I think it took BOTH Merry & Eowyn to fell the witch-king. and neither were men.
Luckily for Eowyn, Aragorn had Cure Black Breath off cooldown.
And as the nerdiness of this thread careened off the top of the scale, we stood in awe and watched.
Er, no.
There CAN’T be any ambiguity about whose in charge. That way lies disaster. My one big problem with the movie adaptation of FELLOWSHIP was Gandalf letting Frodo decide whether they would go through Moria or not. It’s just not done. And unlike some things that are just not done, there’s a damn good reason.
Aslan would have had a long talking to with the wizard on the subject. Athena would simply have smacked him.
Please remind me how it was done in the book.
I’ve always assumed that Gandalf’s standing orders from on high was that he could advise, but not allowed to substitute his own judgement over those of the middle-earthlings. (“Free will” must be allowed to be exercised, I guess.)
Not quite true. Eowyn was a Man – that is, a member of the Second-born Children of Eru, the Sickly Ones, the Usurpers, a Homo sapiens sapiens who aged and died utterly in respect to the physical world and whose spiritual fate after death was unknown; but she was not a man – i.e., a male member of that class.
As for Merry – well, I think Hobbits were men in the eyes of Eru and the Valar. Even the Elves felt that the halflings were far more like Men than they were Elves. Hobbits were simply short Men with large & tough feet.
Glorfindel’s prophecy was not that no Man (or man) could kill the Witch-King. It was that no man would kill him. In other words, it was not a statement of possibility or ability, but rather of predestination. Anyone wielding the barrow-blade could have pierced the WK’s eldritch protections and rendered him vulnerable to ordinarily blades, and after that was done, anyone could have struck him down. But Glorfindel saw that particular incident. It was as if he had prophesied that None but Barack Obama shall be the first black president of the United States. That’s not saying that no one else had the ability, but that Barry would be in the right place and the right time.
I also tend to think that Glorfindel, foreseeing the WK’s final battle, “deliberately” phrased his prophecy to be obscure. Much wiser than saying “You shall die in March 3019 in Pelennor Fields, Lord of the Nazgul.”
Even if we take hobbits as a race of humans, it could still be truly said that Merry was not a man, since he was not yet adult.
Why is it “taking the eagles to Mordor” always shows up in these topics? Do Balrogs have wings? 
Anyway, I always thought it was Gildor, the elves they met early in their journey.
“You have to get out of here, you have Black Riders tailing you, you have no weapons or experience, and you’re supposed to meet Gandalf who has disappeared”
How about lending a hand?
I know, I know, not in the direction Tolkein wanted to take his narrative. And the elves don’t get involved because they’re leaving. Etc etc. But it still almost reminds me of an exchange in “Bored of the Rings”:
There is much danger and peril. You leave at dawn.
Chronos, Chronos, Chronos. You fell into my trap. Surprising, really. But it’s late in the day and you are probably tired from doing physics & stuff.
Meriadoc was born in TA 2942; in 3019, at the time of the Battle of Pelennor Fields, he was 37, and thus nine years past the Hobbit age of maturity. It was Pippin who was still shy of his 29th birthday. That’s why Elrond was specifically against the young Took going on the Quest (he says he is uneasy about both the young hobbits, but in particular Merry); Gandalf & Frodo were basically taking a 17-year-old kid to war.
I have directed the remaining minions to deliver you some coffee.
I don’t think anybody seriously thinks the story would be better if they’d done that. Rather, it’s that people are irked that not doing so isn’t explained. At the very least, Pippin could have suggested it, only to have Gandalf, Strider, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli, Elrond, Frodo, Glorfindel, Merry, or the second Dwarf on the left shoot him down.
“Let the Ring anywhere near those flapping bastards? We have enough problems without a Dark Lord who can fly.”
:: rushes to co-worker’s office, steals his hat, dons it, and returns to computer ::
I take off my hat to you, sir!
:: doffs hat ::
And, no, I’m not giving the hat back. I SAID I was stealing it, didn’t I?
Balrogs clearly do not have wings.
ETA: cite.
Don’t…you…dare.
Nine? 37 - 33 doesn’t make nine, unless wizards count differently to other folk.
I am going to pretend I was giving you an opening for a Hobbit quote, as otherwise I have to get all blathery and menacy and stabby and so forth.
You are, of course, correct. I was thinking that the Hobbit age of majority was 29 (Pippin’s age during the War of the Ring) but that isn’t a difference of nine from 37 either. The important thing here is to blame the accursed Czechoslovakians for distracting me.
Well that and it tempts the WK into overconfidence: “No man can slay me huh? Way hey and off to slaughter Rohirrim I go!”
My point exactly. It leads one to a time-travel paradox, of course, in that the WK only dies if Glorfindel words the prophecy correctly, but that’s true of many such prophecies.
Okay, I wasn’t sure about that. So it’s just a nickname… wait a sec. That’s even worse.
Theoden is still an idiot.
And besides Skald, I went on in length early in the thread about how Meriadoc was indeed an adult and very competent. The movie made him nearly as foolish as young Pippin but Merry was a most astounding Hobbit.
Right on all points, assuming that by “coffee” you mean “tea”. Oh, and better make it decaf; I gave up caffeine for Lent.
(I’m not helping, am I?)