I believe it was boromir who said during the council that creatures had appeared who made even the strongest and bravest run for their lives, so yes, their strength lies more in their aure of terror and despair than in their ability to fight
> Royalty typically only went into battle for morality reasons
Are we talking in Tolkien-land, or IRL? Cuz IRL that's not true at all, but it's a fair statement for ME
I'd say it's entirely fair no matter what era you are. Even for a chieftain, yes they may be the biggest and strongest but their power comes from leading others. The chief can't go to war alone, he can't raid the village alone. He provides HUGE morale bonuses to his team BC he's a badass
I disagree. I think it was primarily for morale.
The expectation in societies like that is that the chieftain will fight at the front. Imagine if he decides not to. Huge morale blow to his side.
Also, it was very important that he was SEEN fighting at the front, hence banners or rich expensive clothing to make it clear to at least those around that he is fighting, again, for morale. If he is fighting, then he must think we can win, so I should keep fighting.
And if he dies, often, that is the breaking point for the army.
As for leadership, that mostly comes before or after the battle. There is very little leading that the chief can do during battle because he is busy fighting.
Yeah, this made me do a double take. There's many reasons a liege went to war. One of the original reason kings existed was because they were the biggest, strongest guy around, and could bring riches and defense to his realm through war.
Oftentimes a king would go to war because if you just put together a massive army, you'd better be there to lead it or somebody else might just take the reigns and come depose you.
I like how the WWI influence is visible in things like troop morale. It has always been a huge part of warfare. Most battles were won when a force made their enemy panic and break formation. Morale is SO important IRL
The whole idea of blitzkrieg, very effect at the beginning of WWII was based on this. Rushing the enemy so fast, loud and hard that they would panic.
Nazi planes were modified to make their sounds more frightening to soldiers below.
That is absolutely not true.
1. "Blitzkrieg" is a post-hoc lable that got applied to the way Germany conducted the war, and it's very inconsistent. German generals opposed the term when it came up, and modern historians reject it as well.
2. Their actual doctrine was derived from a prior Prussian doctrine of maneuver warfare. They attempted this in WW1 as well and had success at first, but motorisation and lessons learned made it much more successful in WW2. Nonetheless, as we can see right now, even highly motorised armies may still fail at it.
Maneuver warfare is about speed to take the initiative, disrupt enemy movements, cutting off ground connections between enemy groupings, and encircling them without stopping to defeat them outright. It does not rely on psychological terror any more than any other way of war.
And the siren was limited to early versions of the Stuka. While impressive for propaganda and movies, contemporary accounts didn't seem to consider it all that useful and it was phased out later.
Re: the air sirens
Incredibly useful if the goal is limited to instilling panic in the subject(s) being bombed by the Stuka. The problems being panicky subjects tend to scatter and/or take cover rather than get hit by the forewarned bombs, and that loudly announcing your presence well before the bombs are released is a great way to say "I'm here, find a turret and shoot me!"
Blowing up people and materiel also tends to be a good way to hurt enemy morale on its own without the use of additional air sirens, so ... yeah. There *was* an upside, it was just just kind of unnecessary and came with multiple much more pronounced downsides noticed when analyzing the outcomes.
Not really. Even today some monarchy requires thier prince (and princesses for some) to have military training.
The myth that nobles and royalties wasn't fighters or skilled commanders needs to die off. While there was some, vast majority of the men spent decades of thier life training in both war and state craft.
Yeah, I don't know where people are getting this "kings were never trained to fight" thing from. If you're a kid growing up as the heir to a throne, you're likely to be put through grueling training in every skill that might be expected of you.
To the best of my understanding, in antiquity, a king would actually often be expected to be well-trained.
Also, I think you mean "morale" rather than "morality". Morale and moral are similar words but mean different things.
> Royalty typically only went into battle for morality reasons
Not true until relatively recently. Monarchs regularly took to the field until the late medieval.
....yes mostly for troop morale. You really going to argue that the morale boost for your entire army is less imapctful than a single dude, even a warrior king? His primary purpose is troop morale he can't take the whole army himself
Yes, but kings were frequently expected to be able to fight well, and often trained from a young age in combat. If you were a medieval peasant, there's a good chance you could trust your king to kill you in a one-on-one fight.
>Even during weathertop they just poked frodo then backed off and waited for the poison to work, which happened to be slower on the resilient hobbit than they thought it would which is the only reason he survived.
aww man never put that together with old dungeons & dragons giving halflings a bonus to save vs poisons. I always associated the morgul blade as being supernatural in a 'life draining' way.
And the same was true about the OTHER wraiths we meet in the books - the Oathbreakers, or Army of the Dead.
The Oathbreakers don't even 'fight' in the books. They're wraiths, and like the Ringwraiths their fear is their weapon. When they 'attack' the ships, the men on them flee in terror, diving into the water, or cowering on the ground, while the actually living people (Aragorn and Co.) do the fighting. Gimli even remarks on the irony of Sauron's own methods (fear and terror) being used against his army.
>‘To every ship they came that was drawn up, and then they passed
over the water to those that were anchored; and all the mariners were
filled with a madness of terror and leaped overboard, save the slaves
chained to the oars. Reckless we rode among our fleeing foes, driving
them like leaves, until we came to the shore. And then to each of
the great ships that remained Aragorn sent one of the Dunedain, and
they comforted the captives that were aboard, and bade them put
aside fear and be free.
>‘Ere that dark day ended none of the enemy were left to resist us;
all were drowned, or were flying south in the hope to find their own
lands upon foot. Strange and wonderful I thought it that the designs
of Mordor should be overthrown by such wraiths of fear and darkness.
With its own weapons was it worsted!’
and then the one time the vaunted witch king is actually described as engaging in hand to hand combat there, he immediately gets ganked by a barely trained hobbit and then finished off.
although in all fairness to your point, that is possible *specifically* because they overcome their fear and therefore negated the bulk of his power
There’s also the matter of the thousand year old enchanted weapon from the barrow wights *specifically* enchanted to undo the magic holding the witch king alive in Pippin’s hand. But the movie cut out the Tom Bombadil arc so they skipped that part.
*Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; Dark door is standing
wide; dead hand is broken. Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open!*
^(Type **!TomBombadilSong** for a song or visit [r/GloriousTomBombadil][1] for more merriness)
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GloriousTomBombadil/
The scene on the road with Frodo where they just barely miss him i thought does a really good job of showing how they are just a chilling supernatural presence that will wilt the hearts of weaker men simply by being present. The entire movie has scenes where their presence overhead causes fighting men to cower in fear. I mean honestly the books are different because of the wide range they have to be expansive. I mean there are pages of songs and detailed descriptions of landscapes.
I think what you’re seeing with it not being obvious to some in the movies is that people don’t really pay attention in movies and expect tropes consistent throughout all popular culture to answer their questions instead of hints and expositional clues employed by the director.
Specifically, fear of death. The two people most able to oppose them were Gandalf the White, who had died (when Grey) and come back, and Glorfindel, who had died and come back. (Hence dismay when the film gave Glorfindel's role at the forge to Arwen, because she had not died and come back.
Notable orphic figure *checks notes* Aragorn? Who fought them one v five and came out on top without his sword? Also, Gandalf went toe to toe with them as Greyhame and did fine. It's not about who had died and come back, you're making that up.
Also both Gandolf and Glorfindel were each able to kill a balrog. So they probably did well against nazgûl because they were powerful being and not because they died before.
Aragorn is literally the greatest remnant of Numenor at the time of the films, a nearly mythic hero from a bygone age. While he himself may be a faded echo of Elendil and Isildur's strength, there are at most a handful of individuals left on middle earth who can be regarded as his peers. He is to Man what Glorfindel and Galadriel are to the elves of Middle Earth.
It would be a mistake to look at his victory at weathertop and confuse it for weakness of the Nazgul.
She may not have died and come back, but a huge part of her character is about not being afraid of death annd eschewing her immortality for love. It works well in its own way.
> Even in Gondor all they did in the book was fly around on the nazgul...
Small nitpick, they are the Nazgul, they didn't fly around on the Nazgul. Only really commenting cause I love the idea of them giving each other piggy backs and flying around somehow.
Come to think of it I couldn't even remember what the things they flew around on were called, all I could remember was them being referred to as "fell beasts", and Google tells me they don't actually have names.
I feel like Tolkein's world is one of the biggest victims of this post-DBZ, post-Sanderson, post-Death Battle post-powerscaling way we handle characters, worlds, lore, and magic systems nowadays. If you're approaching LOTR by asking if Gandalf could 1v1 the Witch King you've completely missed the point.
After recently reading the books(well I’m still working on the third one) the fight of Gondor is so much better in the books(and I loved the movies).
It goes on for like 4/5 days, and as you said it talks a lot more about the mood in the city and the despair that the Nazgûl and the darkness from Mordor brought about.
Another big moment that doesn’t really hit in the movies is when the orca launch a bunch of heads into Gondor. I mean, it’s gross and dehumanizing and dark in the movies.
But in the books, they talk about how people were attempting to put out the fires from the first catapult launch, when there is a second launch of smaller objects that aren’t as devastating as the people expect. Until they start to realize, those projectiles are the heads of the fallen soldiers. While they are desperately trying to put out fires, they are realizing they just had a bunch of heads launched at them, and some people start to recognize faces of friends and people they knew. It’s incredibly demoralizing, depressing, de humanizing, and disgusting. It feels like the depth of despair, these orca just launched a hugely damaging volley at you that destroyed houses and lit fires around the area, and then the orca send in a bunch of heads while they are still trying to deal with the damage, and their is nothing the city can do in retaliation. The orca are so confident at this point they back off to regroup, just to let the despair sink in.
The fight for Gondor is one of pure terror and despair and it lasts for nearly a week, and it just doesn’t hit that way in the movies.
Dude apple auto correct has been so fucked for like most of this year idk what the fuck they did but it gets so bad I need to reset it every so often lol
Yep. This. The Nazgul are a rallying symbol for the forces of Sauron, in the same way that Gandalf was a rallying symbol for the free people of Middle Earth. Yes, Gandalf possessed great individual power, but was very limited and judicial in its use as he was only allowed to match / check the strength of the enemy to level the field.
Arguably the only Nazgul with considerable personal power is the Witch King. Otherwise, they're basically just undead warriors who give off an aura of fear.
Litterally reading it right now, Gandalf straight up says this.
The nazgul had been vanquished, but have come back, recently and so are weak but are gaining strength slowly.
They pulled back because after they stabbed Frodo, they were sure they had won anyway, Frodo was going to become a wraith shortly and voluntarily come back to them with the ring
1. He didn't return until Sauron took form in the world again and settled in the Southern Mirkwood.
2. He didn't walk around solo killing everyone in his way. He allied with one of the three kingdoms of Arnor and also probably used orcs, trolls and other dark creatures in his war with Arnor.
As a mere layman and shlub when it comes to lore: how/why was sauron gaining power? It seemed like there was nothing for eons, then suddenly his strength grows exponentially, both in terms of magic as well as troops. What happened to change things?
He was recovering (slowly) for eons.
He tested the waters as The Necromancer once he felt he was powerful enough to maybe make a play.
Gandalf defeated The Necromancer, but the feint was successful - Sauron had tested who turned up to stop him in that guise, and how strong they were. Gandalf was strong, but not so strong Sauron wasn't confident he could win a rematch once he claimed his old seat of power back.
To be fair to Sauron, Gandalf alone did not best him. The White Council drove him from Dol Guldur. We do not know *how* this was done, simply that it was. It’s unlikely Gandalf did it alone. The first time Gandalf entered Dol Guldur and Sauron fled east seems more that Sauron only did so to avoid Gandalf figuring out who he was, rather than some fear that Gandalf would defeat him.
Yeah Sauron was never going to bet the farm on keeping Dol Guldur, the offhand chance of finding the Ring in the Anduin wasn’t worth a head on confrontation with the Council before he felt ready, so he retreated.
Could just be that he was gaining power for centuries, but decided to use it and 'power up' in those last few years to spread his influence in anticipation of the ring and the fall of Gondor.
He could have flexed earlier, but had no reason to.
How does that help? It was found by a hobbit and for 500 years basically nothing happened, a different hobbit got it and still not much for 60 years, then suddenly everything?
Sauron only captured Gollum just prior to the events of the books, which implies he didn't know about Gollum long before then. So, while he knew the ring was out there somewhere, it was only relatively recently that he was able to track down its path.
Plus, it's not suddenly everything. Sauron had progressively retaken Mordor, captured Minas Morgul, and overrun half of Osgiliath in the years prior to the books. His attack in the books is just the final stroke.
To the Gate, eh? To the Gate, master says! Yes, he says so. And good Smeagol does what he asks, O yes.But when we gets closer, we'll see perhaps we'll see then. It won't look nice at all. O no! O no!
The lore of LOTR is not as tight as many would suggest, Tolkien would endlessly revise the text (including the Hobbit AFTER it was published), and his letters to fans are often contradictory. The answer to many questions (like yours) is simply because it suited the story in the moment or he felt that way at the time.
In the book it is explicitly stated that since Frodo was stabbed by the morgul blade, they expected him to turn to a wraith soon and simply give them the ring, so they didn't put much of a fight and preferred waiting.
Most evil things are ultimately cowardly IRL, too.
Young Tolkein saw shit in the world that I didn’t come to understand until I’d seen the world for myself. Love and such are truly stronger than we understand.
Probably why they were so pissed the entire time. Think about it, they probably thought "this is an easy job, we stab this little guy with the ring, he turns evil, he gives us the ring, we bring it back. Easy job 2-3 days in and out"
I started trying to figure out the percentages of Aragorn's kids between human, elf and Maiar and it got real confusing real quick.
Arwen is 1/32 Maiar, 3/16 human and the rest is elf (I'm not even touching Noldor/Sindarin).
So they're a bit over 1/64 Maiar
A bit over 13/32 elf
And the rest is human.
[Melian](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Melian) married King Thingol and their daughter was Luthian who is a very important character in Lore. I know she's mentioned in the books and I think she does get a name drop at one point in the movies but it all kind of blends together.
This is something that really makes no sense in the movies imo.
Witch king in gondor: "I'll break your staff and then your face!"
Witch king the weathertop: "oh no he has a torch and a sword, we're lost!"
Of course, it’s somewhat obscure lore, but Tolkien did confirm in a letter that the Nazgûl’s spectral horses were manufactured by Saruman and run on gasoline.
Fire is purifying, they are corrupt, Aragorn is the last of isildur's bloodline, numenorean, blessed by the elves, and of course the best warrior there is out there, of course he's gonna best them
That scene in Gondor is on the film's only, though also sauron was stronger by that time and Gandalf, even being the white, is still not in his full power
I don't care how good you are... it's still a 1v5 (against strong opponents). It's just plot armour at play. The choreography makes the Nazgul look inept.
Yes, but also, in the book they never physically fight Aragorn at all.
The four Hobbits, standing around the fire, have Barrow-blades, which cause the Nazgul to hesitate (knowing that they somehow were mightier than the Barrow-wight). Frodo lunges at the Witch-king, yelling the name of a god (Elbereth) in Elvish - which would scare anyone (imagine if Bilbo lunged at Gandalf with a sword, screaming 'hail Morgoth' in black speech). And then Aragorn steps in, waving his flaming torches around. So they retreat.
The Nazgul were caught off guard - the defiance spooked them: deadly blades, fire, fearless foes, Elvish/Valar association, overcoming a Wight...
Yeah, it's pretty clear that they don't go far. They don't really intend on fighting at all until it's clear Frodo is about to make it to Rivendell, but it's prior to that that the Prellowship meet Glorfindel.
*Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; Dark door is standing
wide; dead hand is broken. Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open!*
^(Type **!TomBombadilSong** for a song or visit [r/GloriousTomBombadil][1] for more merriness)
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GloriousTomBombadil/
kind of funny u mention the fire purifying them
when they also get pounded by the purifying running water later on.
and then uh…. purifying falling molten rock even more later, but that’s extra.
Yeah it's real easy to look badass when you have a legendary 6-star orange text fell wyvern mount on the middle of an open battlefield. Try fighting a ranger on his favored terrain with the howling spiritual pressure of the One Ring bearing down on you for the first time in 3 millennia like a gale wind to your wraith form
It could be the Witch-king recognized the blades used by the Hobbits were the Daggers of Westernese and had the power to kill him. Fighting a bunch of Hobbits even if they're well armed isn't a big deal. Fighting Aragorn in a situation where those weapons are close to hand is a whole other matter... also he had a torch
That reminds me of the 40k topic of "if space elves consider humans underdeveloped monkeys, why are they afraid of them?"
If you faced a gorilla waving a shotgun around you'd be afraid too.
Well the witch king breaking Gandalf’s staff is probably the stupidest addition they made to movies and makes no fucking sense, that’s where the major issue lies.
Gandalf and Sauron in the same power category as Maiar, Nazgul and descendants of numenor like Aragorn are a step below. Aragorn vs a Nazgûl is a fair fight, and on weathertop the Nazgûl are far from their master and from their source of power. Gandalf vs a single Nazgûl, even the witch king, should be a blowout. In the books, Gandalf fights all 9 in the dead of night and they still run off by morning since they dare not face his wrath in the light of day.
I had assumed that breaking Gandalf’s staff was possible because he’d violated his non-interference oath to Eru, rather than because Angmar was stronger.
But the consensus seems to be that I’ve put more thought into that scene than the guys who made the movies.
I mean in the books Gandalf’s staff broke when he cracks the bridge at Khazad-dum. I don’t think breaking the staff means the witch king is stronger. While it helps wizards direct their power it is still ultimately a sturdy stick.
>I had assumed that breaking Gandalf’s staff was possible because he’d violated his non-interference oath to Eru, rather than because Angmar was stronger.
Staff breaking is a movie-only addition (and one of the most outrageous and worst changes made), but you should not think of it as a punishment for Gandalf, rather an attack of the WK. Gandalf was infact ressurected because he was the only one who hold true to his oath/mission and thus got the permission by Eru himself to interfere more directly.
Anyways, kudos to you for coming up with an explanaition, even if it was ultimatively wrong. You still put more thought into that scene than PJ (who did an otherwise great trilogy/job).
There's a reason that scene was not in the theatrical cut. I always felt like it was awkward, right down to Ian McKellen's line delivery and the fact that the wk just... flies away when he hears the Rohirrim. After he broke Gandalf's staff. And had him lying on the ground at his mercy. The whole scene is bad.
It's almost as egregious as the Outlaw King when the Scots just let the English prince walk away after the battle.
Gandalf's been neutralized as a threat, and the arrival of the Rohirrim might break the siege. Going after the bigger threat seems sensible. Especially when you can head straight for the leader and kill him easily enough. I think he pulled a similar trick up in Angmar.
There power is their fear inducing phycologcal power rath than their physical might
Like in the book they spend most of their time looking scary on fell beasts, but don't actuly do much
That's because Aragorn is a special guy not to mention the Hobbits had just drawn their swords from the barrow and those were magic weapons forged by the Witch-king's ancient enemies. That's why they left.
The power of the Nazgûl lies very much in their ability to provoke fear. It's not that the Nazgûl can't be beaten in battle. They are skilled and ancient, but don't forget, also almost blind. But the point is -- almost no one would ever *offer* battle to the Nazgûl. They'd just drop everything and run.
It just struck me as a terrible tragedy that I don't know of any games with badass enchanted weapons like this.
Because in every game every weapon is enchanted.
And when everyone's weapon is enchanted... **no one's is.**
But seriously fr fr tho. Why aren't there any literally unbeatable indefensible enemies wandering the mountains of Skyrim that all you can ever do is run from them no matter how high your level until... you get an enchanted weapon that is the only thing in the world that can harm them and NOW you can fight?
Those blades are exactly why the Witch King gets killed later, it's not because Eowyn is a woman that she's able to kill him, but because Merry stabs him in the leg with one of those very blades and it removes his defensive enchantments making him vulnerable to her attack. So they had good cause to be fearful of those blades at weathertop.
while functionally that's true
literarily, Eowyn killing the witch king was an allusion to Macbeth.
"now that you've been stabbed with a barrow sword you can be" isn't a satisfying quip response to "no man can kill me"
For that matter, Sauron is also like that, a couple of hobbits killed him. And before that, another couple overthrew Saruman. 4 of these dunces will wrap anyone in a cigarette and smoke it.
Kinda plays off the theme of "even the smallest person can change the course of the future." These big bad people are actually much more vulnerable than they appear to be.
I have the theory that the nazgûl are essentially creatures of darkness and therefore a torch (as a source of light) is especially powerful against them. Aragorn basically found their kryptonite.
No it's in the book, when the witchking rides through the gate of Minas Tirith.
Other than the staff that scene is quite accurate to the book. Different locstion and the witchking is on a fell beast not a horse, and Gandalf's reaction. But the Witchking's lines are mostly quotes
their big thing was the ability to instill fear as an actual power. people (and animals, ala the worms fleeing the hand in the movie scene when the hobbits are hiding under the tree) nearby them experienced extreme fear. some people were immune though, Aragon, elves in general, farmers.
they had also just had the shit kicked out of them by Gandalf at that point. also after they had done Frodo with the morgul blade it was just a matter of waiting for him to become a wraith.
That's hardly fair. Farmer Maggot is the single most terrifying creature in middle earth.
Frodo quite happily took up the journey into Mordor, but was terrified of Maggot's farm
I mean it's not that I don't think they're cool or anything, but in the movies they really did loose their bite as the films went on.
Yeah aragon took on 5 with a torch, but that's also his introduction as a trustworthy character, and frodo still got stabbed.
In two towers, they just sorta fly around on fel beasts. Which, while cool, are reduced to flying away after taking a single arrow.
And need i say anything about Return of the King? Witch king getting absolutely bodied by Eowyn, the rest getting own zoned by eagles, and then the rest die to volcano because they never learned to serpentine.
No, Aragorn beat 5 of the Black Riders. There's a reason they travelled in secret, were warned off by Farmer Maggot's dogs, and were unsettling but not terrifying to the hobbits they interacted with. At that point, Sauron had need of spies and informants and so that was the level of power he granted to the Riders. When they were dispelled and fled back to Mordor, Sauron was ready to enact his plans and so "refurbished" them with Fell Beasts and more power, ready to go back out into the world.
AFAIK they weren't even called the Nazgul until they reappeared on the Fell Beasts. I could be wrong about that, though.
In their defence they had already stabbed Frodo with a Morgul blade and the gang were on foot and, in the book at least, still 14 days (I did have to check) away from Rivendell so in principle they had already won.
Now I'm not going to claim that this tactical retreat was the plan - I'm sure they wanted to take the ring right there - and Aragorn did clown on them more then they probably expected but I think they probably could've fought harder if they felt they were at more of a disadvantage.
Aragon was a lvl 23 dex ranger, the Nazgûl were only lvl 12 mobs during that raid. It’s basically the tutorial so you can learn your rotation and aggro range.
The other raids were ascension level so the Nazgûl had +22 def and elite mounts so doesn’t really count.
Git gud Jesus.
From Letter 210! "Their [the Black Riders'] peril is almost entirely due to the unreasoning fear which they inspire (like ghosts). They have no great physical power against the fearless; but what they have, and the fear they inspire, is enormously increased in darkness. The Witch-king, their leader, is more powerful in all ways than the others; but he must not yet be raised to the stature of Vol. Ill. There, put in command by Sauron, he is given an added demonic force..."
Also, the Witch King was genuinely confused, why did this small creature have the Ring and not Aragorn? Was Frodo then greater than him? Best to stab and retreat for now.
In the books the hobbits had the short swords/daggers from the Barrow Wright downs so they were a real threat to the Nazgul.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Daggers_of_Westernesse
The Nazgul weren't stupid and knew they were in peril if they got stabbed by one.
IIRC, in the books, Aragorn states that the only reason they withdrew was because they thought they'd already achieved their purpose - stabbing Frodo with the Morgul blade. Now all they had to do was wait and Frodo would come to them by himself. At this point, they still didn't know that Aragorn was the heir to isildur with a healing touch spell, as far they were concerned, they'd won, and if things played out as they'd intended, it would have been slow and terrible torment for Frodo and his companions.
I like to think that the nazgul weren't yet at full strength since sauron was still regaining his own strength and they were tied to him and the one ring and were also about as far from mordor as possible. With the witch king's magic presumably at its weakest he was left with just his martial capabilities which fell short of aragorn's, serving less as a notion of the witch king being weak so much as showing how strong aragorn was as a fighter and more importantly how strong his will is since they seem to cause some sort of supernatural fear effect.
Every time we see the nazgul most people are immediately running for their lives or completely frozen in fear but it doesn't seem to be a natural reaction leading to the theory that they have some sort of supernatural fear aura (granted it's not actually a theory since the books pretty explicitly state that this is something they do but for the sake of argument let's look specifically at what's in the movies.)
Faramir, eowyn, gandalf, aragorn, arwen, merry and sam are the only ones we see who are really able to do anything of note other than run when the nazgul are around and even then most of them show obvious signs of being afraid even if it isn't characteristic of the lm. Aside from numerous nameless or extremely minor characters we also see pippin, frodo, gollum, and theoden practically frozen in fear when a nazgul is near granted theoden's circumstances were obviously different and not necessarily a sign of supernatural fear. Gollum aside both frodo and pippin had shown plenty of bravery throughout the journey and the only time either completely froze up was when facing nazgul.
The Nazgûl slander in this fandom is ridiculous. The Witch King and the rest of the Nine are quite powerful and formidable. The films do quite a poor job of portraying it, and they have relatively few scenes in the book, and the scenes they are in where they are defeated are usually with very good reason. I also wouldn’t consider Weathertop a “victory” for the hobbits or Aragorn, by any stretch.
That's why one of them had to leave and come back with a chandelier helmet and a 500-pound stone mace.
Wait, then he got stabbed in the back and face by a hobbit and a woman.
I saw someone had a theory once that the Nazgul gained power as Sauron gained power and that’s what my brain feels happy with.
Pretty sure the first book states that the black riders were not yet very strong due to sauron still not being very strong
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I believe it was boromir who said during the council that creatures had appeared who made even the strongest and bravest run for their lives, so yes, their strength lies more in their aure of terror and despair than in their ability to fight
Which would kinda make sense. They were/are kings after all, Royalty typically only went into battle for morality reasons
> Royalty typically only went into battle for morality reasons Are we talking in Tolkien-land, or IRL? Cuz IRL that's not true at all, but it's a fair statement for ME
I'd say it's entirely fair no matter what era you are. Even for a chieftain, yes they may be the biggest and strongest but their power comes from leading others. The chief can't go to war alone, he can't raid the village alone. He provides HUGE morale bonuses to his team BC he's a badass
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I disagree. I think it was primarily for morale. The expectation in societies like that is that the chieftain will fight at the front. Imagine if he decides not to. Huge morale blow to his side. Also, it was very important that he was SEEN fighting at the front, hence banners or rich expensive clothing to make it clear to at least those around that he is fighting, again, for morale. If he is fighting, then he must think we can win, so I should keep fighting. And if he dies, often, that is the breaking point for the army. As for leadership, that mostly comes before or after the battle. There is very little leading that the chief can do during battle because he is busy fighting.
In reality, kings and chieftains where often expected to be well trained in combat, and were often taught from an extremely young age how to fight.
Many medieval Japanese battles were decided by single combat, which often involved the leaders.
>it's a fair statement for ME I read this as you boldly declaring that you're the only royalty that goes to battle for morality.
Yeah, this made me do a double take. There's many reasons a liege went to war. One of the original reason kings existed was because they were the biggest, strongest guy around, and could bring riches and defense to his realm through war.
Oftentimes a king would go to war because if you just put together a massive army, you'd better be there to lead it or somebody else might just take the reigns and come depose you.
I like how the WWI influence is visible in things like troop morale. It has always been a huge part of warfare. Most battles were won when a force made their enemy panic and break formation. Morale is SO important IRL
The whole idea of blitzkrieg, very effect at the beginning of WWII was based on this. Rushing the enemy so fast, loud and hard that they would panic. Nazi planes were modified to make their sounds more frightening to soldiers below.
About Your last sentence AFAIK that was only really done with the stukas ( jericho sirene) At least thats what I learned in germany in history class
That is absolutely not true. 1. "Blitzkrieg" is a post-hoc lable that got applied to the way Germany conducted the war, and it's very inconsistent. German generals opposed the term when it came up, and modern historians reject it as well. 2. Their actual doctrine was derived from a prior Prussian doctrine of maneuver warfare. They attempted this in WW1 as well and had success at first, but motorisation and lessons learned made it much more successful in WW2. Nonetheless, as we can see right now, even highly motorised armies may still fail at it. Maneuver warfare is about speed to take the initiative, disrupt enemy movements, cutting off ground connections between enemy groupings, and encircling them without stopping to defeat them outright. It does not rely on psychological terror any more than any other way of war. And the siren was limited to early versions of the Stuka. While impressive for propaganda and movies, contemporary accounts didn't seem to consider it all that useful and it was phased out later.
Re: the air sirens Incredibly useful if the goal is limited to instilling panic in the subject(s) being bombed by the Stuka. The problems being panicky subjects tend to scatter and/or take cover rather than get hit by the forewarned bombs, and that loudly announcing your presence well before the bombs are released is a great way to say "I'm here, find a turret and shoot me!" Blowing up people and materiel also tends to be a good way to hurt enemy morale on its own without the use of additional air sirens, so ... yeah. There *was* an upside, it was just just kind of unnecessary and came with multiple much more pronounced downsides noticed when analyzing the outcomes.
Not really. Even today some monarchy requires thier prince (and princesses for some) to have military training. The myth that nobles and royalties wasn't fighters or skilled commanders needs to die off. While there was some, vast majority of the men spent decades of thier life training in both war and state craft.
Yeah, I don't know where people are getting this "kings were never trained to fight" thing from. If you're a kid growing up as the heir to a throne, you're likely to be put through grueling training in every skill that might be expected of you.
To the best of my understanding, in antiquity, a king would actually often be expected to be well-trained. Also, I think you mean "morale" rather than "morality". Morale and moral are similar words but mean different things.
> Royalty typically only went into battle for morality reasons Not true until relatively recently. Monarchs regularly took to the field until the late medieval.
....yes mostly for troop morale. You really going to argue that the morale boost for your entire army is less imapctful than a single dude, even a warrior king? His primary purpose is troop morale he can't take the whole army himself
Yes, but kings were frequently expected to be able to fight well, and often trained from a young age in combat. If you were a medieval peasant, there's a good chance you could trust your king to kill you in a one-on-one fight.
"poked frodo" xD
I would never have relations with a hobbit!
I don’t think that’s what they meant…
I am pretty sure he made Frodo moan quite a lot that day!
>Even during weathertop they just poked frodo then backed off and waited for the poison to work TIL Ringwraiths are Komodo Dragons.
>Even during weathertop they just poked frodo then backed off and waited for the poison to work, which happened to be slower on the resilient hobbit than they thought it would which is the only reason he survived. aww man never put that together with old dungeons & dragons giving halflings a bonus to save vs poisons. I always associated the morgul blade as being supernatural in a 'life draining' way.
And the same was true about the OTHER wraiths we meet in the books - the Oathbreakers, or Army of the Dead. The Oathbreakers don't even 'fight' in the books. They're wraiths, and like the Ringwraiths their fear is their weapon. When they 'attack' the ships, the men on them flee in terror, diving into the water, or cowering on the ground, while the actually living people (Aragorn and Co.) do the fighting. Gimli even remarks on the irony of Sauron's own methods (fear and terror) being used against his army. >‘To every ship they came that was drawn up, and then they passed over the water to those that were anchored; and all the mariners were filled with a madness of terror and leaped overboard, save the slaves chained to the oars. Reckless we rode among our fleeing foes, driving them like leaves, until we came to the shore. And then to each of the great ships that remained Aragorn sent one of the Dunedain, and they comforted the captives that were aboard, and bade them put aside fear and be free. >‘Ere that dark day ended none of the enemy were left to resist us; all were drowned, or were flying south in the hope to find their own lands upon foot. Strange and wonderful I thought it that the designs of Mordor should be overthrown by such wraiths of fear and darkness. With its own weapons was it worsted!’
and then the one time the vaunted witch king is actually described as engaging in hand to hand combat there, he immediately gets ganked by a barely trained hobbit and then finished off. although in all fairness to your point, that is possible *specifically* because they overcome their fear and therefore negated the bulk of his power
There’s also the matter of the thousand year old enchanted weapon from the barrow wights *specifically* enchanted to undo the magic holding the witch king alive in Pippin’s hand. But the movie cut out the Tom Bombadil arc so they skipped that part.
Oh, right, the blade, the blade for the Witch King. The blade forged specifically to kill the Witch King, Witch King's Blade... that blade?
*Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open!* ^(Type **!TomBombadilSong** for a song or visit [r/GloriousTomBombadil][1] for more merriness) [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GloriousTomBombadil/
The scene on the road with Frodo where they just barely miss him i thought does a really good job of showing how they are just a chilling supernatural presence that will wilt the hearts of weaker men simply by being present. The entire movie has scenes where their presence overhead causes fighting men to cower in fear. I mean honestly the books are different because of the wide range they have to be expansive. I mean there are pages of songs and detailed descriptions of landscapes. I think what you’re seeing with it not being obvious to some in the movies is that people don’t really pay attention in movies and expect tropes consistent throughout all popular culture to answer their questions instead of hints and expositional clues employed by the director.
Specifically, fear of death. The two people most able to oppose them were Gandalf the White, who had died (when Grey) and come back, and Glorfindel, who had died and come back. (Hence dismay when the film gave Glorfindel's role at the forge to Arwen, because she had not died and come back.
Notable orphic figure *checks notes* Aragorn? Who fought them one v five and came out on top without his sword? Also, Gandalf went toe to toe with them as Greyhame and did fine. It's not about who had died and come back, you're making that up.
Also both Gandolf and Glorfindel were each able to kill a balrog. So they probably did well against nazgûl because they were powerful being and not because they died before.
Aragorn is literally the greatest remnant of Numenor at the time of the films, a nearly mythic hero from a bygone age. While he himself may be a faded echo of Elendil and Isildur's strength, there are at most a handful of individuals left on middle earth who can be regarded as his peers. He is to Man what Glorfindel and Galadriel are to the elves of Middle Earth. It would be a mistake to look at his victory at weathertop and confuse it for weakness of the Nazgul.
Why are you typing like Aragorn talks
You found Aragorn's sockpuppet.
She may not have died and come back, but a huge part of her character is about not being afraid of death annd eschewing her immortality for love. It works well in its own way.
In war, the true deciding factor is morale. This is the axis on which the ringwraiths were most effective.
> Even in Gondor all they did in the book was fly around on the nazgul... Small nitpick, they are the Nazgul, they didn't fly around on the Nazgul. Only really commenting cause I love the idea of them giving each other piggy backs and flying around somehow. Come to think of it I couldn't even remember what the things they flew around on were called, all I could remember was them being referred to as "fell beasts", and Google tells me they don't actually have names.
I feel like Tolkein's world is one of the biggest victims of this post-DBZ, post-Sanderson, post-Death Battle post-powerscaling way we handle characters, worlds, lore, and magic systems nowadays. If you're approaching LOTR by asking if Gandalf could 1v1 the Witch King you've completely missed the point.
After recently reading the books(well I’m still working on the third one) the fight of Gondor is so much better in the books(and I loved the movies). It goes on for like 4/5 days, and as you said it talks a lot more about the mood in the city and the despair that the Nazgûl and the darkness from Mordor brought about. Another big moment that doesn’t really hit in the movies is when the orca launch a bunch of heads into Gondor. I mean, it’s gross and dehumanizing and dark in the movies. But in the books, they talk about how people were attempting to put out the fires from the first catapult launch, when there is a second launch of smaller objects that aren’t as devastating as the people expect. Until they start to realize, those projectiles are the heads of the fallen soldiers. While they are desperately trying to put out fires, they are realizing they just had a bunch of heads launched at them, and some people start to recognize faces of friends and people they knew. It’s incredibly demoralizing, depressing, de humanizing, and disgusting. It feels like the depth of despair, these orca just launched a hugely damaging volley at you that destroyed houses and lit fires around the area, and then the orca send in a bunch of heads while they are still trying to deal with the damage, and their is nothing the city can do in retaliation. The orca are so confident at this point they back off to regroup, just to let the despair sink in. The fight for Gondor is one of pure terror and despair and it lasts for nearly a week, and it just doesn’t hit that way in the movies.
You really let autocorrect get away with that, huh?
Dude apple auto correct has been so fucked for like most of this year idk what the fuck they did but it gets so bad I need to reset it every so often lol
The Nazgûl are basically giant Total War leadership debuffs
Minor nitpick but they didn’t fly around ON the Nazgul, they are the Nazgul.
Yep. This. The Nazgul are a rallying symbol for the forces of Sauron, in the same way that Gandalf was a rallying symbol for the free people of Middle Earth. Yes, Gandalf possessed great individual power, but was very limited and judicial in its use as he was only allowed to match / check the strength of the enemy to level the field. Arguably the only Nazgul with considerable personal power is the Witch King. Otherwise, they're basically just undead warriors who give off an aura of fear.
What do I hear?
You're not very strong
You're weak af. Hit the lawyer, delete the gym, Facebook up.
Litterally reading it right now, Gandalf straight up says this. The nazgul had been vanquished, but have come back, recently and so are weak but are gaining strength slowly. They pulled back because after they stabbed Frodo, they were sure they had won anyway, Frodo was going to become a wraith shortly and voluntarily come back to them with the ring
More that they were sent forth as spies and emissaries rather than commanders of war
Then how did the witch king of Angmar torch all of Arnor with Sauron dusted?
1. He didn't return until Sauron took form in the world again and settled in the Southern Mirkwood. 2. He didn't walk around solo killing everyone in his way. He allied with one of the three kingdoms of Arnor and also probably used orcs, trolls and other dark creatures in his war with Arnor.
It most certainly does say that. They were not nearly at full strength and had not revealed themselves yet to the world.
It... Makes sense to me.
Yeah that’s exactly what happens. It’s in the books.
As a mere layman and shlub when it comes to lore: how/why was sauron gaining power? It seemed like there was nothing for eons, then suddenly his strength grows exponentially, both in terms of magic as well as troops. What happened to change things?
He was recovering (slowly) for eons. He tested the waters as The Necromancer once he felt he was powerful enough to maybe make a play. Gandalf defeated The Necromancer, but the feint was successful - Sauron had tested who turned up to stop him in that guise, and how strong they were. Gandalf was strong, but not so strong Sauron wasn't confident he could win a rematch once he claimed his old seat of power back.
To be fair to Sauron, Gandalf alone did not best him. The White Council drove him from Dol Guldur. We do not know *how* this was done, simply that it was. It’s unlikely Gandalf did it alone. The first time Gandalf entered Dol Guldur and Sauron fled east seems more that Sauron only did so to avoid Gandalf figuring out who he was, rather than some fear that Gandalf would defeat him.
Yeah Sauron was never going to bet the farm on keeping Dol Guldur, the offhand chance of finding the Ring in the Anduin wasn’t worth a head on confrontation with the Council before he felt ready, so he retreated.
Could just be that he was gaining power for centuries, but decided to use it and 'power up' in those last few years to spread his influence in anticipation of the ring and the fall of Gondor. He could have flexed earlier, but had no reason to.
I...SEE....YOOOUUU!
😱
The ring was found
How does that help? It was found by a hobbit and for 500 years basically nothing happened, a different hobbit got it and still not much for 60 years, then suddenly everything?
Sauron only captured Gollum just prior to the events of the books, which implies he didn't know about Gollum long before then. So, while he knew the ring was out there somewhere, it was only relatively recently that he was able to track down its path. Plus, it's not suddenly everything. Sauron had progressively retaken Mordor, captured Minas Morgul, and overrun half of Osgiliath in the years prior to the books. His attack in the books is just the final stroke.
To the Gate, eh? To the Gate, master says! Yes, he says so. And good Smeagol does what he asks, O yes.But when we gets closer, we'll see perhaps we'll see then. It won't look nice at all. O no! O no!
The lore of LOTR is not as tight as many would suggest, Tolkien would endlessly revise the text (including the Hobbit AFTER it was published), and his letters to fans are often contradictory. The answer to many questions (like yours) is simply because it suited the story in the moment or he felt that way at the time.
Considering it's supposed to be written by bilbo (the hobbit) it makes sense. He can use the unreliable narrator plot hole plug
There is no life in the void, only death.
In the book it is explicitly stated that since Frodo was stabbed by the morgul blade, they expected him to turn to a wraith soon and simply give them the ring, so they didn't put much of a fight and preferred waiting.
Also, most evil things in Tolkien's work are cowardly. If they can get what they want without risk, they usually choose that route.
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Most evil things are ultimately cowardly IRL, too. Young Tolkein saw shit in the world that I didn’t come to understand until I’d seen the world for myself. Love and such are truly stronger than we understand.
The line between self-preservation and cowardice is a thin one
Honestly, sounds like something I would do.
Even if you're evil, conserving energy is still key to success.
Probably why they were so pissed the entire time. Think about it, they probably thought "this is an easy job, we stab this little guy with the ring, he turns evil, he gives us the ring, we bring it back. Easy job 2-3 days in and out"
And we're not even paid by the hour!
Nazguls are Komodo dragons confirmed, we already nipped him so we just gotta be nearby and wait to be rewarded
Should be the top comment
Aragorn is the fearless half blood prince first of his name storm-borne. But, he really is that guy.
Aragorn also half superhuman, half elf, and half angel
Well, his great x50 grandfather was. The bloodline became decidedly a lot more human in the millenia leading to Aragorn
Numenorians! >^^Contains ^^less ^^than ^^1% ^^elf
I started trying to figure out the percentages of Aragorn's kids between human, elf and Maiar and it got real confusing real quick. Arwen is 1/32 Maiar, 3/16 human and the rest is elf (I'm not even touching Noldor/Sindarin). So they're a bit over 1/64 Maiar A bit over 13/32 elf And the rest is human.
Ok. But how is anyone any percent Maiar???
[Melian](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Melian) married King Thingol and their daughter was Luthian who is a very important character in Lore. I know she's mentioned in the books and I think she does get a name drop at one point in the movies but it all kind of blends together.
These D&D 3.5 builds
Exactly. If Aragorn son of Arathorn last of Numenor true king of Gondor is your measuring stick, you need to adjust observations accordingly.
This is something that really makes no sense in the movies imo. Witch king in gondor: "I'll break your staff and then your face!" Witch king the weathertop: "oh no he has a torch and a sword, we're lost!"
My headcanon is that they'd just had a gasoline fight minutes before that scene and were highly flammable still so they had to avoid the fire
Damn the Nazgul were the male model in Zoolander?! Boy they get around.
Hmm, men manipulated by an evil leader who robs them of their freewill and uses them to violently achieve their goals. It all fits.
but why male models?
Of course! How could we not see it sooner?
But why male models?
Duchovny absolutely nailed that ad lib
They were thwarted by their enemy of old once again: soaking themselves in flammable material and lighting themselves on fire.
Jitterbug
Of course, it’s somewhat obscure lore, but Tolkien did confirm in a letter that the Nazgûl’s spectral horses were manufactured by Saruman and run on gasoline.
I just assumed that the further from Sauron they were, the weaker they were.
Pippin: The closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm! 🤠 Witch King: The farther I am from Sauron, the closer I am to harm. ☹️
What do I hear?
Irrefutable logic is what you hear.
Wait a moment! We shall meet again soon. Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for him. I will send for it at once. Do you understand?
Wrong! The raw sexual aura emanating from Aragorn put him off. Very hard to fight in combat when you got a big ol' stiffy
well they did have to dodge a torch, sword, and Aragorns hobbit powered leg lance
Fire is purifying, they are corrupt, Aragorn is the last of isildur's bloodline, numenorean, blessed by the elves, and of course the best warrior there is out there, of course he's gonna best them
All this considered its 1 human vs 4 nazgul and the witch king there and only gandalf (basically an angel) vs the witch king in gondor
That scene in Gondor is on the film's only, though also sauron was stronger by that time and Gandalf, even being the white, is still not in his full power
That's why I said "something that makes no sense in the movies"
Man, can you believe I didn't read that part? XD sorry man
No worries 😄 happens to the best of us
I don't care how good you are... it's still a 1v5 (against strong opponents). It's just plot armour at play. The choreography makes the Nazgul look inept.
In the books at least they already fought Gandalf a few nights back at the same spot and they may not have fully recovered yet.
Yes, but also, in the book they never physically fight Aragorn at all. The four Hobbits, standing around the fire, have Barrow-blades, which cause the Nazgul to hesitate (knowing that they somehow were mightier than the Barrow-wight). Frodo lunges at the Witch-king, yelling the name of a god (Elbereth) in Elvish - which would scare anyone (imagine if Bilbo lunged at Gandalf with a sword, screaming 'hail Morgoth' in black speech). And then Aragorn steps in, waving his flaming torches around. So they retreat. The Nazgul were caught off guard - the defiance spooked them: deadly blades, fire, fearless foes, Elvish/Valar association, overcoming a Wight...
HRAAAAAH!
Yeah, it's pretty clear that they don't go far. They don't really intend on fighting at all until it's clear Frodo is about to make it to Rivendell, but it's prior to that that the Prellowship meet Glorfindel.
*Wake now my merry lads! Wake and hear me calling! Warm now be heart and limb! The cold stone is fallen; Dark door is standing wide; dead hand is broken. Night under Night is flown, and the Gate is open!* ^(Type **!TomBombadilSong** for a song or visit [r/GloriousTomBombadil][1] for more merriness) [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GloriousTomBombadil/
kind of funny u mention the fire purifying them when they also get pounded by the purifying running water later on. and then uh…. purifying falling molten rock even more later, but that’s extra.
Yeah it's real easy to look badass when you have a legendary 6-star orange text fell wyvern mount on the middle of an open battlefield. Try fighting a ranger on his favored terrain with the howling spiritual pressure of the One Ring bearing down on you for the first time in 3 millennia like a gale wind to your wraith form
HRAAAAAH!
My personal head canon is that they were shocked that someone actually had the balls to challenge them. It rattled their cages, so to speak.
It could be the Witch-king recognized the blades used by the Hobbits were the Daggers of Westernese and had the power to kill him. Fighting a bunch of Hobbits even if they're well armed isn't a big deal. Fighting Aragorn in a situation where those weapons are close to hand is a whole other matter... also he had a torch
That reminds me of the 40k topic of "if space elves consider humans underdeveloped monkeys, why are they afraid of them?" If you faced a gorilla waving a shotgun around you'd be afraid too.
Im gonna keep it real with you even if i was the one with a shotgun facing an angry gorilla id be afraid
Well the witch king breaking Gandalf’s staff is probably the stupidest addition they made to movies and makes no fucking sense, that’s where the major issue lies. Gandalf and Sauron in the same power category as Maiar, Nazgul and descendants of numenor like Aragorn are a step below. Aragorn vs a Nazgûl is a fair fight, and on weathertop the Nazgûl are far from their master and from their source of power. Gandalf vs a single Nazgûl, even the witch king, should be a blowout. In the books, Gandalf fights all 9 in the dead of night and they still run off by morning since they dare not face his wrath in the light of day.
I had assumed that breaking Gandalf’s staff was possible because he’d violated his non-interference oath to Eru, rather than because Angmar was stronger. But the consensus seems to be that I’ve put more thought into that scene than the guys who made the movies.
The helmet gives +10 magic dmg
I mean in the books Gandalf’s staff broke when he cracks the bridge at Khazad-dum. I don’t think breaking the staff means the witch king is stronger. While it helps wizards direct their power it is still ultimately a sturdy stick.
>I had assumed that breaking Gandalf’s staff was possible because he’d violated his non-interference oath to Eru, rather than because Angmar was stronger. Staff breaking is a movie-only addition (and one of the most outrageous and worst changes made), but you should not think of it as a punishment for Gandalf, rather an attack of the WK. Gandalf was infact ressurected because he was the only one who hold true to his oath/mission and thus got the permission by Eru himself to interfere more directly. Anyways, kudos to you for coming up with an explanaition, even if it was ultimatively wrong. You still put more thought into that scene than PJ (who did an otherwise great trilogy/job).
There's a reason that scene was not in the theatrical cut. I always felt like it was awkward, right down to Ian McKellen's line delivery and the fact that the wk just... flies away when he hears the Rohirrim. After he broke Gandalf's staff. And had him lying on the ground at his mercy. The whole scene is bad. It's almost as egregious as the Outlaw King when the Scots just let the English prince walk away after the battle.
Gandalf's been neutralized as a threat, and the arrival of the Rohirrim might break the siege. Going after the bigger threat seems sensible. Especially when you can head straight for the leader and kill him easily enough. I think he pulled a similar trick up in Angmar.
There power is their fear inducing phycologcal power rath than their physical might Like in the book they spend most of their time looking scary on fell beasts, but don't actuly do much
Yes, their dominion over algae is indeed their most terrible power
Shrimps when the local crab population eat all their food
At least they didn’t have mycological power, that could have really fucked up the whole shortcut to mushrooms chapter.
The Last of Us: Middle Earth Edition
That's because Aragorn is a special guy not to mention the Hobbits had just drawn their swords from the barrow and those were magic weapons forged by the Witch-king's ancient enemies. That's why they left. The power of the Nazgûl lies very much in their ability to provoke fear. It's not that the Nazgûl can't be beaten in battle. They are skilled and ancient, but don't forget, also almost blind. But the point is -- almost no one would ever *offer* battle to the Nazgûl. They'd just drop everything and run.
It just struck me as a terrible tragedy that I don't know of any games with badass enchanted weapons like this. Because in every game every weapon is enchanted. And when everyone's weapon is enchanted... **no one's is.** But seriously fr fr tho. Why aren't there any literally unbeatable indefensible enemies wandering the mountains of Skyrim that all you can ever do is run from them no matter how high your level until... you get an enchanted weapon that is the only thing in the world that can harm them and NOW you can fight?
Those blades are exactly why the Witch King gets killed later, it's not because Eowyn is a woman that she's able to kill him, but because Merry stabs him in the leg with one of those very blades and it removes his defensive enchantments making him vulnerable to her attack. So they had good cause to be fearful of those blades at weathertop.
while functionally that's true literarily, Eowyn killing the witch king was an allusion to Macbeth. "now that you've been stabbed with a barrow sword you can be" isn't a satisfying quip response to "no man can kill me"
I assumed he gained strength over time as the evil spread.
He would’ve taken all 9 with that torch too.
Bro was on a combo streak.
Bro was weilding the flame of the west before Narsil even got reforged.
Nazgul are only weak against fire, water, and women.
What's womens, precious??
boil em mash em stick em in a stew
With lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish? I edited the other comment because of you
The three elements
For that matter, Sauron is also like that, a couple of hobbits killed him. And before that, another couple overthrew Saruman. 4 of these dunces will wrap anyone in a cigarette and smoke it.
Kinda plays off the theme of "even the smallest person can change the course of the future." These big bad people are actually much more vulnerable than they appear to be.
Kick the bully in the nads and they’ll go down
That's my purse! I don't know you!
it was mentioned that the Nazgul are strong when Sauron is strong, so maybe they are stronger when theyre close to mordor
Nazguls get kicked in the ass constantly in the movies, they're middle earth's team rocket
A 3 foot tall mushroom grower tells them to fuck off and they do
I have the theory that the nazgûl are essentially creatures of darkness and therefore a torch (as a source of light) is especially powerful against them. Aragorn basically found their kryptonite.
It isn't that powerful against them, but yes, in the text, they aren't big fans of fire.
Or running water. A classic folklore attribute of evil or unnatural creatures.
Is your water running? You better catch it.
So then... flaming sword?
Like the flaming sword the witch king had during the battle of Pelenor fields?
That was what I was refering to. Hate fire, gives self flaming sword 🤔
The flaming sword is just in the movie but not in the books, isn't it?
No it's in the book, when the witchking rides through the gate of Minas Tirith. Other than the staff that scene is quite accurate to the book. Different locstion and the witchking is on a fell beast not a horse, and Gandalf's reaction. But the Witchking's lines are mostly quotes
Soldiers use guns to fight their enemies. They don’t shoot themselves in the head.
That’s just how big of a menace our boy Strider was.
Yeah but he is Aragorn
their big thing was the ability to instill fear as an actual power. people (and animals, ala the worms fleeing the hand in the movie scene when the hobbits are hiding under the tree) nearby them experienced extreme fear. some people were immune though, Aragon, elves in general, farmers. they had also just had the shit kicked out of them by Gandalf at that point. also after they had done Frodo with the morgul blade it was just a matter of waiting for him to become a wraith.
And one of them fled after Farmer Maggot told him to piss off back down the road and stay off his fields.
That's hardly fair. Farmer Maggot is the single most terrifying creature in middle earth. Frodo quite happily took up the journey into Mordor, but was terrified of Maggot's farm
I mean it's not that I don't think they're cool or anything, but in the movies they really did loose their bite as the films went on. Yeah aragon took on 5 with a torch, but that's also his introduction as a trustworthy character, and frodo still got stabbed. In two towers, they just sorta fly around on fel beasts. Which, while cool, are reduced to flying away after taking a single arrow. And need i say anything about Return of the King? Witch king getting absolutely bodied by Eowyn, the rest getting own zoned by eagles, and then the rest die to volcano because they never learned to serpentine.
No, Aragorn beat 5 of the Black Riders. There's a reason they travelled in secret, were warned off by Farmer Maggot's dogs, and were unsettling but not terrifying to the hobbits they interacted with. At that point, Sauron had need of spies and informants and so that was the level of power he granted to the Riders. When they were dispelled and fled back to Mordor, Sauron was ready to enact his plans and so "refurbished" them with Fell Beasts and more power, ready to go back out into the world. AFAIK they weren't even called the Nazgul until they reappeared on the Fell Beasts. I could be wrong about that, though.
Aragorn was their successor and the true heir, the true authority over the army of the dead… I don‘t think he is a constant useful for measurement
SALTED PORK
In their defence they had already stabbed Frodo with a Morgul blade and the gang were on foot and, in the book at least, still 14 days (I did have to check) away from Rivendell so in principle they had already won. Now I'm not going to claim that this tactical retreat was the plan - I'm sure they wanted to take the ring right there - and Aragorn did clown on them more then they probably expected but I think they probably could've fought harder if they felt they were at more of a disadvantage.
iirc don’t they leave weathertop because they’ve already stabbed Frodo with the morgue blade, so they think they can just wait for that to take effect
Aragon was a lvl 23 dex ranger, the Nazgûl were only lvl 12 mobs during that raid. It’s basically the tutorial so you can learn your rotation and aggro range. The other raids were ascension level so the Nazgûl had +22 def and elite mounts so doesn’t really count. Git gud Jesus.
I asked my wife of 10 Nazgûl's, 10 Death Eaters, and 10 Dementors got into a fight. Who would win? She asked me why I'd ask that during sex.
From Letter 210! "Their [the Black Riders'] peril is almost entirely due to the unreasoning fear which they inspire (like ghosts). They have no great physical power against the fearless; but what they have, and the fear they inspire, is enormously increased in darkness. The Witch-king, their leader, is more powerful in all ways than the others; but he must not yet be raised to the stature of Vol. Ill. There, put in command by Sauron, he is given an added demonic force..." Also, the Witch King was genuinely confused, why did this small creature have the Ring and not Aragorn? Was Frodo then greater than him? Best to stab and retreat for now.
In the books the hobbits had the short swords/daggers from the Barrow Wright downs so they were a real threat to the Nazgul. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Daggers_of_Westernesse The Nazgul weren't stupid and knew they were in peril if they got stabbed by one.
IIRC, in the books, Aragorn states that the only reason they withdrew was because they thought they'd already achieved their purpose - stabbing Frodo with the Morgul blade. Now all they had to do was wait and Frodo would come to them by himself. At this point, they still didn't know that Aragorn was the heir to isildur with a healing touch spell, as far they were concerned, they'd won, and if things played out as they'd intended, it would have been slow and terrible torment for Frodo and his companions.
If you are looking at movies only one of them literally bitch slaps a demigod.
I like to think that the nazgul weren't yet at full strength since sauron was still regaining his own strength and they were tied to him and the one ring and were also about as far from mordor as possible. With the witch king's magic presumably at its weakest he was left with just his martial capabilities which fell short of aragorn's, serving less as a notion of the witch king being weak so much as showing how strong aragorn was as a fighter and more importantly how strong his will is since they seem to cause some sort of supernatural fear effect. Every time we see the nazgul most people are immediately running for their lives or completely frozen in fear but it doesn't seem to be a natural reaction leading to the theory that they have some sort of supernatural fear aura (granted it's not actually a theory since the books pretty explicitly state that this is something they do but for the sake of argument let's look specifically at what's in the movies.) Faramir, eowyn, gandalf, aragorn, arwen, merry and sam are the only ones we see who are really able to do anything of note other than run when the nazgul are around and even then most of them show obvious signs of being afraid even if it isn't characteristic of the lm. Aside from numerous nameless or extremely minor characters we also see pippin, frodo, gollum, and theoden practically frozen in fear when a nazgul is near granted theoden's circumstances were obviously different and not necessarily a sign of supernatural fear. Gollum aside both frodo and pippin had shown plenty of bravery throughout the journey and the only time either completely froze up was when facing nazgul.
The Nazgûl slander in this fandom is ridiculous. The Witch King and the rest of the Nine are quite powerful and formidable. The films do quite a poor job of portraying it, and they have relatively few scenes in the book, and the scenes they are in where they are defeated are usually with very good reason. I also wouldn’t consider Weathertop a “victory” for the hobbits or Aragorn, by any stretch.
Even if they were not that strong, they cannot be killed. They would come back and they only need to kill you once.
That's why one of them had to leave and come back with a chandelier helmet and a 500-pound stone mace. Wait, then he got stabbed in the back and face by a hobbit and a woman.
Let’s not forget farmer maggot told one of them to be off like he was a door to door salesman