who are the nazgul?

[mhagain]

There's more info I was previously unaware of (or had previously passed over - same result) in a plot outline given in the Siege of Gondor chapter in HoME 8:

Gandalf says things are still not so bad - because the W[izard] King has not yet appeared. He reveals that he is a renegade of his own order ... [?from] Numenor.

This is obviously an abandoned concept but otherwise I'm not sure what to make of it. I haven't cross-checked with when the idea of Istari as Maiar first arose, so maybe Tolkien is playing around with different ideas for their origin here? Was the Witch-king viewed as possibly a renegade Istar at the time (yes)? Were the Istari viewed as Numenorean in origin at the time (don't know)? Was the Witch-king at this point viewed as being a separate entity from the Ringwraiths (don't know)?

Either way it seems that the idea of the Witch-king as a Numenorean was something that had always been in Tolkien's mind, even though he never expressed it in published work.

What's interesting is that the original concept for the Mouth of Sauron was that he would be the Witch-king, so the idea of a renegade Numenorean in a high-ranking position in Sauron's service never really went away.

We don't really know how long a transition took into Wraith form, but more than 60 years seems quite likely

I've dealt with this previously but in summary:

• Only 3 of the Ringwraiths were noted to have been Numenorean,
• The other 6 were therefore Haradrim, Easterlings or Edain,
• Khamul, the second in command, is definitely confirmed to have been an Easterling,
• But Haradrim, Easterlings or Edain don't have long life,
• But that doesn't matter because Gandalf's words in Shadow of the Past confirm: it's not how long you have a Ring for that matters, it's how much you use it.

It should be obvious that the "long life" argument is bogus. If the other 6 Ringwraiths don't need to have long life, why should the 3 Numenoreans be a special exception?

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by mhagain

It should be obvious that the "long life" argument is bogus. If the other 6 Ringwraiths don't need to have long life, why should the 3 Numenoreans be a special exception?

I don't think people are saying 'long life implies head of the Nazgul'. Perhaps I haven't made my point clear. I am saying--they [the chosen nine in their mortal origin] can't have too long-a-life, given 700 years from 1695 to first appearance of Nazgul. If it was a line of Elros, (as in undiluted), you're looking at 400 years of normal life, before, 'stretching'. That's only 300 years--not enough, IMO. It was an argument about the 'who' of the bloodline of the Numenorean who would have been the Witchking.

I believe that the longer the life of the individual, the longer to turn Wraith like [unless] they were naturally more evil to start with. As the Gandalf quote implies about native strength and Laurelin Shelobs, an Ungoliant takes more to syphon from the exit end of the spider, to fill the Two Trees.

Make sense?