Female Nazgûl???

Originally Posted by davem

But Merry's strike made it possible for Eowyn to dispatch the WK - it wasn't simply that Merry showed the WK was vulnerable - he wasn't vulnerable until Merry stabbed him. If Eowyn had stabbed him first nothing woulld have happened. Only the Barrow blade (wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor) could have made him vulnerable to Eowyn's blow. So, they both killed him. It was equivalent to Merry cutting off his bullet proof vest so that Eowyn sould shoot him. I don't see why she should get all the glory

I suppose Eowyn deserved credit for being prepared to be killed in the futile attempt to defend the dying Theoden. The WK was for a moment distracted so that Merry could land a blow. I would have preferred a confrontation between the WK and Gandalf all the same, a real contest. Being killed by a Hobbit and a Women makes a mockery of the WK as Sauron's greatest servant in a way.

[Eowyn of Ithilien]

"the greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself"

[shieldmaiden]

Eowyn is not the only female warrior in M.E. There was Haleth, the chieftain of the Haladin (Silmarilion). As I remember, she was a wise and a brave woman who led her men into battles.

[Ghâshgûl]

Originally posted by shieldmaiden:
<STRONG>There was Haleth, the chieftain of the Haladin (Silmarilion). As I remember, she was a wise and a brave woman who led her men into battles.</STRONG>

If I am not wrong, she led her women into battles! Just anothe example for female warriors in ME...

Ghâshgûl

[ November 09, 2001: Message edited by: Ghâshgûl ]

[Bêthberry]

Other than Galadriel, who had issues with power and aggression and dominance (see Celeborn), I don't think we see any other women who are tempted by the Ring.

Clearly, "Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die" is a specific statement about the male sex and not a general statement used by analogy for all of human/huwyman kind.

And just as clearly then, there could not be female nazgul. Females are beyond such power tripping. It's only the wedding ring that gets them.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Bb

Clearly, "Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die" is a specific statement about the male sex and not a general statement used by analogy for all of human/huwyman kind.

No. It's just that "Nine for Mortal Persons doomed to die" would not have scanned correctly and would have lost that slight alliterative feel ...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

No. It's just that "Nine for Mortal Persons doomed to die" would not have scanned correctly and would have lost that slight alliterative feel ...

Tut tut, my good SpM. Poetic license would never be countenanced by as good a philologist as our Professor. His words always mean exactly what he intends them to mean. And clearly he never intended any woman to succumb to the Ring other than our G-lady or he would have showed us. No reading in of your own ideas now!

[davem]

Whenever the reference to a race or culture is capitalised (Men, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Numenoreans, etc) it refers to all the members of that race. In the history of the Ring very few individuals come into contact with it, & they are all male. For women not to be tempted by the Ring would basically mean they are 'unfallen' & so immune to temptation. As no race within Me is unfallen, both males & females must be subject to the lure of the Ring if they come into contact with it. It could be argued perhaps that women would be less likely to sucumb due to psychological differences, but that begs a much larger question...

Or maybe women would be more likely to succumb - the Entwives seem more desirous of control over the natural environment than the Ents, for example. Maybe the males realised this & went out of their way to make sure it never came near women....

[Eledhewin Ilanora]

Talking bout nazgul..if only sauron was not so sexist and send his nazguls to shire to track baggins..all he had to do is find one twisted female halfling to tempt the hobbit and he may possess the ring with no hassle. Sending some scary males to terrorise the hobbit sure brought them all the way to mt doom.

Morale of the story: Sexism dont pay...hik

Well, in the books it said that the nine KINGS became bearers of the ring. that means that they were all guys. right? but tehn again, waht if there had been a queen? and she had a ring of power. that would mean she would be a nazgul right? i have no idea, but now i'm not going to stop thinking about it.

[Thinlómien]

Most of the people discussing here have agreed that women weren't as good warriors as men (except our dear Éowyn, who, btw, in my opinion didn't have proper warrior-training. She just had the "defensive-warrior"-training). Women can't be called as "kings" (except the swedish Christina-case, but oh, swedish people are strange in other ways too , so probably that doesn't count) since they're women. But what about a woman sorceror? Surely there could be one. (And don't say she would be called "a sorceress", because if there's both men and women they're usually called by the male title only.)

[Huinesoron]

I wondered in the Frodo in the Tower of Cirith Ungol thread whether we knew the Ringwraiths were definitely male, and lo and behold, there's a thread for that... I love this place.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Most of the people discussing here have agreed that women weren't as good warriors as men (except our dear Éowyn, who, btw, in my opinion didn't have proper warrior-training. She just had the "defensive-warrior"-training). Women can't be called as "kings" (except the swedish Christina-case, but oh, swedish people are strange in other ways too , so probably that doesn't count) since they're women. But what about a woman sorceror? Surely there could be one. (And don't say she would be called "a sorceress", because if there's both men and women they're usually called by the male title only.)

"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky..."

So far as I'm aware, Galadriel is the only holder of Nenya since its creation. It's clear that people in Middle-earth were prone to misusing the word 'king'.

And why this focus on their skill as warriors? Remember that the Nazgûl were Sauron's messengers and spies, not a fighting force. This is blindingly obvious from their inability to, eg, beat a single Ranger with a torch and four short people.

I see that the term is being pulled from the Of the Rings of Power... quote, but I also see that said quote is being misquoted.

Originally Posted by Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age

Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old.

Emphasis mine. It is entirely possible that kingship, sorcery, and warriordom were obtained by way of the Nine (as were 'glory and great wealth', same source). I don't think we really know the powers of the Rings (beyond long life, invisibility, and inevitable corruption), but 'inhuman strength' seems pretty likely, as well as sorcery - the Witch-king of Angmar is well named, after all.

So, were there any female Nazgûl? Two answers from me:

-Tolkien never intended there to be any. This is almost certain. When he wrote women (who weren't just featureless wives), they tended to be very prominent and highlighted; he would have mentioned a female Ringwraith if she existed. He was also writing in a pseudo-medieval setting, where (as has been said) women weren't exactly prone to fame and fortune.

-There doesn't seem to be any firm argument against them, from an in-world perspective. There were three Númenorean lords (who were probably, but not certainly, male), and Khamûl the Shadow of the East is probably male as well; after that, the gates are wide open. Whoever they were, they would have been high-placed or rulers in their own lands, just as the four we know about were; they would have gained further power and wealth as time passed; and by about five hundred years after receiving their Rings, they would have left everything behind and joined Sauron openly as his undying Ringwraiths (Eregion fell in 1697, the Nazgûl appeared in 2251).

So if there were female Ringwraiths, is there any hint as to who they might be? Well... maybe! You're going to like this one...

Tar-Telperiën was the second Ruling Queen of Númenor. She lived for 411 years, 11 longer than her father, 12 longer than her nephew who succeeded her. Per the wiki, she failed to intervene to save Eregion when Sauron attacked it, and was the first ruler of Númenor to cling to the scepter until death, rather than relinquishing it early. She died (or 'died') 34 years after Sauron started handing out Rings.

If a messenger from Sauron had come to Tar-Telperiën, offering her more power and unending life in exchange for her neutrality in his wars, would she have accepted? From her description, she was someone who wanted all the power she could get (she refused to marry, which may well have been because her husband would try to wield the power of the scepter in her stead); I think she would absolutely have taken the promise of a Ring in exchange for not doing something she didn't want to anyway. And when it arrived, she would have put it on...

It's not a perfect theory (among other things, it doesn't explain why she did give up the scepter in the end - a better offer from Sauron, perhaps? - or why she allowed her nephew to attack Sauron in 1700), and it's certainly not Tolkien's idea, but it doesn't hold any massive inconsistencies. Whether she would be counted as a Númenorean Lord (alongside King Galadriel) is left as an exercise to the reader...

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Let's not engage in the attempted retconning of a mid-20th century book by a very conservative old Edwardian. Tolkien's writing was androcentric, unless there was an especially good reason to make a character a female. To his mind, male was the default gender, and there's no sense trying to make him think like a 21st-century person, because he wasn't. Slashfic notwithstanding, he didn't include any gay characters either.

It's not likely at all that Tolkien was privately thinking "I'll make two of the Nazgul women but not say anything about it."

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Let's not engage in the attempted retconning of a mid-20th century book by a very conservative old Edwardian...

But why not? That's the fun part!

More seriously: there are two ways of looking at Middle-earth. One is 'what did Tolkien write/intend?', and under that view, absolutely: there were no female Nazgûl, no sex out of wedlock, no pillage by the Armies of Good, no lesbian dwarves (those ones who just never wanted to marry were simply... good friends), no weird Hobbit cults which worshipped legendary Elvish figures as gods, no colonies of Orcs cut off for thousands of years on Tol Fuin and Himling building their own pocket civilisation. These aren't things Tolkien thought of, and in fact are things he would directly have opposed.

The other way of looking at it is as a world in its own right: a world that is under the authority of the One, but which is just as messy, incoherent, and contradictory as our own. That's a world which has room for all of the above, because its people are not (except when stated or inferred) bound by Tolkien's morality and prejudices.

To claim that there were no gay people in the entire history of Middle-earth because Tolkien wouldn't approve is to deny the rich fabric of human(/elven/dwarven) nature. And to claim that there could not be any female Ringwraiths because Tolkien defaulted to male characters is to deprive ourselves not only of interesting storytelling possibilities and new ways of thinking about things - but also of some fun theorising time. ^_^ And who wants that?