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Old 06-22-2015, 06:59 PM   #13
Firefoot
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Join Date: Dec 2003
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Firefoot has been trapped in the Barrow!
I think I side with Inziladun on this one... I have no reason to think that the Nazgul were telekinetic, so they must have had some way of interacting with their horses, swords, etc. They can also smell and see (though poorly) which require sensory organs. Additionally,

Quote:
Merry's sword had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee.
Incorporeal spirits don't have sinews. However, their bodies also seem to be insubstantial and barely held together, since as soon as Merry stabs him, the "mantle and hauberk were empty." So maybe a little bit of both?

Gandalf also supposes that Frodo might become "like a glass filled with a clear light," which also sounds like a visible and insubstantial but still physically real form.

It seems to me that the use of the Rings is extremely damaging to the hroa but it doesn't seem to me that it becomes wholly separated from the fea.

On the other hand, I'm not familiar with the later volumes of HoME or Tolkien's Letters, so everything Mithadan posted from those sources is new to me.
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