Maybe. What do you think Mr BB?

Tolkien says in Unfinished Tales that the Nazgûl had no will in the matter of the Ring, and that had any of them, even the Witch-king, obtained the Ring, he would have immediately returned with it to Sauron.

To go one step further, in a hypothetical discussion of what would have happened if Gollum had not fallen into the molten lava with the One Ring, but Frodo had defeated him and retained the Ring (see Letter 246), Tolkien says that Sauron would have sent the Ringwraiths. They would have been “in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the Ring,” and pretending to obey Frodo as the new Ring Lord, cut off all his means of escape or destroying the Ring until Sauron himself arrived at Orodruin.

seems a bit of a flimsy source Alcuin to say the least ... :p ;)

but the point is, were the lord of the Nazgul to attain the ring and pop it on, the being a slave with no will is no longer valid ... obviously not an angle old JRR ever contemplated, to be sure, and since he is no longer here to (no doubt agree with me :D ;) ) ..it is there for examining... more because it is in this examining that we flesh out our understanding of the rings of power, the balance of Middle earth and the realms of the Elves and understand the more clearly the history of middle earth.

best, BB

I have to disagree with you here Mr. BB, sir. Simply taking the Ring and putting it on isn’t enough. If it was, Sauron would never have sent such a powerful servant to capture it. Mastery of the Ring clearly was something that didn’t happen instantaneously.

You will also remember that Sauron was aware the instant that Frodo claimed the Ring for his own. If the Witch King ever tried to use the One, Sauron could immediately use the Witch King’s Nazgul ring (which Sauron held) to take full control of him. If it was necessary, Sauron could even destroy him by destroying his Nazgul ring.

So, I don’t think it is possible that the Witch King could ever master the One Ring as things stood late in the Third Age. Maybe another way to look at the question is what would have happened if he had obtained the Ring early in the Third Age, before Sauron had returned and taken his own Nazgul ring.

Glad you are back, CAB. :)

I fully agree with what you said.

I think it is the only possible way to put this question if we really want something to discuss.

I think, with his Ring and in the absence of Sauron (or while the Necromaster was still quite weak), the Witch-King of Angmar would have made a splendid Dark Lord.

He already was a mini dark lord then. Distroying a whole state in a few years, for example.

it took him about 600 years in fact :)
And then the Arnorians did contribute a lot. :p

Yeah, but considering that he didn't havea massive army, and (i haven't read the story in a while, so correct me if i'm wrong) managed to do it politically. He was just in the background, gently pushing things along.

Yhe Witch-King was in the background since 1300. But things in Arnor have deteriorated before that: Arnor split into 3 petty kingdoms around TA 900 -IIRC- and that fought between themselves ever since. I don't think the Witch-King could be blamed for that.
Then the WK took over Rhudaur (yes, mostly politically, not by open force), then attacked and destroyed Cardolan in open war (1409) and almost defeated Arthedain. Only Elves from Imladris and Lindon saved the Arnorians then.

Later there was the Plague (1636). I don't think it was the WK's doing, but he used the Plague for his ends and secured Tyrn Gorthad (Barrow-Downs) sending the Wights there.

And finally Angmar attacked Arthedain in 1974. Fornost was taken, the King perished. That was the end of Arnor. Gondor and the Elves defeated Angmar the next year, but Arnor couldn't rise again.

The three kingdoms weren't at war "ever since". They all would have united under Argeleb, if it weren't for the evil men of that bastard witch-king, who overtook Rhudaur. In the war with Angmar, Cardolan and Arthedain were united.

Argeleb finally grabbed Cardolan back, but only because no direct descendants of Elendil were left there to contest his claim. Not that it was for long though - soon there were only Barrow wights left on the ruins of once proud Cardolan :evil:

well, i quite agree, it needed indeed time, a will of adamant, desire for power and skill ...all of which the Lord of the Nazgul had, the great question here to my mind, is did he have the time?

who else does he, (Sauron) in panic send? Into the North with sufficient power and ring sensing ability? He has very little serious choice in this quest... but this is largely immaterial anyway ..we know JRR had him as loyal, at least from Sauron's perspective ... this is of course a hypothetical - but then, even were it not, who else could he send, realistically?

and if it was picked up near Rivendell, say - he would have time .... some time anyway ...




aye, well here's the interesting broth of the stew so to speak ...

Many, many reasons here that potentially make Sauron impotent -

firstly, even without full or even partial mastery of the one, i doubt Sauron could force the Witch King, wielding the one (even without full mastery) to suucumb to his will, not totally and not for long ... it is a long way on horse back to the South - also i deem him (lord of Angmar) both highly skilled in challenging and ...slowly, day by day beginning to read Sauron's mind and at having the mind and will both in force, experience and by genetic right to thus challenge his (Sauron's) will - at best for sau it would be a full on full-time epic struggle - he can forget his armies and strategies meanwhile ...


Secondly - Destroy his Most fearsome weapon and captain?

but even if ... assume he does and can -

one: he loses a powerful ring, Chief Nazgul and captain and an important source of power - in all ways weakening himself

Two: if he does and succeeds? The ring falls bodiless onto the ground in the far north - lost ..... lost again ....

no telling who may find it and take it, as he fears to Rivendell or to Lorien etc ... forgive me, but this does not sound like Sauron

ever he fears - fears and lusts ....


Imagine any force he (sau) sent north not commanded personally by himself meeting the Lord of the Nazgul, they would be on his control in seconds .... now imagine meeting the Lord of the Nazgul wielding to any degree at all the One ring .... to send any force north without risking coming himself would be to hasten his own downfall.

The real question is, why did he get stinted on getting a fell beast? :p Maybe Mordor rewards in reverse?;)

Of course, to total contrast to Sauron, who can't do anything without a few Orc waiting in te background, in case the slightest thing goes wrong...

Yes, it seems that Sauron was panicked, but he must have had other options about who he could send to capture the Ring.


I agree with you here, but I’m not sure how important this point is. It is the threat of control that matters. It only takes moments of control to force the Witch King to give the Ring to another Nazgul, or to force him to throw himself into a river, etc. I believe that the famed Nazgul loyalty is due almost entirely to this threat (and also the threat of annihilation due to having the Nazgul rings destroyed) rather than actual, constant mental control.


I could be wrong, but I don’t think mere possession of the Ring would lead to mastery. It seems more likely to be an active learning process, which may very well first require claiming the Ring (as Frodo did), an act which could not go unnoticed by Saruon.


Considering the alternative, I don’t think Sauron would hesitate to destroy the Witch King. Sauron didn’t need the Witch King or the power provided by his ring to rule Middle Earth (although I’m sure they both would have helped). Also, the Ring wouldn’t necessarily be lost. Weren’t there eight other Nazgul nearby?



Gordis, I am going to have to disagree with you also. There may be contradicting evidence somewhere, but I don’t think that the Ring provided it’s wearer with any great “military” type strength (at least not directly). The Ring’s purpose was to control the other ringbearers. So, aside from providing control over the other Nazgul, what would the Ring do for the Witch King? The Elvish ringbearers would certainly remove their rings, as they did before, and the Dwarves were pretty much unaffected. I think that if the Witch King obtained and claimed the One Ring early in the Third Age, the Elves (not wanting to lose the ability to use their own rings) would have united (and would have dragged the Dunedain along) to defeat him. Anyway, that’s how I see things.

I think that the only reason that Sauron was so desperate to regain the Ring was to avoid be controlled by someone else (as he controlled the Nazgul by holding their rings). As long as the Ring existed, his power wasn’t diminished, so he didn’t really need it for anything except maybe to maintain control of the Nazgul while allowing them to hold their own rings. It is interesting to wonder, if the Witch King had managed to master the Ring and stay “alive”, would he have been able to control Sauron after he returned later in the Third Age? It seems like there is a letter, though, that states that if someone mastered the Ring then Sauron would be unable to reform himself. I can’t recall.

In two versions of “The Hunt for the Ring” in Unfinished Tales, the author of the Tale says that none of the Ringwraiths would have taken the One Ring for his own. First he saysThen he writes, The author, God rest his soul, seems pretty determined that the Witch-king would not claim the One Ring for himself, but he would return it. Whether that is because Sauron had recovered the Nine Rings and so controlled the Nazgûl through them (which might be inferred from these two passages) is a matter of debate; but it seems to me that whether any of the Nazgûl, even and specifically the Witch-king, had gotten the One Ring, he would have done exactly what the author said he would do: return it to Sauron.

From Bored of the Rings (Beard and Kenney, National Lampoon),

They may be totally controled, but it doesn't stop them making mistakes (first book of 'Fellowship' anyone).

You’re right: they can make mistakes. They’re still Men, even if they’re under an evil enchantment, and people make mistakes.

I don’t think the Nazgûl were “totally controlled” by Sauron. To say that they “had no will but [Sauron’s] own” or that “they were quite incapable of acting against his will” does not imply that they were automatons, that they were happy or contented about their situations, or that they were incapable of making decisions on their own or mistakes of their own.

It does mean that if Sauron commands them to do something, they cannot refuse or subvert his command. They can be defeated, so that they are forced to retreat without accomplishing his mission, as they were at the Ford of Bruinen; and they can become worried or concerned for their own safety: in Tolkien’s previously unpublished notes, the Witch-king is revealed in Reader’s Companion to be concerned for his own safety when pursuing Frodo and his companions across Eriador. (He mistakenly believes Frodo destroyed the barrow-wight, and he believes Frodo knows what the barrow-blades can do to him. I think there’s a recent thread on that.) His fear and concern cause him to fail in his mission to retrieve the Ring by making critical errors in judgment that enable Aragorn and Glorfindel to help Frodo escape; but the Witch-king never rejects or refuses or subverts the mission. He is dedicated to carrying out Sauron’s will to retrieve the Ring; he just doesn’t want to get himself killed doing it.

Exactly what i was thinking.