Quote:
Originally Posted by jallanite
Gandalf says, “the black robes are real robes that they wear to give shape to their nothingness when they have dealings with the living.”
This to me strongly implies that without hose robes the Nazgűl are unformed and shapeless, and insubstantial. The word nothingness indicates their insubstantialbility. See wraith for dictionary meanings, many of which suggest insubstantialbility.
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Merry's sword cleaved the undead
sinew as the blade pierced the flesh. As a Blade of the Westernesse
"Doubtless the Orcs despoiled them, but feared to keep the knives, knowing them for what they are: work of Westernesse, wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor."
"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 behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee."
and
"So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will."
I've always thought their sinew was modified by exposure to Sauron's tools of eye of mind that strips part of life force away. They were neither living nor dead. Horses bore them. I assume they were not massless.
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh will be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye".
Devoured and whatever left, replaced with Sauronic presence, power, or replacement form. Still of mass, I would have thought.
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.
The conclusions that appear to follow from the quotes:
1. Their bodies had mass.
2. They were invisible.
3. They were neither living nor dead