Nazgul Witch King

[Yogprasad Moneta]

TheLord of the Nazgl, also called the Witch-king of Angmar, the Pale King, and the Black Captain, is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. He had once been the King of Angmar in the north of Eriador. He is the bearer of a Ring of Power, one of the nine that the dark lord Sauron gave to Men, who become the Nazgl or Ringwraiths. This gives him great power, but enslaves him to Sauron and makes him invisible. By the end of the Third Age, his name has been forgotten. He stabs the bearer of the One Ring, the Hobbit Frodo Baggins, with a Morgul-knife which would reduce its victim to a wraith. Much later in the narrative, in his final battle, the Lord of the Nazgl attacks owyn with a mace. The Hobbit Merry Brandybuck stabs him with an ancient enchanted Nmenrean blade, allowing owyn to kill him with her sword.

In early drafts, Tolkien had called him the "Wizard King", and considered making him either a renegade member of the Istari, or an immortal Maia, before settling on having him as a Man, a mortal, corrupted by a Ring of Power, given to him by Sauron. Commentators have written that the Lord of the Nazgl functions at the level of myth when he calls himself Death and bursts the gates of Minas Tirith with magical spells. At a theological level, he embodies a vision of evil similar to Karl Barth's description of evil as das Nichtige, an active and powerful force that turns out to be empty. The prophecy that the Lord of the Nazgl would not die by the hand of Man echoes that made of the title character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth.

The Witch-king first appears in the Second Age of Middle-earth. The Dark Lord Sauron gave Rings of Power to powerful Men, including kings of countries in Middle-earth. These confer magical power, but also enslave their wearers to the owner of the One Ring, Sauron himself.[T 1][T 2]

The Lord of the Nazgl appears as the Witch-king of Angmar during the Third Age and is instrumental in the destruction of the Northern kingdom of Arnor.[T 3] In his notes for translators, Tolkien suggested that the Witch-king of Angmar, ruler of a Northern kingdom with its capital at Carn Dm, was of Nmenrean origin.[T 4] Nothing is heard of him when Sauron is overthrown by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men late in the Second Age, but his survival is assured by the power of the One Ring.[T 5]

Over a thousand years later in the Third Age, the Lord of the Nazgl leads Sauron's forces against the successor kingdoms of Arnor: Rhudaur, Cardolan, and Arthedain. He destroys all of these, but is eventually defeated by the Elf-lord Glorfindel, who puts him to flight, and makes the prophecy that "not by the hand of Man will he fall".[T 6] He escapes, and returns to Mordor. There, he gathers the other Nazgl to prepare for Sauron's return.[T 6][T 7]

Towards the end of the Third Age, Sauron sends the Witch-king, leading the other Nazgl, to the Shire to find and recover the One Ring. He is cloaked and hooded in black; his face cannot be seen; he rides a black horse.[T 8][T 9][T 10][T 11] At Weathertop, the Witch-king stabs Frodo, the bearer of the One Ring, in the shoulder with the Morgul-knife, breaking off a piece of it in the Hobbit's flesh.[T 12] Frodo is able to see that the Witch-king is taller than the other Nazgl, with "long and gleaming" hair and a crown on his helmet.[T 12] He is swept away by the waters of the river Bruinen and his horse is drowned. He returns to Mordor.[T 13] He reappears mounted on a hideous flying beast.[T 14][T 15]

During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the Witch-king uses magic, including Grond, a battering-ram engraved with evil spells, to break the gates of Minas Tirith. He is faced by a single warrior, Dernhelm, actually a disguised owyn, a noblewoman of Rohan; and not far away, Merry, a hobbit of the Fellowship. owyn boldly calls the Nazgl a "dwimmerlaik", telling him to go if he was not deathless.[a] He casts back his hood to reveal a crown, but the head that wears it is invisible. Merry's surreptitious stroke with an enchanted Barrow-blade brings the Nazgl to his knees, allowing owyn, the niece of Thoden, to drive her sword between his crown and mantle.[T 14] Thus the Witch-king is destroyed by a woman and a Hobbit, fulfilling Glorfindel's prophecy.[T 6] Both weapons that pierced him disintegrate, and both assailants are stricken by the Black Breath, which causes a cold paralysis, terror, and often death.[T 14]

Megan N. Fontenot, on Tor.com, writes that in early drafts, Tolkien names him "the Wizard King", so powerful in wizardry that his opponent Gandalf is unable to counter him unaided. In early drafts of "The Council of Elrond", Gandalf explains that his enemy was "of old the greatest of all the wizards of Men". In a later draft, Tolkien adds that the Wizard King was also "a great king of old" and the "fell captain of the Nine [Riders]"; Fontenot glosses "fell" as implying "ravenous cruelty" and "ruthless ... savagery".[T 17][2]

Later, in a draft of "The Siege of Gondor", Tolkien makes the Wizard King "a renegade of [Gandalf's] own order" from Nmenor.[2] In the manuscript of his notes for translators, Tolkien suggested that the Witch-king of Angmar was most likely of Nmenrean origin.[3] Fontenot comments that this could make him both a Maia rather than a Man, and originally one of the Istari, or, as she states, "something decidedly other".[2] But Tolkien then reduces the Wizard King's power, so that Gandalf is able to tell Pippin as they wait for the attack on Gondor that "In him I am not overmatched", and that the Wizard King's main power is to inspire fear at a distance (with the Black Breath).[2] At some stage, too, he renames the enemy the Witch-king; Fontenot suggests this was to distinguish more clearly between him and the Wizards like Gandalf and Saruman. Tolkien had thus explored making him a wizard (Istari or otherwise) or an immortal Maia, before settling on a "a human king whose lust for power got the better of his good judgment."[2] She wonders what he might have been like before he accepted a Ring of Power from Sauron, noting that he was seemingly filled with "possessiveness, greed, lust, and a desire for dominance", all markers of evil in Tolkien's scheme of things.[T 18][2]

In rode the Lord of the Nazgl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

All save one. There waiting, silent, and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dnen.

"You cannot enter here", said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. "Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!"

The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

"Old fool!" he said. "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!" And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade...

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the Lord of the Nazgl hovers close to being an abstraction, "a vast menace of despair ... a huge shadow",[T 19] actually calling himself Death: "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it?"[T 19][4] The scene forms, too, a picture of the "unexistence of evil",[4] based on the Boethian philosophy that God is all-powerful, so evil is not the equal and opposite of good, but simply its absence:[5] he forms "a huge shadow".[4]

The theologian George Hunsinger compares Tolkien's depiction of the Witch-king to the theologian Karl Barth's analysis of evil. Barth's conception is embodied in his term das Nichtige, "nothingness", which Hunsinger glosses as "something dynamic and sinister ... an active cosmic power, a power of destruction, a power of chaos, negation, and ruin."[6] The power of das Nichtige is both "outwardly repulsive" and in Barth's words "intrinsically evil"; it can be described but not explained, and is defeated by God; it is wholly evil and serves no good purpose. It is both fearful and empty.[6]

Hunsinger states that Tolkien's account of the Witch-king as he confronts Gandalf at the gate of Minas Tirith "captures something of Barth's notion of das Nichtige."[6] He finds it especially relevant that the Witch-king is "above all ... actual and yet empty at the same time", and comments that Tolkiens "dead but undead Black Rider is as good a symbol as any ... for Barth's impossible possibility."[6]

Similarly, Hunsinger finds Tolkien's description of how owyn kills the Witch-king "an image for the paradox of evil as something powerful and yet hollow at the same time." He notes that her sword shatters with her final stroke, but of her defeated foe, "nothing is left" in the empty mantle and hauberk.[6]

The Episcopal priest and theologian Fleming Rutledge writes that whereas the "pale king", the invisible Witch-king of Angmar, is striving to kill Frodo, the real king, Aragorn, who has been out of sight, in disguise as a Ranger, is doing all he can to heal him: the two kings are opposites.[7] She writes also that while the enemy visible to Gondor is the Men of Harad and the Easterlings, the real enemy is personified by the Witch-king.[7]

Julaire Andelin, in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, writes that prophecy in Middle-earth depended on characters' understanding of the Music of the Ainur, the divine plan for Arda, and was often ambiguous. Thus, Glorfindel's prophecy "not by the hand of Man will [the Lord of the Nazgl] fall" did not lead the Lord of the Nazgl to suppose that he would die at the hands of a woman and a hobbit.[T 6][9]

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