gandalf and witch-king

[Amrod the Hunter]

Yes,definetly,case is closed,but I have only one last thing to ask.
The only thing we don't know about Gandalf is his true power-I mean,how strong is he compared to other Maiars.It says he is the wisest,not the most powerful.
He is definetly the strongest of all Istari,and he has one of the Three Rings,but could he really stand up to Sauron?It would really be a good match to see.

I am a new member of this site, and I joined for one reason only: to gain peace of mind after the horrible defeat of Gandalf by the Witch-king in the EE of the Return of the King movie. Unlike some of the die hard fans of LOTR who hate the movies, I love them. But this scene struck such a devastating blow to me. I honestly didn't think that Mr. Jackson could have slipped up that bad. There is just no way in hell that the Witch-king could have defeated Gandalf quite so easily. After all, Gandalf is a Maiar spirit, and the Witch-king is just a corrupt human spirit. For hours I tried desperately to figure out how this defeat coul be:

1) The Witch-king's power grew greatly due to the increasing power of Sauron and strengthening power of darkness.
2) Gandalf was not defeated yet, and would have dealt a devastating blow to the Witch-king, had not the Rohirrim arrived just in time.

But now, I am sure that it was just a purposely overlooked flaw in the movie, in this case to reduce Gandalf's power greatly, and be put at the mercy of the Witch-king only to be saved by the Rohirrim to add great dramatic affect. This may work alright for an average movie-goer, but not an avid LOTR fan. But alas, tragically, this itself does not even work because what villain their right mind would let the chance to destroy their arch-enemy slip away? Becuase of the arrival of reinforcements? Isn't that what the entire orc army was for? So for that reason, the scene just falls apart and seems very unrealistic. The only idea I have that could salvage it, is that the Witch-king was afraid of killing Gandalf because Gandalf had yet to reveal his true powers.

Well that's all the ranting and ravin that I have for now.

[AragornII]

This goes back to the argument of are the Nazgul still men and can they die. That is an old thread, but it's worth reading. Just thought I'd mention that.
Anyway, I think that Gandalf could have defeated the Witch King if he had wanted to. And I do think that the ROTK EE scene was sort of stupid. It made Gandalf look like a weakling, the way his staff broke in like two seconds.

[Essex]

The question is whether Gandalf could have defeated the WK or whether the WK could have defeated Gandalf.

On many threads on this site we've discussed the EE version, with much gnashing and grinding of teeth from most people.

One point I haven't put forward is that, in matters of black and white, whether one is stronger than the other does not mean the weakest cannot win. The WK was finally undone by a hobbit and a human. Both of far less power than Gandalf, but this is Fact.

So, to say well Gandalf is stronger than the WK because of whatever or vice versa, can almost be seen as imaterial. If the case of the strongest always winning over the weakest applies, then Middle-earth would have been a totally different place.

PS, why do you think Tolkien wrote the WK scene this way? Gandalf and the WK are about to clash, and then the Rohirrim arrive to save the day. To me, they did save Gandalf from a possible Mortal clash with the WK. Why on earth would Tolkien write it this way? The cock crows, the sounds of the horns are heard, and the WK realises his best laid plans are crumbling around him. That's why he shot off straight away in the book AND film. He HAD to marshall his forces and confront this new threat.

PPS, why is everyone getting het up about Gandalf's staff breaking? I'm going to raise a new thread in the books section shortly to kick off a discussion on this. IMO the Staff is a very Symbolic, but not neccesarily an important device for a Wizard. He had a production line of them in the movie anyway