All right, guys, I’m sorry. It’s been a month; I haven’t posted. Blame the comprehensive exam. In another week or so, you’ll get either a celebratory post about having defeated the beast or another week’s silence while I cope with having failed. We’ll see! In the meantime, you get… well, this.
Okay, guys, let’s talk about former Númenóreans.
Specifically, let’s talk about the Lord of the Nazgûl today. Because this is a fallen man, seduced by power and corruption and the words of Sauron. And by ‘fallen man,’ what I actually mean is ‘totally hardcore Ringwraith, man, don’t even try to measure up to this guy, he’ll just kick your butt and move on to the next kingdom he feels like vanquishing before second breakfast.’
Right, so, the Witch-king of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgûl and greatest of the Nine. Origin unknown, name unknown, believed to have been one of the three lords of Númenor, but that’s all kind of irrelevant, because lord of Númenor? Whatever. This guy is the Lord of Minas Morgul. Which, by the way, he created, after conquering the original city that was there (which, founded by Isildur, who temporarily slew Sauron with a half a broken sword and stole the One Ring from him, so, you know, not exactly a pushover there).
So yeah, Witch-king, kind of awesome. Even if Minas Morgul had been his first victory, which it wasn’t. Not only was he already Chief of the Ringwraiths, but he’d also already conquered the entirety of Arnor. And he didn’t just waltz in there with a flail or anything, no, he totally set up a war between the three kingdoms of Arnor, weakening them all in whatever way he wanted, and then, boom, marched in with his armies and killed most of the Dúnedain. Who were no small measure of awesome themselves, so chalk up one more right there for the Witch-king. I mean, yeah, sure, maybe he didn’t score the palantír, but it’s only, like, six inches across. Anyone could lose a rock that size in the middle of a freaking war.
And besides, what does he do when he fails to find the palantír in Arnor? Oh, yeah, he just goes off to casually conquer Minas Ithil and send their seeing stone to Sauron instead. Uh-huh. Hardcore.
Okay, so, Witch-king’s living comfortably in Minas Morgul, Ithilien’s terrified, no one wants to live there, so now what? Guy gets kind of bored. Okay, yeah, everyone’s got flaws. So what does he do?
Maybe he kills the King of Gondor. And he kills him so hard that there’s never a King in Gondor again. (Well, until the whole Aragorn thing, but come on, guys, really, that’s kind of an extenuating circumstance.)
Maybe he helps to create the Uruk-hai. Because, you know, why not? It probably seemed like a good way to kill an afternoon. (And, like, a million Halflings, too, because why waste ’em if you’ve got ’em?)
Maybe he destroys Osgiliath. Kind of all, sod you, Boromir, if I can’t have it, you can’t have it either. And then he gets tired of Boromir, so he kills him as well. Yeah, that’s right. Snap.
And then the whole thing with the One Ring and Sauron and the hunt for the Shire, and, you know, not to steal anyone’s thunder or anything, but the Witch-king? He tricks Saruman into informing on Gandalf, and then he tricks Gríma Wormtongue into spilling all his secrets. No, you didn’t mis-read that. He tricks two of the most silver-tongued villains in the entire epic tale into giving him information, using nothing but his words. Come on. You’ve never even heard of anything this hardcore before, and his story isn’t even over yet.
What, you say? There’s more? Oh, yeah. There’s more. You didn’t think the Witch-king was going to stop right there, did you? No way. So the Witch-king now knows Frodo has the ring, so he sends three of the Nazgûl into the Shire, because he figures, seriously, one Halfling, that’s so brain-dead simple it’s impossible to screw up. Well, that’s the last time he ever delegates anything, because, God knows how, they somehow do manage to blow the whole thing wide open. So, okay, the Witch-king heads to Weathertop himself.
And Weathertop. C’mon now. Okay, so maybe he doesn’t exactly get the jump on them – but look at what it takes for them to get away from him. An entire freaking swarm of Halflings armed with a Dagger of Westernesse, I mean, really, a weapon designed exclusively for the purpose of harming him, and then they still needed Aragorn and Gandalf and the elves.
And even after that, he’s just like, oh, okay, I guess I’ll keep chasing them, no need to worry about the fact that they have a sword especially forged to kill me, I’ll just break it with my hand here, don’t mind me.
Not to mention that then he led a massive army, took Osgiliath again, like the first time wasn’t enough, man, he doesn’t even want it anymore, it’s just ruins now, why can’t he just go home and, you know, kill the entire dwarven race or something fun? But he does it anyway, and then besieges Minas Tirith, which is at least interesting until he gets inside, at which point it’s just, like, whatever. So, next thing! The Rohirrim! Let’s go and kill them!
And then, dude, some lady kills him on a technicality, which, I mean, that’s just so not on.
Not that it matters, because if technicalities are reigning supreme here, then let’s talk about the part where it’s very specifically said that the Witch-king’s voice “was never heard again in that age of this world.” So, basically, as long as we’re finding loopholes, it’s pretty obvious that this awesome sonuvagun is just biding his time.
So yeah. Chieftain of the Nazgûl. Lord of Morgul. The Black Captain. Totally waiting to show up again one day and just wreak infinite havoc. I’d tell you guys to be prepared, but let’s face it. You all know the truth. There’s no way you could ever be prepared for the Witch-king of Angmar.
Next time: the Mouth of Sauron. Same bat-time; same bat-channel.