Gandalf Vs. The Witch King

[Lord Gothmog]

Originally Posted by obloquy

No, it does not.

You, however, are wrong. There is no way for the Witch-King to be "near equal" to Gandalf, who was a peer of Sauron himself, modesty notwithstanding. I will not repeat my arguments for this, but it should be fairly clear to anyone who takes the time to read the sources I have referenced in other posts, scattered across several threads.

It is true that we as readers of the books of Arda are well aware of the relative differences between the actual powers of Gandalf/Olorin and the Witch-king. We have the advantage of knowing who and what Gandalf really is. We know also that the Witch-king is only a somewhat enhanced Man. However, in this thread we are discussing the adaptation of the characters from the book Lord of the Rings to film.

In the book, Gandalf is not permitted to use his full power to combat the evil of Sauron or his minions. He is there to be a teacher and guide. True it is only by his own choice that he abides by these limits, but he has already shown that he would "die" rather than ignore them. Since the Witch-king cannot be near as powerful as Gandalf, it is Gandalf's choice to abide by the limits that lowers him to near the Witch-king. So we have a situation where Gandalf is confident that the Witch-king cannot overcome him, but is not certain that he can destroy the Witch-king while staying within these limits.

This gives us the position in the book where, from the point of view of the story, we have two characters of near equal power facing each other. Gandalf sitting astride Shadowfax confident that he can bar the way of the Witch-king with the Witch-king arrogantly certain that nothing can stand in his way.

Here is a point I have not brought up before, however:

This fact that Gandalf reveals applies not just to the Eldar, but also to Gandalf himself.

Yes they have Great Power against the Seen and the Unseen. They drive them off regularly (sometimes into a river) But have never been shown to cause serious harm.

I ask you to think back to the first time you read Lord of the Rings. Before you read all the other information on Middle-earth. Were you then so certain of how great was the difference of power between Gandalf and the Witch-king?

It is this appearance of Near Equal characters shown in the book that should have been adapted to the film.

Finally, in anticipation of its resurrection, I will say this of the claim that the Witch-King was literally enhanced for the last book: It is a dubious theory, the source text for which comes from a letter not intended as canonical history (or indeed even to be included in the corpus), nor was it in response to a curious reader, and it is uncorroborated by other canonical texts. Additionally the letter is clearly discussing the literary decisions of the author for purposes of evaluating an adaptation. These facts provide enough doubt that the event can not be taken for granted and thus remains speculative.

Actually, the comments in that letter show that Jackson and co's adaptation of the Witch-king was, over all, better than the one Tolkien was commenting on. Jackson did not raise the Witch-king to the stature of the third book until the time of the battle of Pelennor Fields and the Siege of Minas Tirith.

It was the adaptation of the character of Gandalf that failed.