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Originally Posted by davem
'cos breaking some big gates is not actually a big deal in itself. The fact is that the WK used a battering ram & some spells to break the gates. The breaking of the gates is just a bad example if you're offering 'evidence' that the WK is more powerful at the Pelennor Fields than he was earlier. The gates are not magical as far as I know & don't need magic to bring them down - only force. What other evidence is there that the WK was more powerful during the battle - he seems the same person to me - given that the Barrow blade, 'wound about with spells' that was designed to bring him down still worked.
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I would say it is largely because of the various evidence that the Nazgul DID NOT have added physical strength prior to this scene that the breaking of the Gates (at least partly carried out with the use of a spell) seems noteworthy to me. Otherwise, the original quote from Tolkien's Letters is:
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Their 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 that 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 III. There, put in command by Sauron, he is given an added demonic force.
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with the emphasis here on the statement that "they have no great physical power against the fearless". This statement is made in conjunction with the Witch Kings powers in Book I and if there were no real enhancement to the WK's power, then it would seem to contradict the fact that we see the WK help to break the Gates of the City. Now you can argue that this is just Grond, but the quote above, in which it is explicitly stated that
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...forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.
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seems to argue directly against this notion that it is only Grond.