who are the nazgul?

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by mhagain

Well my confession is that I always imagined the Witch-king as a Númenórean too, but sometimes it pays to analyze and challenge one's assumptions.

In Pricilla, Queen of the Desert, I think it's Terrance Stamp who says "assumption is the mother of all **** up". But for a discussion about conjecture--we only have the text and its story and only have events chained by circumstance to go on.

You are, of course, right. For this one, we'll never know. We can't know categorically. Though, I'd be very surprised if the good ole Haradrim (and the Numenorean influence) wasn't something right on up there in any 'Witchking' thinking in a lot of the posters. It's clearly an alternative, and of course, an oldie but a goodie. Harad's anti Numenorean antagonism is very well developed in the reader whose gone beyond LotR.

If you want to enjoy some fan fiction about conjecture and the Haradrim, it's a great read and a lot of fun to speculate about. I've often imagined that there were cousins and disaffected relies who could have been a candidate for Mr Witchking--who had a giant chip on his shoulder--I mean--man, how many thousands of years can you hold onto a grudge! That witchking just couldn't let it go

But, as to alternatie speculation--the Shadow in Numenor was about sorcery hitting their shores, not vice-versa--not Harad's (the evil variation of magic--sorcery). Significant or not? It's a correlation, which is not causation, of course. But, in the timeline analysis, places the first darkening just past 1700 SA. Just around the time Sauron gets rather personal with Numenor, and right when he had his Nine new shiny rings in his hands. It makes sense, strategically, as a tyrannical warlord, that you'd want head honcho Witcher-oo to be someone who could tarnish the homeland--rather than Harad.....speculation, though -

cheers