Gandalf Vs. The Witch King

[obloquy]

Originally Posted by Mansun

It is a fault by Tolkein, who realised that if Sauron couldn't be used, & the Witch King was not going to trouble Gandalf the White, then a quick fix of increasing the power of the Witch King was the answer. This wasn't going to be the answer, & Gandalf had already defeated the greatest foe after the Darklord in Moria in a weaker status of his Order.

It wasn't a fault of Tolkien's, it was a fault of the filmmakers'. This idea that the Witch-King is suddenly beefed up enough to match Gandalf was not Tolkien's. The Witch-King never approaches Gandalf's level in the books. There is a letter that indicates that the Witch-King was in some way enhanced for The Return of the King, but it's not clear whether Tolkien means narratively enhanced, or literally souped-up by Sauron. The latter, even if it were true, would still not put the Witch-King at any level near Gandalf's latent potential. Indeed, how could it? Sauron and Gandalf were equals in their beginnings, so how could a weakened Sauron enhance his fundamentally mortal servant to a level beyond (or even equal to) one of Sauron's own peers? To what degree Gandalf's Istar limitations were adjusted is unclear, but even while under those constraints he was capable of defeating a Balrog without violating the rules. The Balrog was unquestionably mightier than the Witch-King in written Tolkien, though the movies' conception of him may be different. If there's incongruence here, it's Jackson & co.'s, not Tolkien's.