LotR -- Book 1 - Chapter 11 - A Knife in the Dark

[Estelyn Telcontar]

That's a fascinating comparison, Pitchwife! It's an interesting side note that horns are the instruments which have a special (magical?) function in Tolkien's Middle-earth. Alas, lack of time and the fact that my books are already packed for moving prevent me from going into detail on this; I hope I can come back to it sometime soon.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

A truly great catch Pitchwife. Thanks for pointing that one out.

[Animalmother]

I have no astute insights on "A Knife in the Dark" to make, but only a blunt question:

How were five dreaded ringwraiths unable or unwilling to overwhelm Strider/Aragorn and four unmartial, puny hobbits at night on Weathertop?

The Witch King there saw Frodo wearing the One Ring.

Why fool around with Morgul knives and such? The ringwraiths had swords and thousands of years of sword-and-sorcery experience. Strider bore a torch and the hobbits bore small blades of Westernesse.

I say, no contest. So, these couldn't be the same ringwraiths who made the defenders of Minas Tirith quake in fear. They must have been B-team ringwraiths sent by Mordor. If as I read, Sauron had the nine rings in his keeping, he would have had time to use them to turn more than nine men into ringwraiths.

Or, maybe the five on Weathertop had run out of coffee or whatever made them go?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Animalmother

Why fool around with Morgul knives and such? The ringwraiths had swords and thousands of years of sword-and-sorcery experience. Strider bore a torch and the hobbits bore small blades of Westernesse.

It does seem a bit like they weren't giving Sauron their best at that point. Then again, they also missed the Ring at Hobbiton because they took an old hobbit's word that Frodo wasn't home.

Anyway, I think at Weathertop it goes back to two factors. One, Aragorn had said the Ringwraiths feared fire, and that seems to have been proven by him. Two, as Aragorn also noted, he and the Hobbits still had a long way to go before they could have reached any possible safety, and the WK seems to have had the thought that turning Frodo into a wraith was the easy way to do things. Gandalf later said that the splinter in Frodo probably would have turned a Man fairly quickly, and the WK can't be faulted for knowing so little of Hobbit resilience.

Originally Posted by Animalmother

So, these couldn't be the same ringwraiths who made the defenders of Minas Tirith quake in fear.

I don't have Letters with me, but there's a letter in which Tolkien notes that the WK had been given an "added demonic force" when he was placed in command of the forces attacking Minas Tirith. I think all the Nazgûl were at an elevated level of power at that point.