The Nature of the Nine
 

Were the Nine--those who would become Ringwraiths--good/just people before the Rings enslaved them?

And also, in their slavery, did they have anything of a "mind" anymore? Or were they simply restless spirits? Had their beings become truly evil, or simply bound to an evil will? Did they have any sort of will of their own that is known--did they wish in some way to escape their servitude? Did they have any sort of true loyalty to Sauron, or only the mindless subservience of a zombie to it's necromancer?

And in the end, after Sauron's defeat, were they freed? Were their spirits made whole and allowed to go into "Heaven"--Or were their spirits totally extinguished or cast into the Void?

I actually feel bad for the Nine, in a sense, because they were unwittingly enslaved and kept as such for millenia, and died as villains. It's not as if they voluntarily fell to evil, they feel simply to weakness and perhaps false promises by Sauron.

Very little is known of the lives of the Men who became the Nazgûl before their enslavement. The Witch-king though was said to be a "great king and sorcerer" though in his earlier life. As a "sorcerer", I would suspect he was already on the evil side before he obtained his ring.
No matter the good or evil intent they might have had before, in Tolkien's world the desire for power and life beyond one's native abilities is not a positive trait. The use of the Nine Rings in itself was a negative act, no matter how the men might have tried to justify it.

The Nazgûl had no will or being outside that of their master. They had been utterly conquered by the rings, which were subject to the One. If someone, say Gandalf, had overcome Sauron and become the new Ring-lord, they would have obeyed him.

As earthbound beings in Arda, their existence was over when Sauron was rendered impotent by the One's destruction. The fate of their fea is unknown, but I guess they went wherever all the spirits of Men journeyed after physical death. That's delving into territory never expounded upon by Tolkien, so it would be merest speculation.

Again though, even listening to such lies and giving in to the temptation for power could be seen as a negative act. Consider Ar-Pharazôn of Númenor. He too was deceived by Sauron to his doom, yet it would appear he was held accountable for his own folly in being receptive and failing to repent.

In his speech about the rings to Frodo, Gandalf says something to the effect that "with some it (meaning the ring's corruption) takes longer, but eventually all succumb." This makes it sound to me like not ALL of the Nazgul were evil when they took up the ring (or at least they were not wholly evil. If they had been, Ganadalf would have no reference to measure by. I suspect that, somewhere in some archives of Gondor or Rivendell, there might be records of some of the Nazguls lives pre-consumption (at least two or three of the last ones were Numenorian, so their records might have been kept in Gondor. And as Saruman traveled a great deal in the South and east, he may have found documents about the early life of Khamul.


That does bring up an odd question, though. Powerful as the Nazgul are, wouldn't that make using them to hunt the ring sort of risky. Yes they are Sauron's most loyal servants as long as he is Ring-lord, but if they are truly enslaved to the ring, as opposed to Sauron then there is exactly the risk you mentioned, the moment someone else mastered the ring, the Nazgul would turn on him. Indeed if there was a sort of "interim" period between the claiming and Sauron's destruction (unless the person literally claimed the ring on the steps of Bara-dur, there is still the time to actually march to Mordor and take Sauron out. Sauron might actually have to contemplate dealing with an army with his former loyal servants leading the vanguard.
There is also the Matter of how the Nazgul were able to do some things during the period when Sauron was still "asleep" They seem to have been a lot less "open" during this period, but it doesn't sound like they were simply standing somewhere like blocks of wood, waiting for their masters resurrection to revive them.
I think the problem here is how you interpret the word "will". Certainly they no longer have the ability to defy their master or leave them but that doesn't mean they are automata. The fact that Sauron can use them to search and lead means that, at least on some level they can still think for themselves (an individual who cannot act based on actual battlefield conditions is likely to be a poor commander. Plus if the only thing animating them was Saurons own will, there probably would have been no need for the messenger service. If they were merely vessels for Saurons mind, he would KNOW what they were seeing, since he'd be seeing it too) even if all of those thoughts are simply "serve my master". Whether that counts as having no will, or simply having a will that is totally subservient to another will I don't know

I doubt that Sauron had ever considered the idea that anyone would have been capable of keeping the Ring from him. Tolkien speculated that Gandalf might have been able to do so, but Sauron's pride was swollen enough that he never thought the West would actually want to destroy the Ring either.
Also, in the UT chapter The Hunt for the Ring, it is said if one of the Nazgûl had obtained the Ring, even the Witch-king, he would not have hesitated to return it to Sauron.

Certainly they did retain their own thoughts, but they were incapable of any action that was against Sauron's command, and more importantly, had no sense of being apart from Sauron. Rather like the Mouth, whose only identity was as a part of Sauron, but more so.

Valid, though I think the UT quote would only apply to the FULL witch king after he fell to the ring (if the WK has somehow gotten the one ring off Sauron in the early days, when his own ring had not yet taken him over and he still did have full free will, that might have been another matter)



The Mouth actually is a pretty good analogy. While never called so, I suppose you could describe the Nazgul as the Hands of Sauron, or the fingers (Nine fingers Nine Nazgul. Though of course Sauron still had ten fingers when the Nazgul came together) The Mouth's function is to speak for Sauron, the Nazgul's is to do for him. This also may give more significance to Denethor's line "To this city, only the first finger of his power has been extended." At that point in time there probably was only one Nazgul actually outside of Minas Tirith (with most to all of them having fell beasts to ride, I get the feeling the Nazgul were pretty mobile, so it is possible that, at that point Gothmog may not have been there yet Or Denethor miscounted, or I'm on totally the wrong track.

I do think they had their own thoughts. Like the Witch-king's feelings to certain Dúnedain of the South Kingdom like the Steward Boromir who he feared, and he hated King Eärnur who he taunted while he was King about their earlier meeting when his horse ran from the approach of the Witch-king. When searching for the Ring there is this passage from Unfinished Tales, "they met messengers from Barad-dûr conveying threats from their Master that filled even the Morgul-lord with dismay." [p. 354]

Regarding their will in relation to Sauron's and the Rings of Power, "they were entirely enslaved to their Nine Rings, which he now himself held; they were quite incapable of acting against his will, and if one of them, even the Witch-king their captain, had seized the One Ring, he would have brought it back to his Master." [p. 358] Think about that. The One which could tempt about anyone and confer powers on people, even the Witch-king if he found it would bring it back to Sauron rather than keep it as his own and try to master it. They were slaves to their own Rings. This was really the purpose of the Rings of Power as Sauron had planned. To make the free peoples of M-E subservient to him through them. This is why when the One was complete, and he put it on the Elves took off their Rings after hearing Sauron's chant.

Aragorn describes the Nine, "In dark and loneliness they are strongest... their power is in terror." [FotR, p. 216] He later on goes into detail about how they see they world and their weakness [233-234]. We are shown how strong they really are as Gandalf was "hard put to it indeed" [317] when he faced them on Weathertop and, "On foot even Glorfindel and Aragorn together could not withstand all the Nine at once." [270] However, it appears that if Sauron were to wield the One they would be even stronger, "they are only shadows yet of the power and terror they would possess if the Ruling Ring was on their master's hand again." [352]

I do not think they were wholly good or evil. It is said, "according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and under the domination of the One" [Sil, p. 358] So the immediacy of their complete domination by Sauron depended in part on the balance of the good/evil of their wills.

As to the goodness/badness of the Nazgul, basically what Belegorn just said:
I would imagine some of them were quite bad people at first (such as the Witch-King, like Inzil has pointed out in his first post, he was probably a cruel king tampering with "black magic"), but I always found it easy to imagine some of them were good, especially given Gandalf's long (however general) elaboration in the Shadow of the Past how the Rings consume the bearers even if they originally had good intentions. He may be referring to Gollum or Isildur, of course, but the way he goes into detail about "fading" and strong warriors giving in and all that gives the impression that he has some knowledge about actual cases like that from the past, and that would imply reference to the stories of Nazgul.