[Tirned Tinnu]

Well done, SaucePan Man, that was exactly the tact I was going to take.

The Riders (in FOTR) did indeed have something like bodies, but they were weak physically and needed to be bolstered by the power of the Rings that they wore, I think.

I have often wondered why the Riders never just snatched poor Frodo off his feet and kidnapped him physically - frankly, without tremendous power, (such as displayed by the Crowned One) I don't believe they were very good a performing complex physical tasks.
Jabbing Frodo was about all they might have been able to do at the time.

I like to look at these creatures by comparing them to legends/films about longevity - such as a recently re-issued movie called "The Asphyx". What if there was a creature that came to inhabit the body at the time of death - and forced out the soul? This is the premise behind The Asphyx - the main character learned to entrap the Asphx, and live eternally.

But what of the possiblility of ensnaring one's soul and forcibly making it stay in the body? As with The Asphyx, if the soul is allowed to stay in it's body permanently, what you get is slow decay of the physical body.
Injury to the body does not affect the soul trapped there - and pain as well as the injury still exist in the body without the subject completely dying.

Horrific, that idea, of continual pain and suffering trapped in a decaying body. And the soul? What of it - is it eternally trapped in that "Otherworld" that darkside of things, where Elvish 'souls' can be viewed, where Immortal 'souls' exist? Is this the secret -- binding the human soul into the immortal realm, hiding it from The Gift?

Certainly these thoughts are disquieting, but I love talking about it. The feeling of disgust in my gullet attests to my interest! Bleh!
[img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]