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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 8 2025, 5:15pm
Post #1 of 95
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The Last Alliance
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The Last Alliance was a military combination of Elves, Men and Dwarves who invaded Mordor and at the end of the Second Age. Thus a series of events that climaxed in Isildur cutting the Ring from Sauron's hand, and Sauron's disappearance for a while. And so it goes - even the most (apparently) total military success doesn't fix things permanently.
I'd be happy to start a wide-ranging and meandering conversation about the Last Alliance, so feel free to post any thoughts or questions about it. And please do answer any questions others have posted, because all too likely I can't!
Just to get us started though - why was it the Last Alliance?
It doesn't seem to be the final collaboration between Elves and Men (or Elves, Men and Dwarves). They fight together in the Battle of the Five Armies (if we want to retcon TH into things which I know can be problematic). And in LOTR, while we don't exactly see combined ops on the same battlefield, it's clear it isn't just a war of Men against Sauron.
Why aren't those periods the Laster Alliance and the Even More Last Alliance? Are they different in some key way, and if so what is it?
A couple of thoughts of my own, but they don't seem to get us far:
Events are often named by their historians, not their participants. Nobody setting out to fight in the early battles of th Thirty Years' War could call it by that name, obviously. One could 'Red Book' an answer I suppose; suggesting that The Last Alliance is what it had come to be called by the time Tolkien's source documents were written. (By the Fourth Age, I think Elves have either left or become a 'rustic folk of dell and cave' and a new alliance might be as impractical as us expecting one with the Neanderthals today. So, in that view, when Elrond or Aragorn talk about the Last Alliance they would actually have said something else, and whatever they called it has been changed editorially.
Alternatively, maybe the participants realised or believed at the time that their alliance must be the last one? If that is just what they believed or hoped -- for example they were marching to get rid of Sauron for ever and therfore no further alliance would ever be required-- then fair enough (For a real-world parallel to that idea, see World War I as "The war that will end war" which, alas...) But if it was named the Last Alliance in knowledge rather than hope, then how so?
Lastly ( ) I strongly suspect that these events never really happened at all and Tolkien just made them up as entertainment.  So what literary purpose or advantages - theme, metaphor, plot mood or whatnot --does he get from making this the Last Alliance?
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Mar 8 2025, 5:17pm)
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 8 2025, 7:00pm
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But first for some wikipedia-style disambiguation:The Lost Alliance was left in a recycling bin by mistake and never recovered
The Lust Alliance can be found on OnlyFans and shows -- [never mind].
The Last Alliance has always struck me as reflective of the general pessimism of the Third Age, and it could even be called a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you say "we're all estranged races now and we'll never have an alliance again," then yeah, you can expect that.
So it's last due to estrangement and perceived irreconcilable differences, it's last because both Elves and Men have declined in numbers (the first are fleeing to Valinor, the second have other problems), and it's last because there's a sense of giving up and embalming among the Elves who would be the natural leaders of said Alliance.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 8 2025, 7:42pm
Post #3 of 95
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Elrond says at his Council:
“Never again shall there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged.
And ever since that day the race of Númenor has decayed, and the span of their years has lessened.”
And this does seems to explain it -or does it?
Superficially it does seem (as you've said) that Elrond has a gloomy prognosis about further collaborations. It might be his prediction only that this was the Last Alliance, or maybe that's the feeling generally among the remaining elf leaders of his time? As you say, CuriousG, self-fulfilling prophecies...
To look at Elrond's commentsin more detail though:
- The Firstborn decrease (in numbers - perhaps until now there are too few to field a sufficient army to counter Sauron by force? Or in ability to resist Sauron, or willingness to do so?)
- Men multiply (but wouldn't that be a good thing if you want to raise an army? If, that is, most modern Men don't think that Sauron has the right idea.)
- and the two kindreds are estranged - so maybe amidst growing ignorance of each other and decreasing values held in common it is more difficult to do the diplomacy needed to set up effective alliances.
The second paragraph And ever since that day the race of Númenor has decayed, and the span of their years has lessened - does that follow from the first somehow? Or how is it relevant?
I suppose it might be important that I am quoting the chapter in which Tolkien is trying to eliminate all possibilities other than Gandalf's Crazy Plan to send the Ring to Mordor. So maybe Tolkien is tryng to establish that Sauron can't be defeated by conventional warfare?
Certainly the elves do shift themselves to be part of the military 'mopping up' operation, clearing out Mirkwood.And a Men / Dwarves alliance holds off the attack on Dale and Erebor (but without elves: do we have a very elf-centric viewpoint being delivered here so that this operation doesn't count?)
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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squire
Gondolin
Mar 9 2025, 12:57am
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I think the reference is entirely in the context of the tales of the Silmarillion
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This 'Last Alliance' at the opening of the Third Age (or the end of the Second, depending on ones perspective) was the last time large armies of Men, Dwarves, and Elves went on the offensive to invade the land of the Enemy du jour, and fight his armies in open combat. The combined forces and their kings were knowingly reviving the alliances of Men, Dwarves, and Elves that fought Morgoth togethe in the First Age.
But as Elrond notes, the Third Age proved to be no First Age redux, and Sauron was not Morgoth. In the long period after the destruction of the Ring, there were no large and prosperous Elven kingdoms in Middle-earth, just reclusive enclaves; ditto for the Dwarves; and the great Kingdoms of Men in the Third Age descended from Elendil's Numenoreans were far larger and more powerful than the relatively primitive tribes of Men of the First Age who looked to the Elves for military training, support, and so forth in carrying the war to Morgoth.
The occasional overlap of Elvish, Dwarvish, and Mannish interests in the War of the Ring and its Hobbit-prelude were not at all like the gory set-pieces that punctuate the Silmarillion.
I add the Dwarves to the above exposition out of fairness, despite their relatively small numbers in these various alliances. But note that Elrond doesn't mention them at all in his LotR explanation for why there would be no more grand "Alliances" after the conquest of Mordor 3000 years earlier!
squire online:
Unfortunately my longtime internet service provider abandoned its hosting operations last year. I no longer have any online materials to share with the TORn community.
 = Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 9 2025, 11:11am
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Is there something about the use of force here, do you think?
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It's possible we've disposed of my initial question: thank you very much! But not to worry: the fun isn't over, as I have more questions!
Tackling Morgoth or Sauron by direct military force never works. Why? 'Why?' both 'in-universe: does this tell us anything interesting about how Middle-earth 'works'? And Middle-earth as literature: is Tolkien expressing something of his worldview here (I would not be so impertinent as to suggest allegory.)
Now Morgoth - who, until the Valar arrive survives both war and single combat - could be assumed just to be too powerful - on a sort of wargame simulation level (with the caveats of GIGO - that conclusions depend merely on the wargamers starting assumptions, such that thinking about this can be interesting, but conclusions canot be definitive).
I suspect efforts to tackle Morgoth militarily are also doomed for feigned-theological reasons: the Noldor being cursed (as a shorthand at least) by the manner in which they set off in rebellion to the Valar. Does that sound reasonable?
It looks like more progress is made with Sauron - first he surrenders, but that ends badly. I suppose a plot-not-taken is what a less hubristic Numenor would have done with their captive, and how that might have wored out.
And of course the Last Alliance maims Sauron and captures his Ring - presumably the quick destruction of the Ring would have had just the effect it has when Frodo, Sam and Gollum achieves it. But Isildur is not the character to do that; or has not at that point had the experience needed to learn the can't keep the Ring, or it can't happen just then for some other in-universe reason.
Any thoughts about the reasons for or meaning of these Sauronic escapes? Or Morgothian invincibility? Or the way in which (and Gandalf is explicit about this in The Last Debate) resisting Darklordism is an endless game of whackamole?
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Mar 9 2025, 11:22am)
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 9 2025, 11:20am
Post #6 of 95
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. The Last Alliance has always struck me as reflective of the general pessimism of the Third Age, and it could even be called a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you say "we're all estranged races now and we'll never have an alliance again," then yeah, you can expect that.
So it's last due to estrangement and perceived irreconcilable differences, it's last because both Elves and Men have declined in numbers (the first are fleeing to Valinor, the second have other problems), and it's last because there's a sense of giving up and embalming among the Elves who would be the natural leaders of said Alliance.
There is a general sense of decline, isn't there. Something we've noted and had fun with before:
I did write a song:
(Which you can imagine being sung by the more melancholy elves in Rivendell, once they've settled into a fit of nostalgia after a few beers):
The First Age was better!
The monsters were creepier
The rain was far wetter
The Men were much leapier
The jewels were far brighter
And well worth the feuding
The light was far lighter
The dwarves much more brooding
Oh tra-la-la-greengage
Come back to the First Age!
Our swords were much sharper
Songwriters more gifted
We'd far sweeter harpers
The vowels hadn't shifted
The girls were so pretty
The quests so worth questing
Now life seems so skitty
It's really too testing
Oh tra-la-la-greengage
Come back to the First Age
Now elves we're declining
And Men are increasing
The pines are all pining
The magic is ceasing
Oh where now so dreary?
There's nothing worth praising
When elves get too beery
This Age is too dazing
Oh tra-la-la-greengage
Come back to the First Age
Discussion of an 'autumnal' feel to Tolkien's work But never mind that:
What, I wonder, does it mean about Middle-earth or about Tolkien's worldview, or about him being consistent with his beloved sagas or whatever?
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 9 2025, 5:28pm
Post #7 of 95
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How impressive big old things are
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When I was a tourist in Egypt many years ago, I was a little disappointed to stand at the foot of the Great Pyramids, which for centuries were the biggest thing in the world and which plenty of documentaries show as looming over mere mortals with divine splendor. They were impressive as big stone structures, but if you've been to the top of the Twin Towers in NYC or Eiffel Tower, the pyramids seem kinda small.
But they're still impressive as stone structures that have stood for centuries without maintenance. Do we build anything in 2025 that will stand without maintenance until 4025? I thought the same of the Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct in southern France, which worked for 500 years after being abandoned by Roman engineers, steadily delivering water as it was supposed to. Same question: do we build anything now that will keep working for 500 years on its own? I wish my smartphone had that guarantee.
So, smartphones vs pyramids, new tech vs old tech: there's more mystique to old tech: how was it built? Why did it last so long when its contemporaries didn't? What special power is preserving this great thing through time? What mysteries does it harbor? That's where a sense of wonder and fantasy can intrude on a tourist.
And this relates to M-earth as: the old tech is always cool and never reproduced in the present. There is no: "Sting glowed with blue light when orcs were near just like every pocket knife in the Shire," or "As they floated down the Anduin, Frodo yawned at the many Argonaths littering the landscape like giant statues along The Old Road with their advertisements for cheap razors." Being old, big, finely crafted, lost to the present, and rare all imbue a thing with awe, so Sting has a special lost power, as does the mithril coat, Amon Hen, even the Ring. I think that especially the younger you are, the more mysterious and fantastical old things can be.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 9 2025, 5:38pm
Post #8 of 95
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Social engineering writ big and small
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I wonder, in reaction to your musings, if the point is that we're always in a cycle, and the cycle is normal and not discouraging, when do "social engineering" which I will define here very loosely as anything we deem an improvement on society as we find it. It could be positive: if you educate one child, are you done? No, keep teaching.
But somehow we're conditioned to think that if you defeat evil once, you should be done, finished, at rest, at peace, so it's discouraging that the Valar defeated Morgoth twice (Utumno and Angband) but didn't eradicate evil. Elrond said as much about The Last Alliance:
I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many defeats, and many fruitless victories. So Morgoth gets defeated and Sauron takes his place, and given Gandalf's words in The Last Debate, we can expect someone to take Sauron's place. While I don't want to literally equate war against evil with education since the first is destructive and the second isn't, I still wonder a bit how we feel disappointment so profoundly that "the war to end all wars" didn't end them all. Why did we tell ourselves it would? If you have 3 children, are you done after you potty train the first? What about the other two--are they a disappointment? Hopefully not, even if you thought you threw away the last "diaper to end all diapering." So maybe it's the initial assumption in fighting evil that sets us up for disappointment and melancholy: why do we tell ourselves that having reformed one school bully we'll never have to see another?
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Felagund
Mithlond
Mar 11 2025, 12:32am
Post #9 of 95
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when is the Last really the last? or do I mean last then Last?
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What an awesome topic and am loving the replies you've had in so far!
I agree with the sentiment in the thread that it's hard to say if in the term 'Last Alliance' we are presented with a contemporary title or post facto reflection. I lean towards the latter, in part based on the following from 'Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age' (The Sil):
Therefore they [Elendil & Gil-galad] made that League which is called the Last Alliance...
Hardly definitive but it can be read as suggesting that the League was formed and became known as the Last Alliance later. By Elrond, not least, who as a combatant in that war had the memory to accurately observe that nothing had come along since to rival that alliance either in scale or the bringing together of Elves and Men in common martial purpose. Thus:
Never again was such a host assembled, nor was there any such league of Elves and Men; for after Elendil's day the two kindreds were estranged. ['Of the Rings of Power & the Third Age']
and, as quoted by you elsewhere in the thread:
Never again shall there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged. And ever since that day the race of Númenor has decayed, and the span of their years has lessened. ['The Council of Elrond', LotR]
In favour of a contrary secondary worldview, Gil-galad and Elendil may have consciously called it the Last Alliance as it was undertaken in the knowledge that it was an all or nothing campaign to rid Middle-earth of its second Dark Lord. Win, emphatically, and there'll no longer be the need for another. Lose, and there will be no one left but slaves in the Darkness.
While 'the Last Alliance' is by far the most common description of the league in question, I note that in one of Tolkien's late essays ("from the final period of... writing on Middle-earth", according to CJRT), 'The Disaster of the Gladden Fields' (Unfinished Tales) employs different terminology. In that essay, it is exclusively 'the Alliance' and 'the War of the Alliance'. While the sheer numbers of 'Last Alliance' occurrences compared to 'Alliance' can't be ignored, this late distinction persuades me at least that there's a reasonable case to be made that Elrond and Co. were applying their 'Last Alliance' framing with the benefit of gloomy hindsight.
Your picking out of 'estrangement' in all of this feels seminal. What sets up the whole story of LotR, in many respects, is that the 'victory' of the Last Alliance is fatally flawed and that's where the 'estrangement' point arguably comes into its own. The victory, and potentially the future relationship between Elves and Men, is poisoned through Isildur's refusal to heed counsel:
For Isildur would not surrender it [the Ruling Ring] to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin nigh at hand, in which it had been forged, so that it would perish, and the power of Sauron be for ever diminished, and he should remain only as a shadow in the wilderness. But Isildur refused this counsel... ['Of the Rings of Power & the Third Age']
A chance to end evil incarnate once and for all, in a way that the Elves and Men of Beleriand could barely have imagined. Blown, by the refusal of one human to do what was necessary. Unfair on Isildur in some respects given that the One Ring was no doubt already working away at him, but I can see why the surviving leadership of the Elves would have been aghast. Enough for estrangement? Whether this was the specific or sole reason, it's what followed, according to the telling of Elrond. Yet the estrangement needs to be qualified: Elrond ends up fostering generations of heirs to the Chieftains of the Dúnedain - hardly the act of someone who has entirely given up on the strength of Men.
Perhaps the estrangement is as much a function of the fractured nature of power in Middle-earth after the War of the Last Alliance. The alliance is very much framed in terms of the leadership of the Gil-galad and Elendil and, after these two perished in Mordor, there is no more High King of the Elves who, ruling from Lindon, could dragoon even the Sindarin kings east of the Misty Mountains to heed his call. And the High Kingship of the Númenórean Realms in Exile barely survives into a second generation, with the death of Isildur two years after he inherited the title from Elendil. Who is there in the millennia to come with sufficient gravitas and potestas in either party to make such an alliance? Would the post-Elendil generations of Númenórean rulers even have regarded the Elves as equal partners in the years of their pomp and splendour ("for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease")) - which even Elrond acknowledges recalled "somewhat of the might of Númenor, ere it fell" ('The Council of Elrond')? And for what purpose would such an alliance have been crafted prior to the return of Sauron? As it turns out, by the time such an alliance is needed, the damage of long years of estrangement is too great to be surmounted. Fed in part by neglect, ignorance and suspicion, I'd add. Minas Tirith and Imladris are separated by hundreds of miles of broken roads and danger; the Rohirrim regard Lórien as Dwimordene and as a redoubt of sorcery; and so on. And so the stakes are raised, as the story unfolds...
I agree with CuriousG's observation that all of this goes with the grain of the Third Age (or at least it's second half) being framed as a gloomy era for much of Middle-earth, and Elrond is an important part of this gloom-mongering narrative early in the story, setting up a last throw of the dice for the Free Peoples, against a back-drop of advancing decay and lost greatness. We get another set-piece serve from the gloom-menu from Faramir, later in the story, as he walks Frodo and Sam through the lofty highs and then deep lows of Gondor.
A final point about the order in which LotR was written and its potential bearing on the sweeping claim implicit in 'the Last Alliance'. The Appendices were written last, more or less, and indeed were expanded for the Second Edition of LotR. And while CJRT pointed out examples of how the drafting of the (First Edition's) Appendices led to revisions of the main story's text, one thing that didn't shift was the concept of the finality of 'the Last Alliance'. This, despite the spare but fascinating feigned history of the last years of the Northern Kingdom of Arnor. Appendix A, that part dealing with the fortunes of Arnor and Gondor, outlines how Elvish forces marshalled by Círdan out of Lindon on three occasions rode to the rescue of the Kings of Arthedain, during the reigns of Arveleg I (III.1356-1409), Araphor (III.1409-1589) and Arvedui (III.1964-1974), all of whom struggled with Angmar and its allies. This is military intervention, not the provision of refuge, fostering and counsel - as important as all of those things proved to be in the end. Thus:
Arveleg son of Argeleb, with the help of Cardolan and Lindon, drove back his enemies from the [Weather] Hills...
Araphor son of Arveleg was not yet full-grown, but he was valiant, and with aid from Círdan he repelled the enemy from Fornost and the North Downs.
It is said that Angmar was for a time subdued by the Elvenfolk coming from Lindon; and from Rivendell, for Elrond brought help over the Mountains out of Lórien.
Then Círdan summoned all who would come to him, from Lindon and Arnor, and when all was ready the host crossed the Lune [River] and marched north to challenge the Witch-king of Angmar.
I'm not claiming that this is the 'Last Alliance 2.0' (or 'Last Last Alliance') but for me it mildly challenges the narrative that the estrangement syndrome was such that Elves and Men couldn't get their act together jointly and militarily, in extremis. That's even without relying upon retrofitting the line-up of Thranduil and Bard at the precursor to the Battle of the Five Armies into this framework. For the Elves, Círdan does a lot of the heavy lift and even Elrond is in play at one point - the two survivors of the (Last) Alliance who, in their own way, are 'heirs' to Gil-galad, directing armies in support of and in concert with the heirs of Gil-galad's old neighbour and comrade, Elendil. And while not wistfully described (à la Elrond) as anywhere near as glorious as the days when the banners of Gil-galad and Elendil fluttered in the wind, the army that eventually defeated and destroyed Angmar forever is described in not insignificant terms: "the Host of the West". This was led by Círdan and Gondor's crown prince Eärnur, the latter who had arrived in the North with what was regarded locally as "an army of power, with munition and provision for a war of great kings." Just as the (Last) Alliance was an echo of "the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand", so too perhaps we can call this "Host of the West" an echo of the (Last) Alliance. And a true last hurrah of Elves and Men uniting on the battlefield against the Darkness.
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Mar 12 2025, 6:37am
Post #10 of 95
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Kinda like "The War To End All Wars"
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It was until it wasn't.
******************************************
Queen Beruthiel, Queen Beruthiel,
There's no one like Queen Beruthiel,
She's broken every Gondor law,
She breaks the law of Earendil.
Her powers of feline-ation,
Would make Aiwendil stare,
And when you reach the scene of crime,
Queen Beruthiel's not there!
You may seek her in the Hallows,
You may search throughout the square,
But I tell you once and once again,
Queen Beruthiel's not there!
- Old Tollers' Book of Fat Cats on the Mat
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 12 2025, 10:22am
Post #11 of 95
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Thanks you everyone for youre interesting replies so far. And Hi Darkstone! Weclome back - always a pleasure to 'see' you in the Reading Room. 
I'm liking the conclusions we are coming to: that it was "The Last Alliance" for several reasons all at one:
- When it was formed, it is very plausible that it was conceived as an existential, death, slavery or victory affair.
- It was already (or was soon) clear that joint operations on this scale were unlikely to be possible in future.
- (Another one that has just occurred to me is that Gil-galad and Elendil might hve been looking at the situation -- Sauron waxing in strength and their own strength stable or waning -- and calculated that it was 'last' in 'now or never'.)
I've also been thinking of HG Wells' "The War That Will End War" - a long piece which I had not realised until now was published in 1914. I had - wrongly - imagined it as later in the War. Not close to the period when many still thought the war would soon be over and men formed long queues outside the recruitment offices telling each other they were wise to get in before the great adventure was over (among their other motivations, of course). And I too had heard the quote as "The war to end all wars". But I think the quotation took on a life of its own. From a cause to fight for to the realisation that after the unprecedented scope of World War I Europe should avoid any more of this modern warfare stuff. But we didn't, of course.
I suppose it is possible that Wells' "The War That Will End War" was knocking about Tolkien's brain somewhere in the naming of the Last Alliance. But I have no evidence for this. In any case, I think the parallels we see are of interest. We don't have to assert we know what was going on inside Tolkien's head.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 12 2025, 10:53am
Post #12 of 95
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Thinking about Tolkien's wrting order
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The Last Alliance must have been something Tolkien invented while working on LOTR. He had to create a pre-Bilbo history of the Ring, explaining how such an important and dangerous thing could have beenlost and found.
Now I'm thinking about an idea that impressed me when I came across it recently:
Its atmosphere [the Sil.] comes as a shock to anyone who supposed (as it was natural to do before 1977) that Tolkien's entire literary career had been guided by the opinion, expressed in the essay 'On Fairy Stories', that ‘Tragedy is the true form of drama, its highest function; but the opposite is true of Fairy-story.'' This assertion, written just as the early chapters of The Lord of the Rings were unfolding, can now be seen to represent a turning-point in Tolkien's reflection on his own creativity. The Hobbit, written in the early 1930s as a children's adventure story, had certainly culminated in what Tolkien in the essay calls 'eucatastrophe', a happy ending, against the odds, which has emotional intensity and moral fittingness. The passage in 'On Fairy Stories' thus signals Tolkien's intention to take The Hobbit, in this respect, as the prototype for The Lord of the Rings - not the tragic 'Silmarillion', which he had hitherto regarded as his serious work for adults.
Tolkien, a Cultural Phenomenon, by Brain Rosebury, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003
Now - assuming you accept this idea - the Last Alliance becomes the end point of trying to fix conflicts the way they are often fixed in the Primary World - by armed force or calculations about it.
Instead, we have a plan that Tolkien fully admits (LOTR 2e Foreword) would never have been carried out had his work been a WW II allegory: a victory through fairy-story.
What do you think?
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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DGHCaretaker
Nargothrond
Mar 12 2025, 5:36pm
Post #13 of 95
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The Root Failure Isn't Frodo's
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For Isildur would not surrender it [the Ruling Ring] to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin nigh at hand, in which it had been forged, so that it would perish, and the power of Sauron be for ever diminished, and he should remain only as a shadow in the wilderness. But Isildur refused this counsel... ['Of the Rings of Power & the Third Age']
This puts the failure squarely on Elrond and Cirdan for having neither shoved nor killed Isildur and thrown him with the Ring into the fire. But that would have obviated the subsequent story, and the author wouldn't have that.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 12 2025, 5:39pm
Post #14 of 95
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A load of old billhooks is what the instructor brought along to the introduction to hedgelaying course I went on recently. (Billhooks being the hand-tool that's the European machete, basically. He said that the old ones were better than the new, mass-produced ones. Now of course there is some romance in working with traditional tools, of a design that may not have changed much for centuries. But Hedgelaying-sensei was also a practical professional man contracting to lay hedges by the day and just needing efficient tools.
So old is better, sometimes (that's what I tell my wife, anyways).
It was fun finding out how to lay a hedge! Thirty minutes to understand the principles, but still learning after thirty years, the instructor said. Come next winter, I'll be at the short hedge that's the boundary of a piece of land I work, laying it in the traditional Oxfordshire style - yes, there are noticeably different styles from different counties. I'm not sure what they do when a hedge crosses the county boundary!
My hedge shall be known as The Very Low Hay. Unless of course I need an anti-tank barrier (this post from Meneldor & its replies) and have time to grow one!
Anyway, Never Mind The Billhooks, Here Are The Sex Pistils
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mar 12 2025, 5:52pm
Post #15 of 95
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But you were talking of BIG old things...
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And sometimes, thinking of LOTR characters encountering ruins or other old stuff I imagine what it might have been like in Early-Medieval Britain. Maybe there is some old Roman stuff around. Or stone circles. Or you spoke once to a man who had travelled and told you about a white horse cut into a hill. But you don't know who built that stuff or why. Or even 'how', if it's not something that could be done by anyone you've ever met. Maybe there are stories, but those will tend to head into the supernatural.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Mar 12 2025, 7:28pm
Post #16 of 95
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For Isildur would not surrender it [the Ruling Ring] to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin nigh at hand, in which it had been forged, so that it would perish, and the power of Sauron be for ever diminished, and he should remain only as a shadow in the wilderness. But Isildur refused this counsel... ['Of the Rings of Power & the Third Age'] This puts the failure squarely on Elrond and Cirdan for having neither shoved nor killed Isildur and thrown him with the Ring into the fire. But that would have obviated the subsequent story, and the author wouldn't have that.
The issue here is that the confrontation did not take place at the Crack of Doom; that only occurred in the Peter Jackson films. Neither Elrond nor Cirdan could have just chucked Isildur into the fire.
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Tony Isabella
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DGHCaretaker
Nargothrond
Mar 12 2025, 7:36pm
Post #17 of 95
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For Isildur would not surrender it [the Ruling Ring] to Elrond and Círdan who stood by. They counselled him to cast it into the fire of Orodruin nigh at hand, in which it had been forged, so that it would perish, and the power of Sauron be for ever diminished, and he should remain only as a shadow in the wilderness. But Isildur refused this counsel... ['Of the Rings of Power & the Third Age'] This puts the failure squarely on Elrond and Cirdan for having neither shoved nor killed Isildur and thrown him with the Ring into the fire. But that would have obviated the subsequent story, and the author wouldn't have that. The issue here is that the confrontation did not take place at the Crack of Doom; that only occurred in the Peter Jackson films. Neither Elrond nor Cirdan could have just chucked Isildur into the fire.
They don't need Isildur's permission or cooperation to kill him, then transport and chuck him. Too heartless? Even in exchange for a peaceful Middle-earth?
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Felagund
Mithlond
Mar 12 2025, 8:18pm
Post #18 of 95
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A peace based on one half of the Alliance leadership murdering the other half feels like the basis of a very tenuous peace! Estrangement would be the least of their worries, I reckon!
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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DGHCaretaker
Nargothrond
Mar 12 2025, 9:52pm
Post #19 of 95
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A peace based on one half of the Alliance leadership murdering the other half feels like the basis of a very tenuous peace! Estrangement would be the least of their worries, I reckon!
I guess providing agency to evil does sound a bit Tolkien. It wouldn't be much of a story otherwise.
Two Elves murdering one Man seems acceptable, including to Elves, considering the consequences of leaving the Ring to continue its existence.
(This post was edited by DGHCaretaker on Mar 12 2025, 9:53pm)
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No One in Particular
Menegroth
Mar 13 2025, 2:00am
Post #20 of 95
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The narrative in the LotR isn't based on the ends justifying the means. That's the path of a Denethor or a Saruman and it can be speculated that the results might have been counterproductive eventually.
While you live, shine
Have no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands an end.
Seikilos Epitaph
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DGHCaretaker
Nargothrond
Mar 13 2025, 3:47am
Post #21 of 95
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The narrative in the LotR isn't based on the ends justifying the means. That's the path of a Denethor or a Saruman and it can be speculated that the results might have been counterproductive eventually.
Sure, I can see that. For example, Sam and Rosie's children might never have existed otherwise. That might be the ending that matters most to me - more than any other - and could change my mind. But in the moment, the obvious choice was to snuff Isildur with the Ring sans his cooperation.
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Mar 13 2025, 9:09am
Post #22 of 95
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"It was Pity that stayed Elrond's and Cirdan's hands."
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A chance to end evil incarnate once and for all, in a way that the Elves and Men of Beleriand could barely have imagined. Blown, by the refusal of one human to do what was necessary.
'What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!'
'Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.'
-The Shadow of the Past
On the other hand, Smeagol took a lot of hurt from the evil and did not escape in the end,
Because he had committed murder to acquire it.
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"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in
thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond
all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled
mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
"Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! I am Eowyn, daughter of Theodwyn!"
"Er, really? My mother's name was Theodwyn, too!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"Wow! Let's stop fighting and be best friends!"
"Cool!!"
-Zack Snyder's The Return of the King
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Mar 13 2025, 4:26pm
Post #23 of 95
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Oft evil deed shall goodness mar.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 13 2025, 4:44pm
Post #24 of 95
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Thanks for pointing out those Cirdan + Arnor examples, which stand in contrast to the Gondor-Rohan estrangement from the Elves. I actually like how this deepens the story, with the northern Dunedain remaining close and trusting with the Elves while in the south they become suspicious. Having regional variations like this means it's not "one size fits all" which gives the world more authenticity as it resembles our own.
I still consider the issue to a big picture one, where Elrond makes it clear that there will never again be an upfront alliance running from the Grey Havens to Pelargir, but as others have said, the War of the Ring was still a sort of implicit alliance that Men, Elves, and Dwarves were all fighting against Sauron. If you look at real world history, in contrast, many "allies" would betray each other when they were distracted by a war with someone else, so it would be thinkable in the Middle Ages for Rohan to attack Gondor to grab Anorien while it was fighting Sauron, or for Thranduil to settle an old score with the Dwarves of Erebor while they were besieged.
I think fidelity and harmony were such bedrock values to Tolkien that he couldn't easily conceive of backstabbing, and when it happened it was always the exception rather than the rule (Saruman, etc).
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Eldy
Dor-Lomin
Mar 13 2025, 7:30pm
Post #25 of 95
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If you want peace, prepare to murder your many-times-great-nephew
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They don't need Isildur's permission or cooperation to kill him, then transport and chuck him. Too heartless? Even in exchange for a peaceful Middle-earth?
This assumes Elrond and Círdan would have been able to destroy the Ring had they killed Isildur, which is highly questionable to say the least. In his discussion of Frodo not destroying the Ring, Tolkien said, "I do not think that Frodo's was a moral failure. At the last moment the pressure of the Ring would reach its maximum – impossible, I should have said, for any one to resist, certainly after long possession, months of increasing torment, and when starved and exhausted." (Letters, no. 246; emphasis in the original) Of course, Elrond and Círdan had not spent months in tormented possession of the Ring, but one of the big thematic points of the Ring is that it's the Hobbits' humility that allows them to carry it for so long without succumbing (at all, in Bilbo's and Sam's cases, or not until the very last moment, in Frodo's). Political leaders and military commanders are at an inherent disadvantage, and I think that would only be heightened for someone who came into possession of the Ring through murdering an erstwhile ally and distant kinsman. So your murder scenario would most likely have ended no better than Gandalf coming into possession of the Ring ("With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly."; FOTR, I 2), or Galadriel ("All shall love me and despair!"; II 7).
(This post was edited by Eldy on Mar 13 2025, 7:32pm)
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