I don’t have time to go poring through the books at present, but the following got my attention while listening to the ROTK commentaries.
Everybody, Jackson, the writers, the actors*, seemed to believe that the Nazgul were the dragon-like creatures being ridden by the Dark Riders, in particularly the Witch King.
Also, in the movie, the Witch King says something to the effect of “No one comes between the Nazgul and his prey,” and it certainly seemed like he was talking about his mount, rather than about himself in a Bob Dole kind of way.
Now it’s been a while since I’ve read the books, but I believe that Dark Riders = Ringwraiths = Nazgul = The Nine. I don’t remember anything about what what they were riding being called anything in particular (although I guess JRRT must have called them something).
Also, is “Witch King” or “The Witch King of Angmar” from the books, or just the movies.
*Although I don’t remember Christopher Lee saying anything on the subject, and he’d be the actor most likely to know his stuff on this.
“Nazgul” means “Ringwraith” in the Black Speech of Mordor. It does not refer to their winged mounts (which Tolkien called “fell beasts”).
“The Witch King of Angmar” is one of the titles of the Lord of the Nazgul in the book.
The Nazgul are indeed the Nine Ringwraiths. Their mounts are called fell beasts in the book and Jackson does use the correct term in his commentary from time to time. I think they just started using Nazgul as shorthand, since one never sees a fellbeast without the rider. Its unfortunate and confusing, but such things do happen.
I always took the line in the movie to be a Bob Dole type line.
And yes the Witch-King of Angmar was indeed in the books. He brought about the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Arnor, from whose kings Aragorn traces descent. His own Kingdom was then destroyed by forces sent from the Souther Kingdom of Gondor, at which point he retreated to Mordor and seized Minas Ithil eventually turning it into his lair of Minas Morgul.
In the commentaries, it’s the actor who plays the Witch-King who keeps getting the Nazgul and the Fell Beast he rides on mixed up. I’ll make allowances for his mistake, seeing as how he played 3 roles (I think), 2 at least in heavy makeup. We can blame the chemicals.
The Nazgul (Ulari) were the Ringwraiths. However they have two main appearances in the books and movies. You see them either horsed or mounted on the fell beasts. Notice how in the FOTR they’re referred to as Black Riders? Once the Hobbits understand what they are (Council of Elrond or so) Tolkien begins naming them Nazgul. Since we only ever hear of them being mounted on fell beasts after that point (aside from the Witch King at the Battle of Pelenor field), I can see where the linkage could kick in.
And in the book the Witch King does refer to himself with those lines “Do not come between the Nazgul and his prey…”
Aragorn refers to the Nazgul in the FOTR–the Hobbits are in the Prancing Pony and they hear the scream. One asks Viggo (Aragorn) what that is and he replies something along the lines of:" they were once men, once kings of men. They are the Ringwraiths, the Nazgul, the Nine."
I don’t remember the exact quote, but the reference is there.
Whatever they were–they scared the hell out of me–more so ON the horses, than on the flying dinosaurs(as my son would say).
Sorry to be so ignorant here–but why the references to Bob Dole? Does he go around referring to himself in the royal we?
Grey: Thanks for confirming that the Witch King does indeed say that in the book, referring to himself. I think in the movie he tells the fell beast to eat up Theoden, then delivers that line when Eowyn steps in front of it, which is what made me think he was referring to the fell beast as the Nazgul. My son apparently thought so, too, because when Eowyn lops the beasts head of, my son said “I guess he was wrong on that one.”
No royal “we,” but he was always fond of referring to himself as Bob Dole.
I agree that those nasty horses were a lot scarier than the fell beasts.
Anyway, thanks to all who replied. I think if you check the commentary you’ll find people saying stuff like “Here’s the Witch King on his Nazgul.” But these being such great movies, I’m going to give everyone who didn’t specifically say such a thing the benefit of the doubt, and assume shorthand.
In the LOTR as published, Nazgul indeed equals ringwraiths.
However, read the early drafts of LOTR, and you’ll see that at one point Tolkien conceived of the idea that Nazgul meant “ringwraith + Winged fell beast”. He even outlined a bit of the projected story by saying that the “wizard king goes ‘Nazgul’ by leaping onto his flying mount”. This concept was abandoned rather quickly tho.
Just being pedantic!!
For more commentary about what the heck the Wizard King was, just search for the term in my recent postings here in cafe society!
They are not dragons. They are fell beasts. Smaug was the last dragon. The description of the fell beasts suggests that they may actually be dinosaurs, which Sauron has kept alive for ages on a diet of some variety of disgusting and enchanted meat.
And it’s always appreciated. Without true nerds, ignorance would prevail!
Yes, of course. But I didn’t remember that, and “dragon” or “dragon-like” seems a reasonable description of a winged creature resembling a dinosaur. I did not mean to offend any dragons who might be reading by suggesting that such a stupid and remarkably easy to kill critter was one of their number.
I was listening to the actors’ commentary again last night, and Billy Boyd did call them “fell beasts,” as WotNot said. But Lawrence Makoare, who actually plays the Witch King (and Gothmog), was definitely getting it wrong.
The fell beasts look an awful lot like wyverns to me. And the last couple of wyverns I ran into did not take kindly to being called dragons or dinosaurs.
So are the horses evil too? How do the Nazgul keep from scaring the shit out of them when they ride them?
Is their Nazgul-sense only able to detect the ring within a mile or so? It seems like they weren’t very good at that.
What were they doing for the 1000 or so years since Isildur lost the ring? Chillin’ somewhere? Playing in Middle Earth rec baseball leagues as the scariest fuckin’ team out there?
Weren’t they horses of Rohan taken and bred by Sauron? Can’t seem to recall for certain.
You could call the Ring not in use a flickering ember versus the Ring on a hand being a four alarm fire. It’s very hard for them to detect unless someone is using it and then they can sense it from great distances indeed.
Most of them we dunno. The Witch-King spent much of that time ruling the Kingdom of Angmar (hence the title) which eventually shattered the northern Dunedain kingdom of Arnor, but he got trashed by Gondor and fell back on Mordor. At that point the Nine took Minas Ithil and reclaimed Mordor for their master Sauron. From then on they ruled the land in his stead while he stayed in the west at Dol Guldur in Mirkwood and gathered strength.
