The Rings of Power is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. There are precious few connections between the two stories. Elves like Galadriel and Elrond, who are immortal, appear in both. A wizard—who is more than likely Gandalf—also plays a key role in The Rings of Power. But men are mortal so there’s no chance we’ll see Aragorn or Boromir.
However, there is one man who The Lord of the Rings fans might recognize in The Rings of Power: Isildur, Aragorn’s ancestor and the man destined to cut the ring from Sauron’s finger. But Isildur is no hero. Unable to destroy the One Ring, he is corrupted by its power. When we meet Aragorn he is ashamed to be descended from Isildur.
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A relatively minor character in Season 1 who is largely overshadowed by his father Elendil, Isildur is finally coming to the fore in Season 2. The Rings of Power will attempt to flesh out his character and explain how he came to make a tragic decision that would reverberate for millennia in Middle-earth. Here’s everything you need to remember about Isildur from The Lord of the Rings and Season 1 of The Rings of Power.
Isildur is the son of Elendil
Isildur (Maxim Baldry) is not a prince, but a sailor and the rebellious son of Elendil (Lloyd Owen), a captain loyal to the Queen-Regent Míriel. He wishes to prove himself in battle. He gets his wish when he, along with his father, sails with Queen-Regent Míriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) and the elf Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) to fight the orcs in the Southlands. Though the humans and elves win that battle, Mount Doom erupts while they are there killing scores of people.
Isildur is presumed dead in The Rings of Power
Last we saw Isildur in The Rings of Power, he was trapped inside a burning building after the villainous Adar forced fire to cascade down Mount Doom and turn the Southlands into Mordor. Elendil assumes that Isildur is dead and sails back to Númenor without him.
But we, the audience, know Isildur must have survived given the role he has yet to play in J.R.R. Tolkien’s story. And he features in trailers for Season 2, battling giant spiders in the borderlands of Mordor.
In Tolkien’s lore, Isildur goes on to do some great deeds that we won’t spoil here, except to say that he plants what becomes the White Tree of Gondor featured in The Lord of the Rings. At the end of the Second Age, Isildur’s father Elendil and the Elven High King Gil-galad form the Last Alliance of Elves and Men to challenge Sauron, and Isildur fights beside them.
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Isildur defeats Sauron
The army of elves and men laid siege to Barad-dûr, Suaron’s central stronghold in Mordor. The battle lasted seven years. A lot of elves and men died. Eventually, Sauron himself fought Elendil and Gil-galad, who both died in the struggle.
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As depicted in The Fellowship of the Ring, Isildur picks up the hilt of his father’s sword, Narsil, and is able to cut the ring from Sauron’s hand. Sauron essentially abandons his body but his soul is sustained for as long as the ring continues to exist. Sauron is defeated—for now.
Isildur is unable to destroy the One Ring
As we see in the opening minutes of Peter Jackson’s film, The Fellowship of the Ring, the elf Elrond encourages Isildur to cast the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. Doing so would have prevented any chance of Sauron’s return.
But Isildur argues that the ring’s power can be used for the good of mankind. (Boromir will make the same argument thousands of years later.) Isildur refuses to destroy it and becomes corrupted by it, seeking power for himself.
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In fairness to Isildur, the hobbit Frodo Baggins almost makes the same mistake. The only reason the One Ring winds up in the fires of Mount Doom is because Gollum attacks Frodo, biting off his ring finger, and falls to his death with the ring into lava.
Aragorn is Isildur’s heir
After obtaining the ring, Isildur does unite the kingdoms of Andor and Gondor. He rules over them until he is attacked and killed by orcs while riding with his sons. The ring is lost in the skirmish and sinks to the bottom of a river, only to be found by Smeagol (a.k.a. Gollum).
Aragorn is Isildur’s descendent, 39 generations later. Aragorn grows up in Rivendell with the elves because Aragorn’s mother Gilraen feared for his safety as Isildur’s heir: Aragorn’s father was killed when Aragorn was two. Elrond raises Aragorn, who grows up to be a ranger and keeps his identity as the would-be king a secret from strangers.
The Rings of Power hints at the parallels between Aragorn and Isildur in Season 1. Isildur develops an intense bond with his horse Berek. When Isildur goes missing, Berek refuses to sail back to Númenor and runs away in search of the owner he knows to be alive. Aragorn, too, is a bit of a horse whisperer. In fact, Aragorn’s horse saves his life in The Two Towers.
Still, Aragorn spends a good deal of The Lord of the Rings hiding the fact that he is Isildur’s heir and refusing to take up the mantle of King of Gondor. He is ashamed of Isildur and fears that he, too, will be tempted by the ring. However, Aragorn is able to resist that urge. And he does eventually carry a sword called Andúril, which the Elves of Rivendell forged from the shards of Elendil’s sword, Narsil, and honors his lineage in doing so.