Sauron vs The Night King

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

The ring only makes mortals invisible.

Sauron isn't mortal.

[choptop]

The ring only makes mortals invisible.

Sauron isn't mortal.

I thought Ringwraiths were invisible?

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

I thought Ringwraiths were invisible?

Because they were mortals turned wraiths, because of the rings they wore. Invisible to everyone save the one wearing the ruling ring (the One Ring).

[Sharpandpointies]

The Nazgûl are invisible because they’ve been horribly transformed by their rings into spirits. They no longer need any rings to become invisible; in fact; there is some indication that they are not even wearing their rings.

[Sharpandpointies]

Blitzed by CoR.

[choptop]

Because they were mortals turned wraiths, because of the rings they wore. Invisible to everyone save the one wearing the ruling ring (the One Ring).

So it only makes makes mortals invisible but can turn mortals into immortal spirits who are also invisible? Seems like the same difference to me or am I missing something?

[Sharpandpointies]

Breaking it down.

You're a mortal. You put the Ring on. You're invisible. You take the Ring off. You become visible. There's discussion as to whether or not this happens because you slip partly into the spirit world, but forget about that for now, just consider that it's invisibility.

You wear the Ring for a long time. It stops you from aging. But it's an unnatural effect, and slowly but surely, in a very painful way and over many, many years, you become a wraith (hobbits are more resistant to this, and we end up with something that looks like Gollum).

You are now a wraith. You take the Ring off, you are still a wraith. You will always be a wraith. Being invisible, as a tortured spirit, is part of the wraith package. It doesn't matter if you wear the Ring or not, invisibility is your natural state. It is no longer the Ring that is making you disappear, and really, it can’t anymore because you’re not mortal.

So that's the difference.

[Captain Smith]

The head of the Nazgul does get down and dirty in H2H, so he has some physical presence. Usually wraiths are not physical but scare the crap out of you, take over control or use ghostly TK. Since they control those flying whatever they are, they are usually for air support, picking you up, dropping stuff on you and scaring you with sonic annoyance. They do ride horses.

So my question is what can the rest of the Nazgul do? Any physical feats by themselves? Didn't one of them stab Frodo?

[Saitou Hajime]

Is that feat applicable?

[Sharpandpointies]

The head of the Nazgul does get down and dirty in H2H, so he has some physical presence. Usually wraiths are not physical but scare the crap out of you, take over control or use ghostly TK. Since they control those flying whatever they are, they are usually for air support, picking you up, dropping stuff on you and scaring you with sonic annoyance. They do ride horses.

So my question is what can the rest of the Nazgul do? Any physical feats by themselves? Didn't one of them stab Frodo?

So, the Úlairi were certainly DANGEROUS, especially to mortals. They could use blades, as an example, most of which likely had some kind of sorcery on them. For example, Frodo got stabbed by a Morgul-knife (by the Witch-King, actually); when that happened, the tip broke off in the wound (it does this) and started actively working its way to his heart while slowly weakening him with its sorcery. Aragorn noted that once it killed him, he would become a wraith under the control of the Nazgúl.

Even after surviving this and being healed by Elrond, and after Sauron's destruction, Frodo was sick on the anniversary of this injury every year afterward.

They could also employ the Black Breath, which was basically a sorcerous/necromantic aura around them that could render people unconscious or even sicken them badly. This would especially happen if people came into contact with them (and most importantly the Witch-king), another thing that was killing Frodo while he was struggling with his injury by the Morgul-Blade and what almost killed both Merry and Éowyn after the battle of the Pelannor fields - all three characters attacked the Witch-King with blades (which were destroyed in the doing), all three suffered from this. Blades tended to just...break when they hit the Witch-King, another thing Aragorn pointed out, even ones specifically made to damage him/hopefully mess up his supernatural protections (ie, the Barrows-Down blades originally made through Númenorean craft during the old war between Arnor and the Witch-King of Angmar).

On top of that, they had supernatural auras of terror, the Witch-King's being the most potent. It may or may not have been connected with the Black Breath.

Basically, their greatest use for Sauron was in bringing terror - breaking morale, forcing people to do his bidding, terrifying people into surrendering to his will. Also for hunting the Ring later on, given nobody would mess with them and they could, to some extent, sense it.

We don't know their full powers because we don't get into them in the series, but they were dangerous enough that a group of them (not even all nine) could trap Gandalf on Weathertop and force him to defend himself all night long, to the point where when Aragorn and the Hobbits later showed up the hill was all scorched and burned.

As for the Witch-King himself, he was specifically granted greater powers by Sauron as of later in the series. How many of the powers he showed at that point on were from this upgrade or from his own sorcerous abilities is open to conjecture, but....

1. He could deploy a supernatural aura that literally shut down a miles-long battle-line/siege - everyone on both sides were basically frozen, all fighting stopped, no more arrows, etc;
2. He used sorcerous spells of power that could damage/weaken Númenorean construction, which is a pretty impressive thing;
3. He carried a flaming sword, for whatever that means.

[Sharpandpointies]

Is that feat applicable?

For Movie Sauron? Sure, it happened.

For Book Sauron? We just know that Gandalf snuck into his summer cottage (Dol Guldur) while looking for Thorin's dad and bumped into him; it didn't go well for Gandalf, who basically was forced to flee. In telling the story he states something like 'I barely got out of there alive'.

That's all we have.

It does show that even weakened (at that time he had yet to regain his full strength) Sauron was easily more than a match for a guy who could fight a Balrog for 10 days straight/create lightning that wreathes a mountaintop and is visible for leagues away.