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Old 07-21-2001, 12:35 PM   #1
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Ring wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

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i know barrow wights can only be killed by the sun, but does this apply to nazguls and mewlips (other wights) as well?

also, what made the nazguls so fearsome?

obviously they were magical, but (like with the rings) it is unclear to me exactyl what this magic did that makes them formidable besides their powers of perception.


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Old 07-21-2001, 01:37 PM   #2
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Nazgul, wights

Apparently nazgul could go about during the day. Scary if they are so difficult to kill.

Why Eowyn's sword could do the job is a bit of a mystery. Something about their presence made people &quot;quail&quot;. Thier very presence was a menace.

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Old 07-21-2001, 01:43 PM   #3
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: Nazgul, wights

I'm not sure Barrow-Wights can be killed only by the sun!

...he heard Theodred's great voice cry "To me, Eorlingas!"</p>
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Old 07-21-2001, 05:09 PM   #4
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: Nazgul, wights

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> The riders draw slowly in on foot in darkness, and do not 'spur'. There is no fight. Sam does not 'sink his blade into the Ringwraith's thigh', nor does his thrust save Frodo's life. (If he had, the result would have been much the same as in III 117-20: the Wraith would have fallen down and the sword would have been destroyed.) <hr></blockquote>

Nazgul were suseptable to hurt by corporeal weapnry

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Old 07-21-2001, 06:27 PM   #5
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

So fingolfin, are you saying that Nazgul cannot be hurt by non-magical means?

I dont understand why the nazgul would fall down if stricken by a blade that passed through him

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Old 07-21-2001, 06:38 PM   #6
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> 'Old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit-people,' he said. 'Sharp blades are good to have, if Shire-folk go walking, east, south, or far away into dark and danger.' Then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord, but they were overcome by the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar.<hr></blockquote>

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> 'So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.'<hr></blockquote>

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> Doubtless the Orcs despoiled them, but feared to keep the knives, knowing them for what they are: work of Westernesse, wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor. <hr></blockquote>

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Old 07-21-2001, 06:53 PM   #7
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

No, I am saying that any weapon could deal the Wk a damaging blow. Yes, being that Merry's blade was of the westerss it delt a greater blow.

Tolkien points out that if sam had struck the nazgul it would have been injured just like the latter. Also it was said that the last King of Gondor could have withstood the WK's onslaute in UT, I believe, but his horse would not. THis also is an indication that it does not take an extraoridinary weapon to deal him a blow.

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Old 07-22-2001, 02:52 PM   #8
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

I would be hesitant to say that a weapon, such as a fire brand, would not do harm to a Nazgul.

But, clearly, only magical weapons could &quot;kill&quot; them.

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Old 07-22-2001, 04:29 PM   #9
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

I wouldn't go that far Eowyn killed him:

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> The slaying of the Lord of the Nazgûl by Éowyn(letter 210)<hr></blockquote>

And she did not have a magical weapon

Merry did not his &quot;magical weapon just caused it to fall down:

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> ]Sam does not 'sink his blade into the Ringwraith's thigh', nor does his thrust save Frodo's life. (If he had, the result would have been much the same as in III 117-20: the Wraith would have fallen down and the sword would have been destroyed.) <hr></blockquote>

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Old 07-23-2001, 08:36 AM   #10
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

Eowyn could not have &quot;killed&quot; the Witch King, had Merry's enchanted blade not done its work.

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Old 07-23-2001, 09:47 AM   #11
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

Merry's blade, weakened the Witch-King, and Eowyn's sword finished it off!
In a way, ( I usually can't describe things well! <img src=smile.gif ALT=""> ) Merry's blade almost sorta broke the Witch-King's invincibility, leaving him mortal in a way, so it was possible for Eowyn to kill him!
I hope that sounded right!

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Renewed shall be blade that was broken:
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Old 07-23-2001, 07:05 PM   #12
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

I love the thought of Sam on Weathertop with a big pile of tattered cloaks, swords, crowns, etc. on the ground around him. &quot;You want to attack the Masta? You want a piece a' the Masta? He'll take you down!&quot; <img src=laugh.gif ALT=":lol"> Seriously, I agree with Theodred. I think wights could be killed by ordinary weapons, for if the Nazgul could and they were so much more powerful than the wights, I makes sense.

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Old 07-23-2001, 08:36 PM   #13
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: wights; mewlips, nazguls, barrow

The WK was not invensible as per the fact that tolkien stated that if sam hit him with his &quot;normal blade&quot; the WK would hae fallen down in the same way.

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Old 07-24-2001, 07:54 AM   #14
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Atavistic Agony

The point is not really whether the Witch-King was inviolable by common blade, but that he was intangible by living men.

Only Èowyn and Merry on all the field Pelennor could muster the fatalist courage (which Tolkien, especially in his letters, liked to call the 'theory of Northern courage', i.e. that of Norse and European legend) to lay hand on the Lord of the Nazgûl, both for similar reasons.

Merry had seen his lord Théoden, whom he grew to love and respect highly, slain by the Witch-King; and he lay on the ground, hopeless, in the turmoil of a battle that seemed likely to be in vain at that moment. Then Dernhelm reveals himself to be Éowyn, and Merry's courage rises again, for he cannot let her, 'so desperate, so fair', be slain also. Gathering his remaining valiance and strength, he strikes the blow filled with the white fury of revenge and devotion.

Éowyn was fatalist to the brink of suicide, seeking only the valiant death in battle, which seemed to her so much better than an inevitable drowning in the darkness of the Enemy, or even the continuation of a caged life should the West prevail.
Like Merry, she just saw the death of her lord, whom she loved as a father, and seeing her chance to go to her ancestors in pride, and avenge Théoden's sacrifice, she, too, did not strike with but a common steel blade, but with the spirit it took to slay the Witch-King.

For both Merry and Èowyn, the power of the prophecy of Glorfindel should also not be underestimated. In what way it is restrictive, we cannot know – maybe it was totally impossible for any 'living man' to slay the Witch-King, maybe it was a clairvoyance of any sort by Glorfindel that struck home on that day on the Pelennor.

A more speculative idea of mine would be that not the 'man' part of the prophecy is important, but the 'living'. For in a way both Merry and Èowyn were, in the moments they struck their blows, nearer to death than life; Merry on the brink of dying, and Éowyn seeking death, both if them desperate and doom before their eyes.

Overall, my point is that the Witch-King was not felled by blade of Westernesse or sword of whatsoever, but by fate. In this way, the relation of the evil creature and its slayer is not unlike that of dragons. It takes more than a skilled warrior, and more than just a noble blade. It takes a hero in the truest sense of the old legends, that has the fulfill the great schemes of gods and kings, fight the battle which he cannot win, and still always live outside the society in order to keep the world a place for the people to live in.

Those are all the heroes of Middle-Earth, both in the Midengeard, Midjun-Gard of Norse legend, for which Starkad, Béowulf and Theoderich fought, and in Tolkien's legends of Middle-Earth. Here, it is naturally the mortals which make up the relatively greatest heroes, and slayers of the evil creatures, as for them there is less to lose in their world, and more to gain than what can be seen: 'Cattle die, kindred die / Every man is mortal: / But I know one thing that never dies, / The glory of the great dead.'.
This stanza from the Hávamál, the sayings of Hár, are the epitome of the courage in Tolkien's myths – fatalist courage, and its power.


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Old 07-24-2001, 04:26 PM   #15
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/wight.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: Atavistic Agony

I think that hobbits are made of stiff stock and this aided Merry.

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