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Originally Posted by Nilpaurion Felagund
Of course, this introduces the predestination vs. free will debate into the mix.  |
A bit more than that.
You brought up the Ainulindalë. Remember one of the major points of that first book of the Silmarillion?
Men are not bound by the Music of the Ainur. They have the power to make their own fate in the world.
So this whole matter becomes very confusing. The Witch-king, after all, is a man, albeit one immensely changed from his original, natural, form. But is his fate affected by this? Is he not free from the constraints of predestination?
And what about Éowyn and Merry? Hobbits are considered to be a sub-race of Men, and so both of these two, although not Men in the sense of the prophecy, are still Men in the sense that they are not bound by the Ainulindalë.
What I think needs to be differentiated here is the difference between HAVING to do something, and CHOOSING to do something. The Ainur, and all those bound by their Music, HAVE to do things when it tells them to. Their lives, to a certain extent, at least, are bound by it. Men (incl. women, children, and hobbits) do not have to do things.
My take on Glorfindel's prophecy therefore, is this: when Glorfindel was making his prediction, he was saying that the Witch-king would be felled "not by hand of man", because his Elven foresight told him that was how it would happen. It told him that Merry and Éowyn would CHOOSE to do what they did, thus resulting in the death of the Witch-king.
The technical aspects of what they did could have been accomplished by a couple of ordinary men. Say some Ranger of Arnor armed with the barrow-sword, and some unhorsed Gondorian knight with an ordinary sword, in much the same way that it actually happened ten centuries after Eärnur. There was nothing "magic" or harmful to the Witch-king about Merry and Éowyn being not-Men. It was simply a combination of circumstance and choice.
The Witch-king wasn't DESTINED to fall by "not-men", but Glorfindel foresaw that he WOULD. There is a distinction, although I suppose it IS a very fine one.