Could a hobbit have done it?

[Imladris]

I wasn't sure which forum to post this in so here goes. I also did a search for this topic and didn't come up with a thing.

In RotK it says this:

[The Witch king is speaking] 'Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!'

... "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin...

But suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground. Merry[s sword had stabbed him from hehind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee.

Now, I am well aware that the Witch king was wounded by Merry's dagger (I heard that somewhere) but this is what Tom Bombadil says of them:

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 Dum in the Land of Angmar.

So, if the evil king conquered them (I assume Tom is talking of the witch king), then how could the properties of the dagger be responsible for the nazgul's injury?

So, could Merry have slayed the Witch-king? From what I understand, he is technically not a man, but a hobbit -- a male hobbit albeit but not a man. If he had stabbed the witch-king in the head, like Eowyn, could he have killed him? Could the Witch king be saying that only a Male Man could kill him? Granted, the chances of a hobbit slaying the witch king are highly unlikely, but is it possible?

Forgive me if this questioned is answered in either the forums/books. I did a search and was not able to find it.

Cheers!
Istawen

[Althern]

Not surprisingly, there was a thread that dealt with this subject, which revolved around two issues: the ‘loophole’ in the prophesy, and determining which was the fatal blow. Ignoring the question of the prophesy, if you consider that Merry’s stroke to unbind the Witch King’s flesh to his will to be the fatal one, then the Witch King will subsequently die without any further intervention, and all will be well for Merry. If, however, you consider that Merry’s blow only left the Witch King vulnerable to be slain by another, then Merry deals his stoke, the Witch King is unbound, but unfortunately, unkilled, and poor Merry is left with no sword and a bad arm to try and finish him off. As you say, possible, but not likely.

An opinion raised by a number of people in the thread, and to which I agree, is that Eowyn’s blow was the fatal one, for if it was without merit, then Tokein would have explicitly said so. If you accept this, then the latter situation is the case. A subjective assessment, I admit, but one that concords with my impression of the whole scene, in that Eowyn was a principal, and not just an incidental.

[Imladris]

Thank you for your answer and the link (wonder why it didn't come up in the search....) but I'm not questioning who was responsible for the Witch king's death. My question is a "what if" kind of thing.

Tthat thread contains a good deal about Glorfindel's prophecy and Merry's sword. It also touches on the subject if Merry was technically a "man" or a hobbit apart from a man.

What I want to know is this:

According to the prophecy, could a hobbit have killed the Witchking all by his lonesome?

[Evisse the Blue]

Didn't Frodo also stab him? And Aragorn says that it did little harm or something along these lines, although it was also a blade of Westernesse. Of course, Frodo stabbed him in his foot and that's hardly a wound to die from...
I don't think a hobbit could have killed the Wk all alone, because he would be too short to reach a vital spot

[Althern]

As mentioned in the thread, Glorfindel’s prophesy is really only foresight, as the phantom quite neatly states:

The prophesy didn't mean a man couldn't kill the Witch King, it simply meant that a man wouldn't kill the Witch King.

Could a hobbit have killed the Witch-king? Possibly, but then Glorfindel would have foreseen and prophesised something else.

[Finwe]

Look in the thread that was linked to above. Glorfindel said that the Witch-king wouldn't be slain by a Man, not that he couldn't be slain by a Man. It all depends on how you look at the prophecy. In that case, I don't think that a Hobbit would have been able to successfully slay the Witch-king. As it is, it took both Merry and Eowyn to finish them off, and both of them succumbed to the Black Breath. One Hobbit would not have stood a chance.

[Kransha]

A point to be made: I don't know the exact words of Glorfindel's prophecy about the W-K, but if the Nazgul Lord's utterance prior to his death is accurate, he's got some major loopholes to deal with. Obviously, he could be killed by anybody, but would only be killed by someone not covered in the prophecy.

If his phrase immediately before his end ("No living man may hinder me!") is correct, he has to deal with.
-Hobbits (stupid Westernesse blades!)
-Elves (stupid Lothlorien bows!)
-Dwarves (stupid Khuzdul axes and such!)
-Non-living men (stupid Dead Men of Dunharrow!)
-Animals (trampled by an oliphaunt...ouch!)
-Nature (avalanche, lightning bolt, lemur)

[Althern]

The question was:

According to the prophecy, could a hobbit have killed the Witchking all by his lonesome?

To reiterate the phantom’s point, which I believe to be the key to this issue, the prophesy is not prophesy, rather it is foresight. Glorfindel saw how the Witch-king would be slain, and spoke accordingly. The prophesy therefore did not contain an impediment to any person or means to dispatch the Witch-king. In other words, no ”loopholes”. If Glorfindel saw a man do it, then he would not have said “no man”. Any discussion of how likely a hobbit is to kill the Witch-king, considering their relative power is merely conjecture and irrelevant to this specific question.

[The Saucepan Man]

I agree that the likelihhod of a Hobbit being able to destroy the Witch King is irrelevant. Surely, the pertinent question is whether a male Hobbit qualifies as a Man, and is therefore excluded from the category of beings that Glorfindel foresaw would bring about the Witch King's end.

From Concerning Hobbits:

It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered.

As I understand it, based upon this extract, Hobbits are a sub-division of Men (like the Druedain) and either awoke at the same time, or were derived from the Men that originally awoke.

Either way, I would classify them as Men. And so, I would exclude male Hobbits from the class which, according to the Witch-King's prophecy, would bring about the Witch King's doom. Ergo, it was not Merry that killed him. It was Eowyn. Although Merry brought about the circumstances that enabled her to do so.

[Imladris]

Thank you, Saucepan Man! You have answered my question!

[Silmiel of Imladris]

The prophesy didn't mean a man couldn't kill the Witch King, it simply meant that a man wouldn't kill the Witch King.

As weird as that sounds it really makes sense. It reminds me a lot of Macbeth with the whole no man born of woman can kill me speech. Now I can look at it as not that they couldn't but that they wouldn't.