Quote:
Originally Posted by Zigûr
According to the Tale of Years the Nazgûl appeared in 2251, but the Shadow fell on Númenor around 1800 and they began colonising Middle-earth in that time. My suspicion would be that Sauron gave three of the Nine to Númenóreans who were in charge of, or at least Men of significance in, Númenórean dominions in Middle-earth, which would lead me to imagine that they were not in Númenor when their gradual transformation into wraiths occurred.
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That is plausible to an extent but we have to keep in mind that the people ensnared by the Nine were (quoting from memory) 'the kings, warriors, and sorcerers of old'. There was no Númenórean king among them, of course, so this category is off the table, and we also don't know whether there were any sorcerers in Númenor (that is not a positive profession in Tolkien's work, so one would look for those also among the men of Middle-earth).
That leaves the warriors. However, considering the life expectancy of the Númenóreans and the fact that Sauron would have been interested in learning more about Númenor it seems unlikely that none of the future Nazgûl didn't at least visit Númenor prior to their transformation.
I'm with you that they probably didn't become Nazgûl on the island but there would have been there occasionally, and people should have realized that something was wrong with them. Say, they might have grown very ambitious, over-reaching themselves, uncovering secrets nobody should know and revealing knowledge nobody among the Dúnedain had any ideas about.
And depending how old they were when they got the Rings (if there were members of the Line of Elros among them they must have received later in life or else they wouldn't have yet been wraiths around 2251 SA) people around them must have realized that something was wrong with them.
Even if they spend most of their time in some Númenórean colonies in Middle-earth other Númenóreans would have been with them and reported stuff back.
@Alcuin:
Actually, the
Ósanwe-kenta indicates that Tolkien changed his view on Sauron's body. It was actually first destroyed (at least in known history) during his confrontation with Huan and Lúthien in the Lay of Leithian.
We also don't know whether Sauron was continuously embodied after that. We have no account on his role during the War of Wrath, after all, but we do know that he took on his fair hue when he presented himself to Eonwe. Whether this was done 'from scratch' (i.e. with him having no body before) or whether he just changed his physical body is unclear.
Reading into your essay I think we can resolve the discrepancy between Minastir and Telperien resolve simply by making her the one who sent the fleet and Minastir the one who lead it as her heir and general. The idea that she of all queens was forced to do anything is very unlikely considering how she is described. And dating her death back decades would destroy what little we know about her age and strength of will.
The idea of the Shadow having something to do with the later Nazgûl is interesting in general, but I don't think this is really necessary. The Kings didn't need some evil whisperer telling them that the Ban was crap. That they could figure out themselves, or rather their innate and growing pride and hubris could do that for them.
The identity of the Witch-king is an interesting topic to speculate. If he was of the royal line he could easily have been merely a member of a more distant cadet branch. Considering the Númenórean marriage practice there would have been a lot of relatives of the various kings over the years, not just the Lords of Andunie. And those of the Line of Elros could easily have had influence on the council or behind the scenes even without being members of the royal family.
As to the invisibility:
This should be feature that all wielders of the Rings of Power should be able to control as soon as they learned to properly use them (which Frodo, Bilbo, Gollum, and Isildur never did). The Nine most likely did not become invisible to other men just when they put their rings on but only when they deliberately wanted to walk around unseen.
We don't know whether the Three included that feature but if they did then there is even a small chance that a Noldo wearer of a Ring of Power could have used its might to hide himself from his peers because the ring extended his power to such a degree to pull this off. What the purpose of this would have been I don't know.
Your explanation about 'Sauron taking up the Great Ring' doesn't convince me, though. In
The Akallabêth Sauron's spirit takes up the Ring, not his new body, and that makes only sense if he didn't have it on him when he came back to Barad-dûr in spirit form.
In fact, this version of events (rather than the one from
Of the Rings of Power better explains how quickly Sauron restored his body. Being close to and in spirit form *possessing* the One helped him create himself a new body. The ringless Sauron in the Third Age needs centuries or even millennia to restore his body. We don't know when exactly it is *complete* but one can argue that Sauron was not yet fully embodied again by the time Gandalf went to Dol Guldur in 2063 TA.