to destroy the Ring? The elves have sensed the imminent danger to their favorite toy, and this is why they confronted him not at the gates of Barad-Dur, but 30 miles away from it, near the Orodruin.

I think that the basic idea was to connect forces of nature in a chain, which will give an ability to manipulate them. We know everything in nature is made of the four basic elements. By the method of deduction (Vilya, Nenya, Narya) we see that "earth" element is missing, and it should be Sauron's ring (I'd call it Ardya).
So, all Rings were equally powerful. The Elves just downplayed the importance of their rings, making themselves look like innocent victims of Sauron's play. Actually, any 3 rings of nature's elements were capable to overpower the fouth.
And this is exactly what has happened at the plateu of Gorgoroth.

[Attalus]

Um, I'll pass on that and take a second helping of Galadriel.

[Jon S.]

Olmer, all I'll say here is you have a wonderful and creative imagination.

[jammi567]

That's an awesome theory, but do you have any textual support?

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Where are all the versions of telling of this part of the tell? LotR, UT, Sauron Defeated, Peoples of Middle-earth, and where else? Letters? Do all the versions basically agree? Does Isildur claim to have delivered the death-blow in only one version, or in more than one? Anyone remember, or do I have spend part of Thanksgiving holiday on this?

Here is from Letters #131:

Isildur, Elendil's son, cuts the ring from Sauron's hand, and his power departs, and his spirit flees into the shadows.

So again, Sauron dies after Isildur's finger-slicing, and likely because of it.

[Alcuin]

Thank you, Gordis. I have never before given any attention to that sentence.

The question to me then becomes, why does Elrond – and why does Tolkien consistently – give credit for the victory to Gil-galad and Elendil? Was Sauron incapacitated? Beaten down? Unconscious? Or was this a situation like that depicted by Peter Jackson: just a lucky strike? Clearly, the Last Alliance had driven Sauron to the brink, and he was headed to Sammath Naur as his last refuge, was he not?

Are there other opinions on this? Surely there must be...

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

The question to me then becomes, why does Elrond – and why does Tolkien consistently – give credit for the victory to Gil-galad and Elendil? Was Sauron incapacitated? Beaten down? Unconscious? Or was this a situation like that depicted by Peter Jackson: just a lucky strike?

No, it has happened not like in the movie. Sauron was already conquered by Elendil and Gil-Galad when Isildur took the Ring.

Gandalf: It was Gil-galad, Elven-king and Elendil of Westernesse who overthrew Sauron, though they themselves perished in the deed; and Isildur Elendil’s son cut the Ring from Sauron’s hand and took it for his own. Then Sauron was vanquished and his spirit fled and was hidden for long years, until his shadow took shape again in Mirkwood.- the Shadow of the Past

also here:

Elrond: "I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hilt-shard of his father's sword, and took it for his own."-Council of Elrond

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Clearly, the Last Alliance had driven Sauron to the brink, and he was headed to Sammath Naur as his last refuge, was he not?

Are there other opinions on this? Surely there must be...

Who knows why Sauron was headed to Sammath Naur... After all it is about 30 miles from Barad-Dur to the bottom of the Mountain.

Was it his "last refuge"? I doubt it. More likely he wanted to fly towards Minas Ithil via Ungol Pass, or maybe he thought to use the Mountain for some sorcery trick...perhaps an explosion?

It is notable that some of the orcs besieged in Barad-Dur seemingly did escape as well as all the Ringwraiths, who went East:

It is unlikely that any news of Sauron's fall had reached them, for he had been straitly besieged in Mordor and all his forces had been destroyed. If any few had escaped, they had fled far to the East with the Ringwraiths.(UT, disaster of the Gladden).

So, why didn't Sauron flee with them? Why was he alone(?) away from his nazgul, at Orodruin?