Characters paying attention

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by mhagain

Gollum definitely met Sauron in person, he knew how many fingers he had.

But the Nazgûl necessarily didn't, exactly. Maybe Sauron indeed didn't hand out the memo.

Anyway, as it is explained in, I believe, The Treason of Isengard, or maybe even in the Unfinished Tales, the Nazgûl didn't really know what to make of the Hobbits and were kinda afraid of Frodo, thinking that he was some super-powerful creature who had been able to avoid them very cunningly and when he (unlike 99% of the population of Middle-Earth) didn't only just run away screaming when facing the Witch-King, but even attacked him AND hit him, they freaked out and retreated from Weathertop. Sure, they considered it a "succesful assassination-poisoning attempt", but they were probably not very keen on repeating the experience.