[davem]

Originally Posted by CSteefel

I think the Appendix B in Return of the King makes clear that it is really the Witch King who does this (not the battering ram):

No - its shorthand: the WK is in charge of Sauron's armies, hence he 'breaks the gate'.

The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.

[QUOTE]

Then the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone. Thrice he cried. Thrice the great ram boomed. And suddenly upon the last stroke the Gate of Gondor broke. As if stricken by some blasting spell it burst asunder: there was a flash of searing lightning, and the doors tumbled in riven fragments to the ground.

The point I was making in my flip comment was that if the WK had the power to break the gates then why use Grond - why indeed spend so long forging it? Grond was designed for a single purpose - to batter down the gates of Minas Tirith. If the only example that's being offered for the WK being given 'extra' power is the breaking of the gate then its not a good one. The WK may utter words in an unknown tongue but he does it in conjunction with the use of a devastating (physical) weapon against a physical object. Of course, the implication is that he used spells to weaken the stone & metal of the gate & gateposts - & there's the 'lightning' too - but this is clearly not sufficient to break the gates without a battering ram.

If the WK had the power to break the gates unaided then he would have done. He couldn't. Hence he had to use a battering ram. Of course, its his ram, so he broke the gates. To argue that because App B states he 'broke the gates' Grond played no part is like arguing that saying the WK 'stabbed Frodo on Weathertop' implies that the Morgul Blade was irrelevant. The WK broke the Gates with Grond & he stabbed Frodo with the Morgul Blade. He couldn't have performed either act without the object.