Was one of the nine female?
 

A friend of mine once told me that one of the nine ring wraiths (Adunaphel I think it was) Is or was a woman. Is this true?

They were once great kings of men, so I highly doubt it. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Is there anything that says who these kings of men were?

Beren87~ Love the new avatar!!

No. They were all men, males. That name isn't a name that Tolkien used, it came from some game or other.

That name (and the identity behind it) was fabricated by Iron Crown Enterprises for the "Middle Earth: The Wizards" card game. It is certainly not canon, and most Tolkien enthusiasts disregard it.

Noting that Tolkien describes them as "Kings of Men" and the small role of women in governing the lands of Men in Tolkien's works, it is fairly safe to assume that all of the Ringwraiths are male.

there were ruling queens in westernesse, numenor, but i'm pretty sure they were called queens, rather than kings.

by the way, was the fact that the men of numenor were going downwards, the reason they had women in charge? do you think it was some sort of thing by tolkien saying that strong men would never allow a woman?

Not really. I think it was more he was following the examples of our history too. When a king goes to war and dies without an heir often the queen will come to power. Tolkien lived through the rain of Queen Elizabeth, so he would know about this first hand.

It was the law of the Numenoreans that the eldest child in the royal line, whether male or female, would inherit the throne.

I assume that you mean Queen Elizabeth II, since JRRT was not that old!! And us Brits are still living through her reign.

I'm not sure that JRRT would have seen Queens as necessarily weaker. After all, two of the strongest monarchs that we have had were women: Elizabeth I and Victoria.

Yep, that was what I meant, thanks!

Could you perhaps be referring to King Adunaphel the Effete? Sauron promised him that the Ring would "change him", but the wraith thing wasn't really what he had in mind.

What?

I thought the Witch-King and Khamul were the only Ringwraiths actually singled out and identified by Tolkien... What source is this "King Adunaphel the Effete" from?

Thanks!

Why, from "The Very Secret Diary of King Adunaphel the Effete". Where else?

Um, ok...

Yeah, Khamul and the Witch-King are the only two singled out by Tolkien. Khamul, though, is the only one that actually has a name. "Witch-King" is just a title. He was the king of Angmar, and a witch. Gothmog might have been a Nazgul, but I don't think so. Regardless of if he is or not, he is male. All of the Nine are male. Pretty much everyone is male, really.

Wouldn't it be that if it says they wereGreat kings of men, wouldn't they be male?

It might also be that the generalized it, saying kings, there might have been a "queen" in there. It's all inside Tolkein.

~Burzdol~

Birdland, wasn't King Adunaphel the Effete actually a bit of a Queen? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

To be really technical, "Kings of Men" could include a female. Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain were referred to as the "Catholic Kings" both in English and Spanish, although Isabella was indubitably a Queen. Nowadays we'd probably try to think up some neutral term like "Rulers of Men" (or People) which doesn't quite have the same flavour to it.

But no, there's no evidence at all that one of the Nine was female, and considering the world of ME I'd be astonished if the idea ever occurred to Tolkien. There were Queens in ME, but comparatively few ruling in their own right (the only name I can think of is Tar-Ancalime, who was no picnic herself) - it's hard to imagine that if one of them had gone over to the wraith side that it wouldn't have been mentioned somewhere in the appendices. And, for what it's worth, Elrond mentions that the Nine Walkers shall oppose the Nine Riders. The nine walkers all being male, there's no reason that the nine riders shouldn't all be as well.

I don't think any of the ringwraiths were female. When you think about the way Middle Earth society worked and the way our society was when Tolkien was writing his stories (pre-women's liberation) women probably wouldn't have held strong roles like that. Eowyn being the obvious exception... Even Luthien and Galadriel, while female and still quite powerful, had power that ran to vocal ends as opposed to physical ones (like chasing down Rings!) However, the prefix "Tar" is used for both kings and queens of Numenor, so who knows. I guess you'd really have to study the language, but I don't think that there's enough information on it to hazard much of a guess.

I'm pretty sure all of them were male, mainly because there were no ruling queens in the Dunedain kingdoms of Middle Earth (please correct me if I'm wrong), even thought there were in Numenor.
*I've wondered about that, is it because back on Middle Earth people's mentality de-evolved?*
Back to the thread... Altough there is no REALLY REAL proof one or two couldn't have been female... This and many other secrets are in the grave with Tolkien now [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

Nope. No ruling queens in Middle-earth. If Gondor had still followed the Law of Succession of Numenor, then Arvedui and Firiel would have ended up ruling Gondor instead of Earnil, thus preventing the fall of Arnor. But those bloody Gondorians had to be close-minded!

That is true, but I think the Kings of Men were mainly based on the british royal traditions where this was not true, but Tolkien was Catholic so you never know.

With the number of females in the book I would highly doubt that he would try to sneak in a female Ringwraith.

[ June 07, 2003: Message edited by: Gorwingel ]