The Full Story of THE NAZGUL! (RINGWRAITHS!) | Middle Earth Lore

hello and welcome to the broken sword today we are looking at the servants of evil the nazgule [Music] three rings for alvin king's under the sky seven for the dwarf lords in their halls of stone nine for mortal men doomed to die one for the dark lord on his dark throne in the land of mordor where the shadows lie one ring to roll them all one ring to find them one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them in the land of mordor where the shadows lie nine for mortal men doomed to die nine rings of power initially forged by the alf khalibrimbo in the lands of aragion under the watchful and poisonous eye of anata the lord of gifts or if his disguise was to be removed saron this is where the origins of the nazgul originate from as it was from these rings that the nine riders the ring rates the nazgul came from it all comes back to sauron and i will give you a very quick summary of how this came to be now but i do have a full video of sauron in the second age that will give you a more detailed description if you wish for that link of course will be in the description below but anyway after the defeat of morgoth at the end of the first age sauron had run and hidden rather than face the judgment for his actions in valinor he hid for a few hundred years until he felt that the valar had forgotten or no longer cared about him so he showed himself back into middle earth initially in the far east where some of malcolm's followers still existed then he begins to build his impressive tower of barodor within the lands of mordor we fast forward a bit to when sauron would show himself to the elves however this would be under the disguise of his fair form and he named himself anata lord of gifts and here he claimed to be a representative of the valar the elves of linden led by gilgalad and alright rejected him for something felt off however he did find more luck in a ragione with the nordoran smith keller brimble kelebrimbo was the grandson of the great silmaril craftsmen and enemy of morgoth feyenoor anatar would manipulate kalibrimbo and his group of smiths known as the gwythemir day and this would be to forge rings of power of which he touched and tainted himself and then when he went on to forge his own mastering it was in the aim to control all wearers of the others however keller brimble had forged three rings of his own in secret too so when sauron put on his one ring his true intentions were revealed to the wearers the wearers of these three were all elves you had here down the ship right at the grey havens gilgalat high king of the naldor in the kingdom of linden and galadriel lady of lorien with which she strengthens and enhances the realm where she resides now the reason this is all important is it led to saaran demanding all these rings back after his plan was revealed as he believed that they were rightfully his they couldn't have made those rings without him he has the right to keep them but this request was rejected for quite obvious reasons so the war of the alves and sauron happened and this ended up with sauron destroying a ragion and then capturing the rings of power anyway which he then distributed as the ring verse described at the beginning but a question may occur with this why did men get nine well let's jump into the silmarillion for a moment to have a look at why this might or might not have been men proved easier to ensnare those who used the nine rings became mighty in their day kings sorcerers and warriors of old they obtained glory and great wealth yet it turned to their undoing they had as it seemed an ending life yet life became unendurable to them they could walk if they would unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun and they could see things in the worlds invisible to mortal men but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of sauron and one by one sooner or later according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and under the domination of the one which was sauron's and they became forever invisible saved to him that wore the ruling ring and they entered into the realm of shadows the nazgul were they the ring rates the enemies most terrible servants darkness went with them and they cried with the voices of death so really if you're looking back at that question i feel the very first line of that quote gives a fairly good reason men were the easiest to ensnare of all the races meaning this was sauron's easiest way of creating his most powerful servants so these men now became wraiths fully under the role of sarah it is said in the same year that tar and kalimon took the scepter in numenol in 2251 of the second age that these wraiths now the nazgul first appeared in middle earth it is unknown exactly where or why they made their first appearance here nor what they were really doing for the remainder of the second age either this of course includes the dark years when sauron controlled a large percentage of middle-earth as well as the war of the last alliance and the events that that war included it can be assumed that they were there fighting during the battles as it would seem foolish to have not had them involved but regardless we do not actually know and then when sauron is finally defeated by the hands of elendil and gilgalat the nazgul would just fade away into the shadows until their master would once again regain his strength this means that we must now travel about a thousand years into the third age of middle-earth gondor and arnold have been founded and sauron finally has the strength to return coming as a shadow to the forested land of greenwood the great previously ruled by orifer who had been a cinder prince but he had fallen during the war of the last alliance so now the realm was ruled by his son thrandwill who becomes king of the woodland realm and is the same one that we meet in the hobbit adventures it is also worth noting that by this time that all five of the astari or the wizards were now located within middle-earth as sent by the valar to help and assist the peoples of middle earth against the dark power of sauron initially these wizards along with the others of the group known as the wise who were basically the most powerful of the elves at this time thought that this shadow was potentially one of the nazgul but in the end they will come to realize that it is truly sauron disguised as the necromancer it actually took until around the year 1300 of the third age before it could be more certain that the nazgul reappeared this was when the evils of the world began to multiply once again the orcs started appearing once more out of the misty mountains and evil men gathered to the witch king the lord of the nazcal in the kingdom of angmar in the north this is where the nazgul or more specifically the witch king starts to make his mark on middle-earth as it is from this realm that he leads his army in a war against arnold which officially begins in 1356 of the third age like the war of the owls and sauron i will go over this one more briefly here as a full in-depth video about the entirety of this war is in the works but as a quicker overview during the early years the witch king would lead an assault on none other than rivendale however alrond was able to break this siege and prevent them from doing any damage to him larger and then bring in reinforcements up north then when we get to 1409 the witch king would lead another great attack out of his fortress of khan doom at the north of the misty mountains but this time not against the alves this time on the dunedin in arnold it was not actually common knowledge at this point that the witch king was one of the nazgul who served sorrow they thought he was more just some powerful evil sorcerer but they certainly came to learn it arnold was made up of three kingdoms you had kardalan in the south rudawa in the east and arthedine in the west over time the witch king would lead his forces to victories over rudowa first where they killed many many of the dunadine the second to four was then kardalan but before moving on to dyne the witch king ordered the siege of the watchtower of amon sull also known as weathertop as this was the most central point to the entire region here they killed king arvalek but the surviving men took the palantir that was located here and took it back to fornost the capital of arthurdine the witch king followed them and siege was then laid upon fornost itself however reinforcements from both wand and kierdon forced a retreat back to khan doom for the witch king there was then a period of quiet in the war now as the witch king needed to re-gather the strength that he lost during this time he would send the barrel whites to haunt the barrowed bounds and the other eight of the nazgul are said to have returned to mortal while gondor was distracted with the war up north then in the year 1974 the witch king would believe he was strong enough once again and launch a sudden attack once again on fornost he won thornost fell therefore arnold fell there was a retaliation though led by ayano and kierdan as the battle of fornost would take place the witch king would underestimate his enemies and be defeated here once again having to fall back to khan doom however he would not make it there in time he was caught up by aeona's horses and glorfindle too and the power of glorfindle scared the witch king so much that he had to escape elsewhere somewhere into the shadows that no one knew it is in fact at this point that glofindor would speak the prophecy saying that not by the hand of man will he fall the witch king would end up back immortal now along with the rest of the nine then they would stay here for a time while they waited for their master to return the next big accomplishment of the nazgul comes at the turn of the next millennium in the year 2000 of the third age they leave mortal and besiege minis ethel with appendix b of the lord of the rings saying that it takes two years for this to fall where they then name it minas maldol with the capturing of this city they also obtain one of the palantiri that had avoided the witch king during the animal wars finally being able to give it to saron from this point on minus morgaul becomes a stronghold of the nazca being used as one of their main bases the same aeonur that had previously defeated the witch king in battle would go on to become king of gondor too and the witch king hated to see this he held such a special hatred for this man after his defeat and so he taunted him and challenged the king aeona initially was talked out of a reaction but seven years later the witch king came back with the same challenge again this time aeona did react and he rode with a small number of his soldiers up to the gates of minis morgul he entered those gates he never left no one knows what truly happened to him but it is safe to say it would not have been a pleasant end this is what led the line of the kings to break and so gondor now came under the lines of the stewards that is until aragorn would return at the time of the war of the ring after this point we have another period of peace this time known as the watchful peace as it is during this next 400 years that sauron has initially fled dolgodor attempting to hide from those of the white council he needs to hide his identity still and so the nazgul hid themselves too within the morgul veil in 2460 sauron returns to dolgodor signaling an end to the watchful peace as the nazgul continued to hide and only three years later the one ring reappears to deagle who was then killed by smeagol to gain it as his birthday present the first action of the nazgul after this is to build their armies and then attempt to capture skilleth in 2475 which was successful but only initially it was the steward of gondor at that time oromir who led the counter that drove out their armies and not just out of oscillate but out of ethilion too this caused the witch king to develop great fear of baramiya however army would come to die of a morgul wound so would not rule for more than 12 years now i would like to just quickly pause the video here for a moment to ask you all a question in this video i'm going over the full story of the nazgul but i'm not really delving into their powers and their abilities so would you like to see that as its own future video please if you would let me know by leaving a comment of powers and abilities below just to show that there is interest for that i thank you in advance now hundreds of years pass again until sauron has returned to mordor and openly declares himself he now sets a new task for the nazca find the one ring bring it to him he has learned the information of baggins and shire from the creature golem so will only now send his best to complete this task the ringwraiths who had no will but his own being each utterly subservient to the ring that has enslaved which sauron helped so on one hand you have these nazgul who are enslaved to their main objective of finding their way to this baggins but at the same time sarvan knew he must also test the strength of denethor in gondor to hide their true purpose of the nazgul being sent forth then when they managed to take osgiliath once again sauron had the nazgul cross the bridge in as much secrecy as they could to begin their quest and it is worth noting here too the witch king had remained in minas morgul along with six other of the nazgul and his second in command the only other named nazgul kamul the shadow of the east was in dolgodall with the last remaining nazgul ii therefore the witch king and six crossed the river in secret unclothed and invisible to the eye although anything near them felt their evil they traveled through the region of anorian over the ford event wait and then into the area of rohan known as the walt it is from here they reach the anduin once again and they receive their horses and meet up with kamul and the other nazgul at the field of calibra and so they now are all horsed and roped in black hence the name of the black riders that they receive kamal had learned that the stores who had once dropped by the gladden no longer lived there as they had deserted this land with no other homes of the halflings being discovered in the veils of anduin either and in case you didn't know the stalls were one of the three breeds of hobbits and these ones were the ones most comfortable with water despite kamal's information the witch king still wished to search in these lands and to the north hoping at the very least he might find the creature golem however he was still very wary of the power that came from lorien so he did not wish to go too close to these lands either they searched for a time but no joy was forthcoming and along with that the anger of saron grew and grew back immortal at their lack of success sauron even sent messengers with threats from the dark lore that filled even the witch king with great fear with these threats did come some useful information though that saruman had captured gandalf so there was a high chance that he had knowledge of the one ring's whereabouts even though he did not believe the wizard had it himself therefore straight to eisenguard they wrote and with great haste too gandalf had escaped orthanc by the time they reached eisendart but the nazgul stopped at its gates saruman knew here he was caught out to be an enemy to both sides and that only gaining the one ring now would save him but also that the circle of eisengard was too strong to be brought down without a greater force than simply the nine riders so the witch king would only hear the voice of the wizard ring out it is not a land that you look for it said i know what you seek though you do not name it i have it not as surely its servants perceive without telling for if i had it then you would bow before me and call me lord and if i knew where this thing was hit i should not be here but long gone before you take it there is one only whom i guess to have this knowledge mithrandia enemy of sarvon and since it is but two days since he departed from isengard seek him nearby saruman may be a traitor but his voice was still a powerful weapon of his so the nine took his word without question and so they chased after gandalf into rohan upon their travel they crossed paths with grima wormton who was travelling to eisenguard to warn sariman of gandalf reaching ederas and speaking words against him wormtongue revealed everything to the nazcal and quickly due to the terror that he felt the witch king let wilmtong live after he spilled everything only because he knew that the terror he felt was too great for him to ever talk about this encounter again the witch king led them west out of rohan and into the land of enetweth and then to tharbat from here they rode through minhyreth where they captured spies and servants of sorrowman one of which had charts prepared by saruman which showed and described the shia that they had been searching so hard for these spies were then sent to bree but now under the service of mordor not eisengut they came to san ford on the southern border of the shire which was in fact guarded by the dunadine to the witch king surprise although initially they attempted to hold the nazgul off the witch king proved too powerful and swept them away the nazgul now split up four entered the shire itself while the others pursued the rangers who fled to the east after which they returned to watch over the greenway also known as the north road that was the road which had initially connected arnold and gondor kamal was one of those to have entered hobbiton coming to question hamfast gamji samwise's father but came to learn frodo baggins had left the day before the next day one of the riders came close to frodo at woody end a wooded area of the east farthing of the shire however the arrival of a company of elves scared them off the next attempt by the nazca was to have one of them speak to farmer maggot in the marriage in the east bathing tomb and here ask him about any against that he may know of which led farmer maggot to send them back towards hobbiton the nazgul knew this information was old so they offered him gold if he let them know if baggins did appear this way elsewhere two of the riders had arrived in bree but with no joy initially at the prancing pony they then continued to arcat a small town to the east of brie still no luck for the nazgul a couple of days later the riders both raided crick hollow and the prancing pony quick hollow because this is where frodo claimed to the rest of the hobbits that he was moving to before he was going to secretly sneak off on his adventure and then of course the prancer pony was where they actually were however the hobbits had met up with aragon by this point and argon had taken them out of their hobbit rooms and into his own so the nazgul once again came within a blaze width of the hobbits but still no joy aragorn led the hobbits into the wild as the nazgul would now split up again with some of them chasing after gandalf who they found at weathertop having an almighty battle in the dead of night of which gandalf was victorious and then with gandalf having fought off these six he had four chase him as he escaped north with the other two then waiting and joining the witch king and the remaining two nazgul as they waited for aragorn and the hobbits so when they arrived these five attacked the group again at weathertop this is where the witch king stabbed frodo with the mogul blade before aragorn forced them back with flamin brands the witch king decided to pull back here because he felt like his job was done it was just a simple matter of time now before frodo turned into a wraith and voluntarily gave him the ring so when you accompany that with the effort it would have been of dealing with someone of the power of aragorn there was just no worth for it therefore three riders traveled to the last bridge that sat over the river hall well so they could cut off aragorn and the hobbits before they could reach rivendale however before aragorn and the hobbits could reach this point the alpha glove findl one of the mightiest elves in fact was sent to find aragorn and the hobbits so when he reached this bridge he managed to drive these nazcal away glovendale found the others but the nazgul still pursued them once they reached the ford of bruinin alvond and gandalf released a flood upon the chasing riders which took them off their horses and swept them all away gandalf explains more of what happens to frodo after he awakens in the many meetings chapter of the lord of the rings they knew that nothing could save you if the white horse could not the riders were too swift to overtake and too many to oppose on foot even glorefindle and aragorn together could not withstand all the nine at once when the ringwraith swept by your friends ran up behind close to the fore there is a small hollow beside the road masked by a few stunted trees there they hastily kindled fire for glorfindle knew a flood would come down if the riders tried to cross and then he would have to deal with any that were left on his side of the river the moment the flood appeared he rushed out followed by aragorn and the others with flaming browns called between fire and water and seeing an outlawed revealed in his wrath they were dismayed and their horses were stricken with madness three were carried away by the first assault of the float the others were now hurled into the water by their horses and overwhelmed so although gandalf said earlier that even aragorn and glor findle on foot could not withstand all of the nine together the nine were also very wary of glorfindle when seen in his full alvin wrath now the nazgul had been swept away all they could do at this point was return to mordor and regroup and recover this does not take long though for a short time later they would appear out of the black lands once again this time on their fell beasts also referred to as winged nazcal one of these would be shot down by legolas while the fellowship were travelling on the river anduin close to san gabriel meanwhile the witch king would remain initially within minis morgul preparing his army for a full invasion of gondor while also being given an added demonic force by sauron ii increasing his great power it would not take long before the witch king received his orders march of 3019 the time had come the witch king emptied minas morgul and he led his army upon a black horse to make their way through ethylene and onto australia as they left minis morgul the witch king could sense the presence of frodo in the one ring but he ignored this and he continued with his orders the witch king would easily take auskillieth as his presence pierced the hearts of the defenders with terror and so would push on to lay siege to minas tirith just before this faramir brother of boromir and son of danathor steward of gondor had been wounded by the black breath however he had managed to get back to minas tirith before it was too late now ministereth was under siege a grand army was at its walls with several of the nazgul mounted on foul beasts leading it and their first move fire the heads of those they had killed over the walls with their catapults a cruel move by a cruel being the witch king then used his sorcery to empower the battering ram grunt named after the weapon of morgoth so that on the third attempt it shattered the great gates of minas tirith the witch king attempted to be the first to enter the city however he was met by none other than gandalf the white upon shadowfax and i feel the mentioning of this deserves the passage from the book you cannot enter here said gandalf and the huge shadow halt it go back to the abyss prepared for you go back fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your master go the black rider flung back his hood and behold he had a kingly crown yet upon no head visible was it set the red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark from her mouth and seen there came a deadly laughter he said old fool this is my hour do you not know death when you see it die now and curse in me and with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade gandalf did not move and in that very moment a way behind his some court out of the city a croaked shrill and clear he crowed wrecking nothing of wizardry or war welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn and as if it answered there came from far away another note horns horns horns in dark midolawim's sides they dimly echoed great horns of the north wildly blowing rohan had come at last so before an epic battle could ensue from this confrontation the witch king left mounted one of his foul beasts and made off to deal with the rohirim he located king theoden of rohan within the battlefield and made for him a dart took down theoden's horse snowman which fell upon the king crushing him then some warrior appeared before him some warrior named dern helm the witch king had not that is until they revealed themselves to be none other than eowyn niece of theoden a woman the witch king had a flash of glorfindle's prophecy but surely he thought it would come from some hands more powerful than this he made forward eowyn's first move decapitate the foul beast he sat on this angered the witch king even more and he knocked her down with his great mace however at this point something unexpected to the witch king happened a certain hobbit a halfling mario doc brandy buck snuck up behind him and stabbed the witch king in the leg with a blade of westerness that he had received from tom bombadil months before after being saved from the barrow downs this dagger broke the spell that laid upon the witch king and then eowyn drove her sword through where its head would be the sword shattered but it did its job the witch king had been defeated by a woman and a hobbit and not just this the battle of the pelano fields had been lost by the forces of sauron too that spells the end for the lord of the nazca the witch king but what about the other eight well they survived the battle of the palinol fields and then were at the black gates when the army of the west attacked being part of the force that met them there however during this battle when the one ring was placed upon frodo's finger within mount doom they were ordered by sauron to fly with more speed than they could muster to get it before it was too late however their fastest was not quick enough the ring fell into the fires along with smeagle and the remaining nazgul were all caught up within the eruption that came from it and so with the loss of the ring and the defeat of sarah the nazgul could no longer exist so there we have it a look at the full story of the nazgul saron's greatest servants these powerful dark wraiths are shrouded in mystery we have long periods of time without knowing much of their actions and we know virtually nothing of their origins the little we know is that potentially three are said to come from numenor with maybe even the witch king himself being one of these as he is the most powerful of the nine but that's a guess and apart from that we only get the true name of one and that came from the unfinished tale stories where we get kamal who came from the easterlings and even then he might have been a king he might have been someone lesser we cannot know for sure we must remember from one of the earlier quotes from this video that the nazca became evil and mighty after they got the rings of power this means that technically they could have been good or evil before they could have been kings queens great warriors or peasants nobodies it was the rings that made them equal and we have nothing that tells us what came before obviously it makes more sense for sauron to give them to more powerful and noble men for his greater cause but it doesn't mean he did that for all nine but nonetheless these ringways these nazgul they were the most terrible servants of sauron and they were fully deserving of that title so i hope you all enjoyed this video today but this now leads me to my question for you all today which is do you think any of the nazgul may be given backstories in the new the lord of the rings on prime show would you like to see this happen or do you think it would be a disservice to talking if they did after all in the shadow of games they did give the nazgul some backstories admittedly a couple of very strange ones but a lot of people weren't happy about that so if they went with different backgrounds could you perhaps get on board with it please let me know all of your thoughts and opinions on this subject in the comments section below now firstly to finish up i gotta quickly mention our other channels which will all be linked in the description below so please check them out and also to shout out our patrons firstly we have our divine power team members of kevin abraham and matt you are all awesome and a big thanks to our fire demon here members of nasheed denver steel and gregory and as well i cannot forget the words of staff to your members of john andrew and finrod feligund you are all true legends of the broherum finally if you have managed to reach the very end of this video with me today and you have enjoyed what you've seen then please hit that subscribe button and hit the bell icon too so that you could be notified of future uploads this may sound like a nothing thing to you but it does massively massively help out the channel and it only takes a couple of clicks so thank you if you have managed to reach the very end of this video with me today and i will see you next time on the broken sword [Music]

Channel: The Broken Sword

Views: 823,109

Keywords: The Broken Sword, The Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings Lore, Middle Earth Lore, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Tolkien Lore, the nazgul, full story of the nazgul, journeys of the nazgul, ringwraiths, what happened to the nazgul, origins of the nazgul, origins of the ringwraiths, why is the witch king more powerful, how strong are the nazgul, nazgul scream, nazgul theme, nazgul chase, witch king vs gandalf, nazgul before the lord of the rings, wraith

Id: eMtg5-dnstg

Length: 31min 42sec (1902 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 17 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Elven_Overlord]

We may not get all of them, but I would suspect that the origin of at least a few of them, particularly the Witch-King, will be a prominent part of the narrative. At least three were Numenorians, so I can't see Amazon passing on that.

I know it wouldn't be accurate to the canon timeline, but if I was betting, my bet would be that they make Ar-Pharazon or someone in his inner circle the eventual Witch-King.

[u/[deleted]]

We could.

However, just because we can get something doesn't mean we will - or even should.

Let me explain:

One reason that the books and existing films (I'm referring to the LOTR films here) work so well is that they don't explain everything. So much is left unexplored or merely hinted at. I don't recall the films, for example, ever explaining what "Forth Eorlingas" means, or the narrative of the books giving insight into the Cats of Queen Beruthiel (the narrative, not the appendices).

Those gaps and casual references to things the reader does not know yet the characters are aware of, helps to build and maintain the illusion of depth.

And then, even when the professor gives explanations in his other material, he usually frames it as "it is said" or "some believe" which inserts ambiguity into the story he is presenting. Is this the truth of the matter? Or is this merely what some believe or want to believe?

I hope this upcoming production doesn't attempt to answer everything.

For example, even though we are rumored to see the creation of the orcs, I would much prefer to leave that question unanswered. Are orcs slime and stone given life by the dark powers? Are they beasts corrupted and enhanced by the hatred of the same? Are orcs descendents of elves who have been warped and corrupted beyond the ability of their kind to rehabilitate? Have they been crossbred with humans - or even dwarves?

Depending on who you ask in the world, they may provide any of these answers. An elf, for example, may prefer to believe they have nothing in common with orcs and find a concept unthinkable and even offensive, whereas a dwarf or man may have no trouble with the elvish origin of orcs, preferring this origin over alternatives.

Leave some mystery and ambiguity in the world. Don't let the audience know significantly more than the characters within do.

[u/Stickybeebae]

Hoping we get one or two but not all

[u/Random-Hypocrite]

The last time we got origin stories for them was in the Shadow of War game and that was atrocious. So no, I hope that we don't get them again in the Amazon show.