Female Nazgûl???

[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?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

To which I would simply respond: it's Tolkien's universe, not ours. One which includes neither Shai-hulud from Dune, Nazgul tombs, dying Arwens nor isolated Orc societies on Tol Fuin.

[Galin]

My Tolkien Universe doesn't even include Tol Fuin (or Himling).

So all yer orcs there... are drownded

But don't get me wrong, I'm still a fun person.

[Nerwen]

Well, this just becomes another iteration of the canonicity debate, doesn't it?

Really I see nothing wrong with theories, however outlandish, as long as you don't start insisting they be accepted as the "real" version- which people have been known to do, of course. But that's not the impression I'm getting in this case.

[Inziladun]

I don't know if anyone brought this up already, but there is a quote from the Unfinished Tales section The Hunt For the Ring which states:

At length [Sauron] resolved that no others would serve him in this case but his mightiest servants, the Ringwraiths, who had no will but his own, each being utterly subservient to the ring that had enslaved him.

Definitive? Not really, but I do think that if one of the Nazgûl had been female, that would have been a notable enough occurrence to have stated someplace.

Anyway, Sauron himself would likely have been frightened of a Nazgûl-ess. Women are quite enigmatic and worrisome enough without being invisible!

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I don't know if anyone brought this up already, but there is a quote from the Unfinished Tales section The Hunt For the Ring which states:

Ah, but as the Ringwraiths are being spoken of collectively here, "him" could have its secondary meaning of "a person etc of unspecified sex"- technically there's no way to tell in that context.

Definitive? Not really, but I do think that if one of the Nazgûl had been female, that would have been a notable enough occurrence to have stated someplace.

Anyway, Sauron himself would likely have been frightened of a Nazgûl-ess. Women are quite enigmatic and worrisome enough without being invisible!

Invisible? What makes you think Nazgûl-esses are invisible? How would fan-fic authors be able to write paragraphs describing their exquisitely Gothic loveliness if they were invisible? I ask you.

By the way, do half-Nazgûl count?