The Witch King....shall rise again!?!
 

It is commonly believed that the Witch King of Angmar was killed in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and the other Nazgul later on when the One Ring was destroyed. So I thought.

But lo! Behold! This paragaraph seems to indicate otherwise.
Does this mean that the Witch King(and by extension the other Nazgul) returned to trouble the Free Peoples in the Fourth Age? It certainly would fit the theme of "evil never dies" in Middle-earth(Morgoth defeated, Sauron rises; Sauron defeated; Witch King rises and so on). Possibly the enemy in The New Shadow(abandoned LOTR sequel) was supposed to be the Witch King, whose spirit had taken shape again?

That's a thing I believe most people must have noticed when they read the passage you quote. Personally, I thought along the lines you say in your post when first reading it: specially mentioning that not in this age of the world would imply that later it was heard; and knowing the scheme of "Dark Lords of descending power" (Morgoth is defeated and his most powerful servant Sauron is the new Dark Lord, so Sauron is defeated and his most powerful servant WK is the new Dark Lord?) I came to a conclusion that in the course of Arda, it will make sense. However, there are several counterarguments: First, Tolkien says that the Fourth Age and the ages later are only in the dominion of Men and that there will no longer be "mythic", "magical", or "supernatural", or how should I call that, enemies for them (I believe it is somewhere in the Letters - if anyone can provide the quotation, it will be helpful). Consequently, I thought about Dagor Dagorath - in such a moment as the last battle at the end of times, all the requirements would be met (it is another age, and all the enemies return). That's, in my opinion, the occassion to which we can with clean conscience place the event when we hear the WK's cry again.

Another thing speaking against the return of WK without any Sauron to be his superior is the fact that as a Nazgul, he was totally subdued to the One Ring and when it was destroyed, his own Ring lost all its power, and therefore, his spirit departed, having no longer a mortal body nor any will binding him to this world.

"and was never heard again in that age of this world."

If "that age" refered to the Third Age then it would have been written as "Age", not "age".
Tolkien would have been fussy about details like that.
.

Not neccessarily.
Here, the 'age' referred to is clearly the Third Age.

Also,
There are other examples where Tolkien uses 'age' to refer to an Age of the World. So I don't think he was very fussy about that.

After the destroying of the Ring, Sauron became too weak to take a visible form. I'm not sure if the Nazgûl really died or if their rings had granted them a kind of immortality, an eternal life as a spirit bound to Middle-earth, but if Sauron was depraved of his powers, I very highly doubt that any of the Nazgûls were able to return. After all, their power was nothing but Sauron's power.

However, there's one thing in the Quenta Noldorinwa that popped into my mind:
I admit I don't remember every fact I'd need now (gosh, I don't even remember if that survived to the newer versions of the mythology... :rolleyes: Time someone read the Silm again), and I know it's somewhat different as Morgoth wasn't practically ripped off his powers but only thrust out the Door of Night. Going with that idea, though, I could see a scenario with Morgoth's servants joining him for the Last Battle, including Sauron & the Nazgûls.

1. He was not dead, he was "reduced to impotence" (some letter).
2. So what if he was reduced to impotence? Túrin was dead and still we learn that he will eventually kill Melkor.
3. I still wouldn't make a big deal of this Dagor Dagorath thing. It is nice and everything, but, and this is important to mention in my opinion it is very, very uncertain. I have discussed on this topic with other people on other forums and will come back with a thread on it specifically shortly (tro brush up my knowledge), but, as far as I am aware towards the end of his life Tolkien started transferring many elements from the Dagor Dagorath to the battle that ended the War of Wrath.
It is thus seemingly unclear whether he was planning to leave the Dagor Dagorath as a part of the whole story or if there wasn't going to be any.

Come on, isn't the idea of WK returning say in the Fourth Age intriguing? ;) Long ago, Noggie made me and my sister (A Little Green) a Fourth Age ME RPG and in it the disappearance of the heir to the throne of Dale (or something like that) was speculated to be doings of the Nazgûl. I remember the very eerie feeling when a NPC said that something like "doesn't their evil spirit still linger on earth? Some new evil might have arisen them." Ok, I was something like 10 years old at that time, so maybe that's why I was so creeped out by the thought, even though I argued that the Ringwraiths were destroyed with Sauron. Later, it turned out that it was just a conspiracy made by greedy men who wanted to get power and it had nothing to do with the Ringwraits, but the idea remains rather disturbing... Not sure what my point is here, I've been very nostalgic this evening...

Anyway, I don't see it as an impossibility that the Nazgûl would reappear at the later ages, if aroused by some new evil, but they could never again regain their status as the most terrifying beings of the age, meaning even if they returned, they would be far weaker and wouldn't maybe play such a big part in the course of events.

Hey, I've never thought of this before, but wasn't their death when Sauron fell a sort of release for them? They were not bound to the half-life they had nor to Sauron's servitude with almost no mind of their own. I never considered LotR from that perspective before. "The Salvation of Ringwraiths", now wouldn't that be anice title for the last book? ;) I would be ready to grant the foolish lords who accepted the rings their rest and peace, but I don't know if this was what Tolkien thought. Though the themes of mercy and pity are strongly present in LotR, are we supposed to assume that was extended to the Ringwraits as well? Did they get rest or were they spirits somehow bound to M-E so that they would be aroused if evil returned?

But none of this speculation does good to me, now I'm itching to develop a RPG of some high lord dabbling with black magic becoming a Ringwraith and how his household goes down with him... I can see it... :D

While the W-K was not 'killed' but 'reduced to impotence' on March 15, he and the other Eight all died on March 25. Only the power of the Rings extended their semi-'life' beyond mortal span: after that their spirits/souls/fear were in the same condition as other dead Men. Perhaps they went to Mandos and then onward; perhaps (as T suggests in Myths Transformed) they were so inured to evil as to refuse the summons, and remained to haunt the earth as ghosts. In either case, though, they were dead, and not coming back.

Oh Lommy! Should I send a photo of Tolkien to you?!?? ;)

I believe when the Rings were gone, they were at last free so they could do whatever they want, meaning, they had free will. However, I believe even their free will was to side with Sauron in the beginning (or at least most of them - though Gandalf implies some might have had good heart originally). Nevertheless, after such a long enslavement, I don't believe they were able to return to the "good side". And, and that's the main point, their life, or unlife, rather, was held only by the Rings, resp. the Ring. I believe that at the moment the One was destroyed and they killed, they died (as WCH with whom I crossed due to my WW issues rightly said).

:eek: No, thanks. :p Even though, I wonder, if I had his photo as a desktop picture would I write less uncanonical nonsense? ;)

I don't know if you misunderstood me, or if I misunderstood you, but I was referring to their death as them finding rest & peace at last. As to the salvation... that sure is another issue that concerns the ultimate fate of Men and Ilúvatar's possible mercy.

I have to say, I used to have him on desktop, once, when I started my current RPG campaign, so looks that it worked...

Oh, yes, then - of course, then we meant the same thing. I was not sure whether you are referring to them as live or dead.

Yep. When the Ring went, so did the Ringwraiths. We won't be seeing them again.

YES! That's the 2nd coolest thing I've heard all week! Where does it say that, in which book?

Yes, he said something about Sauron being 'the last physical incarnation of evil'.
But Tolkien kept changing his mind on many things. That's why he wrote 'the New Shadow' which featured a new Dark Lord rising just 100 years after LOTR. So we should atleast consider it a possibility.

The books say that the Nazgul were bound to Sauron's will, and not specifically to their Rings. Their Rings had already accomplished their taks(turning them into wraiths), so Sauron usually wore them on his hands rather than giving it to them.
If they were destroyed it isn't necessary that the NAzgul were also utterly destroyed.
As for free will, the Nazgul had it. Remember all the works of evil they did in Sauron's abscence?(Angmar, the Great Plague, Minas Morgul, running things in Mordor, sending emissaries to stir up trouble along Gondor's borders etc.)

But that was not their will, but Sauron's. How should I describe it. As long as they were Ringwraith, and Sauron was alive - no matter that he was reduced to almost nothing, but he was there, since only at the moment he started to gain shape, the Nine started to rise as well - they had no free will of their own. Let's say the Númenorean nobleman XY was very greedy, but he would never kill anyone, also because he, for example, was sick when seeing blood. Now some Sauron gave him a Ring, he became the Witch-King, and became Sauron's slave - at the moment he "faded", i.e. became a Wraith, he lost all his free will. That means, he would no longer object to kill anyone if it was in accord to Sauron's will, nor he would be sick when seeing blood. My idea on how this worked (but only my idea, this way I see it and I'm presenting it here just as illustration, you don't have to adapt it) is that Sauron was in fact "present" (careful, don't misinterpretate this, I know it's somewhat hard to grasp this) in all the Ringwraith's minds, not in the meaning that a part of him will be inside so he will have a direct "link" with the RW or "remote control" them, but in the meaning that they had some goals set up in their minds that came from the Will of Sauron and these were superior to everything else. The Ringwraith kept some of their original skills, I don't know, let's say one of them was a good warrior, another could track, another had a large knowledge of history and so on, they kept all of this, and they were of course independant in making their choices when they were apart from Sauron, like whether to go left or right and whether to set an ambush against Frodo or whether to chase him. But above all their conscious and subconscious ideas, above all their instincts and reason, there was the will of Sauron like a "parasite program" that just kept them in line not to make anything against Sauron's will. The WK could not have suddenly said "And you know what, Glorfindel, my friend, I am going to repent, join you and overthrow Sauron", because even if he chose to, Sauron's will would block this option for him: error, you cannot access the file "repent". Password locked by the user: Sauron. That's what I meant, and I believe, most of the Tolkien readers are familiar with this.

And when Sauron was destroyed, so was that 'parasite program'! See! Now the Nazgul can do whatever they want! That just proves my point!:smokin:

And one can also put up the argument that Sauron was not really destroyed, but merely 'reduced to impotence' as a 'spirit of malice'. So from this argument, he could still control the Nazgul in the fashion mentioned above, and say, command them to take shape again to do his will.

Well, that's what I had in mind if you look at one of my (longer) posts above. But there is the problem that the Nine prolonged their lifespan, and as the power of the Rings was lost, they simply died. Nothing bound them to this world anymore.

Well, but the Ring was destroyed. It was not Sauron himself who had the power over the Nazgul, they were bound only as long as the Ring existed somewhere - not necessary even with Sauron. But from it the power stemmed. Like the power that kept Sauron "alive", even though he did not have the Ring with himself. So he could not control the RW after its destruction anymore.

Ah, but where it explicitly said that it was only the Rings that kept them bound to the world? No doubt they had the function of turning them into wraiths by streching their lifespans and making them reject the call of death. But once they'd become wraiths, maybe they had reached the point of no return and could no longer leave the world? In that case, even the destruction of the Rings wouldn't keep their spirits from haunting the earth. I know I'm streching th lore a bit, but it's a possibility.

Well it is a possibility, but... I would expect at maximum them becoming spirits like Sauron, in fact harmless. There were these ideas about Elven spirits who refused to go to Mandos, so something like that. But nevertheless, they will no longer be in human bodies but only in the wraith-world, maybe from time to time scaring a woodcutter from Rhun during his night walk, but that's about all they could do.

Well, I believe we have reached an agreement here. Because just now, in the Letters of JRRT I found this:

This indicates that instead of 'passing on' the Nazgul remained in Middle earth as impotent spirits like their master Sauron. If they could not, over time, regain enough strength to take physical form again, then they would have the same situation as you mentioned. Then maybe they would return at the Dagor Dagorath along with their master?

Indeed, seems so :)

I always thought that. I have to say, I am not very strong in this Dagor Dagorath stuff, but I always imagined that all the bad guys will return in full strength (or less full strength :D ) to battle the good guys... so that would include even the Ringwraith.

But that's not so. What there is of The New Shadow implies a neo-Sauronian cult arising, but there's no suggestion at all of an actual Dark Lord. Tolkien said of it that it would have been just a "thriller:' "not worth doing." In fact I believe it's in the same letter that he observed that Sauron was the last Incarnation of evil.

The New Shadow, consistent with what T said elsewhere about the Age of Men, is about Men's easy satiety with good and peace and comfort, all on their own without a Diabolus live and present.

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*Everything* created and sustained by the power of the Rings was ended when the One went into the fire. Barad-dur collapsed because its Ring-made foundations crumbled. The Ringwraiths' existence is not some special and irreversible status bestowed by their Rings: it is merely an extreme case of the unnatural longevity experienced by Bilbo and Gollum. Just as Bilbo rapidly resumed his proper physical age when the Ring was destroyed, so did the Nazgul (their natural age of course being several thousand years, meaning very very dead). As Gollum said, "When the Precious goes, we'll die, yes, die into dusst."

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I don't think some nice pacifistic Faramir-like Numenorean would have been suckered by one of the Nine. Like the One, their temptation was the offer of Power: those who aren't interested aren't buying.

So much posting...
Anyway, zxcvbn (you really must change you name) I believe WCH is correct about the WK only having been reduced to impotence till the destruction of the Ring and him dying afterwards.
I thought he was around myself, forgot however that the note was reffering to the time before the destruction of the Ring.

Gwathagor...

And a bit different:

Wickli is 100% correct. Very nice posts.

We seem to be veering off topic here. Anyway, I'd like to add to WCH's post that the canonicity of the Second Prophecy of Mandos is doubtful, and that in his last years Tolkien was planning to transfer the return of Turin to the battle at the end of the War of Wrath.

Well, the Dagor Dagorath is a nice idea, but not something I would see really as canon.
Also consider this quote from CT:

Not really sometinhg certain.

I think it IS necessary that the Ringwraiths were destroyed, as the only thing prolonging their lives were their Rings, and those were in turn dependent on the One Ring. So, when the One was destroyed, the power that sustained that made the Nazgul immortal departed. At which point we may safely assume they all died. After all, if Sauron survived defeat, it was at first because he was a Maia, and later on also because the Ring survived. In the case of the Nazgul (following the destruction of the Ring), neither condition applies.

Might: Thanks so much for the quotes! I had forgotten.