The Last Alliance
the great alliance of Elves and Men at the end of the Second Age
The Alliance
- The Last Alliance of Elves and Men — the great league at the end of the Second Age — was formed when Sauron, after slinking defeat at the fall of Númenor, returned to Mordor and rose with new armies: Gil-galad (the High King of the Noldor) and Elendil the High (with his son Isildur, and the kings of Arnor and Gondor) joined “the last great alliance”, and marched against the Dark Tower: -
The host, the greatest of the age (elves of Lindon and of Rivendell, the Dúnedain of the North and South), fought through Mordor, and laid the long siege of Barad-dûr (seven years).
- The final battle: At the brink of the Dark Tower upon the slopes of Orodruin, Sauron came forth; Gil-galad was slain (burnt to ash), Elendil fell (his sword Narsil broken beneath him), and Sauron was overthrown by their joint destruction — and Isildur, cutting the One Ring from Sauron’s hand, took it for his own rather than cast it in the fire.
The Sequel
The deaths of the kings ended the age: Elendil’s heir lines split, Arnor fell later, and the Ring’s keeping by Isildur (who counselled to destroy it) “was the seed of the greatest evil of the Third Age” — the Ring survived, lost on the Anduin when Isildur was slain, and the long defeat of the North began. The Last Alliance is thus the pivot of the Second Age’s end — the last time Elves and Men fought side by side in the great cause until the later age.
Significance
The Last Alliance is the final “grand alliance” of the mythology’s classic shape — the united strength of the Elves and the High Men against the Enemy, its victory pyrrhic (the kings dead, the Ring kept), and its aftermath the departure of the Elves’ supreme power from the later story.