How Eowyn killed the Witch-King

did eowyn really kill the witch king on a technicality just because she wasn't a man or was there something deeper going on hi everyone this is robert welcome to in deep geek on this channel we cover lord of the rings a song of ice and fire and other great fantasy books and tv shows if you're interested in that please click on the subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen it's one of the most memorable lines from the lord of the rings films the witch king of angmar cries out that no man can kill him and eowyn reveals her identity and cries i am no man before killing him but is that really what happened was the witch king of angmar the lord of the nazgul himself really killed on a technicality well let's rewind to understand why the witch king thought himself so invulnerable and why he truly wasn't i'll do a proper character study on him in a video in a few weeks time but as a short history the witch king was once a human one of the mortal men sauron gave a ring of power to which granted him great power and an extended life this life though was not the eternal youth of dreams but a stretching thinning until the witch king and the other eight lords faded from mortal eyes and became wraiths when sauron lost his mortal form with the fall of numenor and disappeared from history for a thousand years the nine wraiths also hid it's worth saying that at this stage the witch king of angmar was not called the witch king of angmar in fact he was probably originally a lord from numenor keep an eye out for him in early form in the big budget middle-earth tv show whenever that comes out he got his moniker because when he eventually resurfaced in around the year 1300 of the third age it was in angmar an area in the north of the middle earth map we have near the top of the misty mountains he built a kingdom raised armies of fell and dark creatures became known as the witch king of angmar and from then on he waged merciless war on the kingdoms of arnor the northern successor kingdom to numenor and this is where the link to his death comes one of those three kingdoms he waged war on was called cardolan this kingdom covered an area we know well near the shire including the south downs the barrow downs and the old forest the kings of cardolan were dunadane descended from numenor the most splendid and advanced human civilization ever and some of that knowledge and craft had been passed down and their smiths were able to forge magical blades of a sort when the witch king of angmar and his army were attacking kardalan it was only natural that these smiths started forging blades that were specifically powerful against the forces of angmar the witch king of angmar was particularly fond of creating undead and throwing them against his enemies so the dunadaine of cadalan made blades that had magic in them to destroy the undead and the taint of the witch king when cardalan fell the last king was interred in a barrow in the barrowlands and some of those blades as well as other treasures were interred with him the last few of the dunadaine of cardalan sheltered around the barrow downs before the witch king finished them off by unleashing some barrow whites down there the barrow white that frodo and co meet in the barrow downs centuries later had been sent there by the witch king for example all that time ago and being undead had just stayed there all that time with the fall of kardalan the witch king probably thought that was the last he'd see of those blades if he'd ever even known about them so we have some undead destroying weapons forged specifically to counter the magic of angmar long buried and long forgotten in the tomb of a king somewhere between the shire and brie guarded by a barrow white who had been created to kill some long gone foes and had just stayed there ever since enter the hobbits in the lord of the rings they get caught and it was only tom bombadil's timely intervention that saved the day tom then emptied the barrow of all of its treasure to break the spell that bound the white there and gave each of the hobbits one of the daggers the ancient undead destroying daggers this is what we read for each of the hobbits he chose a dagger long leaf shaped and keen of marvelous workmanship damasked with serpent forms in red and gold they gleamed as he drew them from their black sheaths wrought of some strange metal light and strong and set with many fiery stones whether by some virtue in these sheaths or because of the spell that lay on the mound the blades seemed untouched by time unrusted sharp glittering in the sun old knives are long enough as swords for hobbit people he said sharp blades are good to have if shire folk go walking east south or far away into dark danger then he told them that these blades were forged many long years ago by men of western s they were the foes of the dark lord but they were overcome by the evil king of khandern in the land of angmar the evil king of khan don is obviously the witch king though the hobbits wouldn't have known that they head off wondering if the daggers will ever be of any use they obviously are it is mary's dagger that interests us for that is what he was carrying when the witch king confronted him and eowyn on the pelinal fields the others were probably also enchanted and powerful in their own ways we see it in the reactions of the wise and knowledgeable of middle-earth when they see them even some of the nazgul recoil when frodo pulls his dagger out on weathertop but hang on you might be saying we've got this far into the video without even mentioning eowyn and it was she who actually killed the witch king and who the prophecy was about well yes so having set mary into position with his undead killing blade let's work through the backstory of eowyn and the prophecy we need to go back to a while after the witch king had defeated the kingdom of kardalan he was on a roll his army and political machinations and various untimely plagues meant that he also managed to vanquish the other two parts of the northern kingdom of arnold but eventually in the battle of fornost an alliance of gondorians dunadane elves and even hobbits destroyed the witch king's army and the witch king himself when faced with the might of glorfindel fled glorfindel for bad pursuit saying that far off yet is his doom and not by the hand of man will he fall it's not completely clear whether this was a curse or a prophecy but in any event it soon became known among the wise and learned of middle earth crucially even the witch king himself seems to have given it credence when in the books on the pelinor fields eowyn stands over her father's dying body and swears to hinder whatever the witch king would do his retort was to quote the prophecy to assert that no living man may hinder him but here's the thing he seemed to have somehow turned a prophecy of his death that it wouldn't be by the hand of man into an assertion of indomitability no man could kill him so when arwen reveals herself as no mortal man instead a woman we read that the witch king was stunned into sudden silence as if in sudden doubt after an exchange of blows this is what happens next her shield was shivered in many pieces and her arm was broken she stumbled to her knees he bent over her like a cloud and his eyes glittered he raised his mace to kill but suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain and his stroke went wide driving into the ground mary's sword had stabbed him from behind shearing through the black mantle and passing up beneath the horberg had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee aeowin ayowin cried mary then tuttering struggling up with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and a mantle as the great shoulders bowed before her the sword broke sparkling into many shards the crown rolled away with a clang eowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe but slow the mantle and horbuck were empty shapeless they lay now on the ground torn and tumbled and a cry went up into the shuddering air and faded to a shrill wailing passing with the wind a voice bodiless and thin that died and was swallowed up and was never heard again in that age of this world so actually there are two blows here that kill to the witch king aya wins which seems to have done the actual killing and mary's in the movie mary seems to have just got a lucky hit in but in the books tolkien made it very clear that it was the blade itself that was the important thing crucial even it was destroyed in the act of damaging the witch king but this is what we read so past the sword of the barrow downs work of westerness but glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the north kingdom when the dunadaine were young and chief among their foes was the dread realm of angmar and its sorcerer king no other blade not though mightier hands had wielded it would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter cleaving the undead flesh breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will so this magical blade broke with the spell that bound the witch king's invisible body to his will in other words this blade and only this blade had the power to damage the undead in that way which meant that erwin's non-magical sword could be so effective and kill him we aren't told the exact law here about which blow was the technical killing one and as has often been pointed out tolkien uses man to refer to humanity as a whole as well so mary also counts as not a man but it does seem clear that both blows were needed mary's somehow magically brought him to his knees making him vulnerable and then eowyns finished him off mary could not have done what he did without her earlier heroism and she could not have done what she did without his and neither could have happened but for events thousands of years earlier and an unforeseeable chain of events in the present the witch king was not killed on a technicality but by inexorable destiny as is so often the case with tolkien the witch king's death came about because of his own hubris believing he could not be killed and at the hands of the least likely opponents probably the only woman on the entire battlefield and a hobbit wielding a knife whose power he had no idea of if you'd like to see more lord of the rings videos please click on the link on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support this channel or get access to some content i produce exclusively from my patrons please click on the link on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching and i'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

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Keywords: in deep geek lord of the rings, in deep geek, deep geek, lord of the rings, lotr, the lord of the rings, witch king of angmar, witch king death, witch-king of angmar, witch-king of angmar death, witch-king slayer in lord of the rings, who killed the witch king, the witch king of angmar, the witch-king of angmar, the witch-king, i am no man lord of the rings, i am no man, prophecy, glorfindel, eowyn vs witch king, eowyn, merry, b lades of westernesse, barrow, hobbit swords

Id: _XCSAuKwLpE

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020