Gandalf Vs. The Witch King

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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

This would appear to support my theory that the Witch-king is given a "power-up" of sorts by Sauron prior to leading his armies into battle, and this is something that the film captures quite well, I think, in the scene in Minas Morgul when the Witch-king first rides out on his Fell Beast.

So, in both the book and the films, the Witch-king of Weathertop is a different proposition from the Witch-king at the Pelennor. Whether this will make his breaking of Gandalf's staff in the film any more credible to Tolkien fans is unlikely, but it addresses the apparent inconsistency between the portrayal of the W-K's powers in these two parts of the film trilogy.

I think that the books indicate clearly that the WK powered up for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, but so had Gandalf when transforming from grey to white. In the movie these transformations/powering ups are also acknowledged, yet PJ has the WK go up more levels than I think is indicated, at least in comparision to Gandalf (heck, the WK didn't even change color! )

In short, all of the characters (Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, WK, armies, etc) powered up as the story proceeded, but PJ was inconsistent/inconsiderate in regards to Gandalf.