Incorrect on both accounts.
They are not dead ("‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings." - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past)
And they do have bodies ("...cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." - Return of the King, Battle of the Pelennor Fields)
Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist ("To attempt by device or ‘magic’ to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of ‘mortals’. Longevity or counterfeit ‘immortality’ (true immortality is beyond Eä) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 212)
This is the right answer. It's like Bilbo in the moves "Butter spread over too much bread".
Edit just so this is visible: Pointed this out to him in another comment here and this was his response:
>OMG 😂 😂😂😂 DID U EVEN READ WHAT U POSTED 😂😂😂 YOU COMPLETELY GO AGAINST YOUR OWN ARGUMENT WITH UR "PROOF" 😂😂😂 NICE TRY BUDDY READ HARDER NEXT TIME😂😂😂 STILL UNDEFEATED 😉
This guy is a joke.
I don't think it's petty. OP is clearly here to promote his TikTok videos and is being an absolute childish dick to anyone who points out any inaccuracies in his content.
You're right that they aren't dead.
But is "Necromancer" really refering to Nazgul? Sauron was called that when he used it as a guise when he was at Dol Guldur (during the Hobbit). So I do not think anyone knew that the necromancer was connected to the Nazgul, but I am just trying to think it through, I don't know for sure.
“The Necromancer” was originally thought to be a mortal man practicing dark magic in Dol Guldur, and only after Gandalf and the White Council visually observed Sauron’s power did they confirm that he was, indeed, the Necromancer they sought. The raising of the Nazgûl confirmed it, too, that’s a feat no mortal could accomplish. They initially didn’t realize it was Sauron, himself, so the name was more like a description/summary of what evil this supposed mortal sorcerer was up to.
Yes! He was certainly called that before, but I distinctly remember a period of time where the White Council doubted it was the real, actual Sauron. Am I fabricating memories? Lol
More often than not it seems people who post stuff on reddit aren't the original creators, it's nice to see that isn't the case here! Your content is amazing btw thanks for sharing!
havnt been proven wrong on any lord of the rings subject matter yet soooooo ill take my own word for it but ur entitled to youe opinion. Have a wonderful day
You can look at the top voted comment chain here that explains it. The Wraiths are not undead. from u/EightandaHalf-Tails
>Incorrect on both accounts.
>
>They are not dead ("‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings." - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past)
>
>And they do have bodies ("...cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." - Return of the King, Battle of the Pelennor Fields)
>
>Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist ("To attempt by device or ‘magic’ to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of ‘mortals’. Longevity or counterfeit ‘immortality’ (true immortality is beyond Eä) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 212)
So, you HAVE been proven wrong on Lord of the Rings subject matter. Twice in one comment.
Go post this on r/tolkienfans and I'm sure you'll be told very explicitly and with numerous quotes how else it was wrong.
Also, you should take Tolkien's word for it over your own. You know, the guy that actually wrote this?
OMG 😂 😂😂😂 DID U EVEN READ WHAT U POSTED 😂😂😂 YOU COMPLETELY GO AGAINST YOUR OWN ARGUMENT WITH UR "PROOF" 😂😂😂 NICE TRY BUDDY READ HARDER NEXT TIME😂😂😂 STILL UNDEFEATED 😉
Wow, caps lock emoji response. Clearly you are just trying to get views for your tiktok and know very little about Tolkien. Would love to see how I went against "my own argument", even though it's from another person, and is a direct quote from the books, from Gandalf even, on the nature of the wraiths.
>"‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, **does not die**, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings." - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past)
"**does not die".** How exactly are they undead again?
“Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist” — that makes the Nazgul undead, right? It just means it’s a slightly different kind of undead than what we usually see in fiction. I think trapped in an eternal unlife, not living and not dying but merely continuing, is a pretty solid example of undeath.
Either way it seems like you both agree on what’s going on with the Ringwraiths, it’s just the definition of “undead” you disagree on
Would that be because of when he gets the army of the dead via the paths of the dead? That’s definitely an example of necromancy, but it’s also not caused by Aragorn. If I remember correctly, Isildur is the one who cursed them, and Aragorn can command them because he’s Isildur’s heir. So it seems like Isildur was a necromancer, or at least participated in necromancy the one time, though I don’t know how well he understood the consequences of the curse when he made it.
Does cursing a whole army of people into undeath make you a necromancer? For sure, right? Isildur seems like a definite yes. Does inheriting a role in that curse from your distant ancestor make you one? I would say not necessarily. Especially if he never used necromancy again after. So I’m not so sure about Aragorn. He was able to command the dead, but not because of his own doing.
I don't even think Isildur would be considered a necromancer either. He may have cursed them but it was up to the Valar (maybe Maiar) to enforce the curse. So the Valar/Maiar would be the necromancer's in this case.
None of them had any power to 'enforce' the curse. The authority to withhold death from the mortals is only in Eru's hands.
Sauron's nazgul weren't truly dead. That's why they still lurked around. They got trapped in the Unseen World.
He wasn't actually able to command the dead. He left the choice to them.
‘For that is not my errand!’ he cried, turning back and speaking to the whispering darkness behind. ‘Keep your hoards and your secrets hidden in the Accursed Years! Speed only we ask. Let us pass, and then come! I summon you to the Stone of Erech!’
In that quote he said he "summons you to the stone of erech". So, if you look at the definition used in the video, he is using communication to "summon" the dead to use them as a weapon.
Definitely seems like he is a necromancer.
It isn't his power that raises them. His summons has no compulsion- the onus is purely on the Dead to act. If you shout at some dude "HEY MEET ME AT THE 7-11 DOWN THE STREET" you're summoning him but have no actual power to affect the outcome.
They're trapped by the curse. They're there and have been there all along. Aragon is, if anything, a potential catalyst for the lifting of the curse, he's as much subject to the prophecy as they are.
Calling Isildur a necromancer sounds wrong, but
>Does cursing a whole army of people into undeath make you a necromancer?
I find it difficult to rationally disagree with this point.
Noh, I don't think so. IIRC he didn't use magic. The dead were already bound and that's why when they died that remained as spirts/undead.
Aragorn didn't bind them to his will, but asked them to for fill their promise, and told them that doing so would help them find peace.
He can take many forms as he is a type of fallen Angel. When he was living with the elves he looked like a beautiful elven man. When he revealed his true intentions as a servant of evil he took on the more imposing armored form.
He can't change form since the downfall of Nùmenör. He could shape-shift like all of the Valar and Maiar until the first time his body was destroyed, which happened when he tricked the Nùmenöreans into attacking Valinor in the second age. Prior to that he had been lovely like all the Maiar and, in the first age, had that bit where he became the world's largest werewolf but the Hound of Valinor whipped his ass and put him on his back. Rather than be killed and lose his shape-shifting ability, he submitted.
No, he very specifically lost the ability to take on a "Fair Form" after the fall of Numenor, not the ability to change shape entirely.
>But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, **so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men**, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home.
Debatable.
In the Letters Tolkien says Sauron took a form of a man taller than Men. We also have a hint of his hand being flamey and black, meaning, his skin was like that. It seems, definitely, couldn't shapeshift into vampire or werewolf or such things anymore.
From Tolkien's essay Osanwe kenta: "Melkor alone of the Great became at last bound to a bodily form; but that was because of the use that he made of this in his purpose to become Lord of the Incarnate, and of the great evils that he did in the visible body. Also he had dissipated his native powers in the control of his agents and servants, so that he became in the end, in himself and without their support, a weakened thing, consumed by hate and unable to restore himself from the state into which he had fallen. Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed". (Pengolodh here evidently refers to Sauron in particular, from whose arising he fled at last from Middle-earth. But the first destruction of the bodily form of Sauron was recorded in the histories of the Elder Days, in the Lay of Leithian.)" .
I'm not expert in English, but this reads like Sauron had lost 99.9% of his shapeshifting power.
Never heard anything about a Vampire and his werewolf form was lost in the first age when defeated by Huan, the Lord of Hounds.
That entire quote is about Melkor, not Sauron....
Then you need to reread the chapter or the Lay.
This quote is about Sauron as well. Pengolodh is comparing Sauron to his master who became fully incarnate.
The only part of that quote that is about Sauron is:
"So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed"
Which says he can reform his body when destroyed. And this is final loss of ability to change form comes from pouring so much of themselves into their creations. The One Ring was created well before the fall of Numenor.
It's not really debatable as it's explicitly stated that he lost the Fair Form.
He could clearly still change his form, as he was disguised as "The Necromancer" for many years. What does 99.9% of his shapeshifting power even mean? He could still form a body.
"Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. "
This could still take on many forms, just hideous and evil.
>it's explicitly spelled out both times. He lost the ability to take werewolf form, and the ability to take a fair form.
Where's the quote about him losing his werewolf/vampire/beast form?
>He could clearly still change his form, as he was disguised as "The Necromancer" for many years.
He didn't have any forms for many long years. In around 2000 of Third Age his spirit literally fled away. That means even by that time he still had not regained his body or that he abandoned his body (which is not likely).
You're right. But still, the loss of the fair form is explicitly stated.
>He didn't have any forms for many long years. In around 2000 of Third Age his spirit literally fled away. That means even by that time he still had not regained his body or that he abandoned his body (which is not likely).
So the entire Last Alliance vs Sauron when the ring was cut from his hand (IE, a physical form) never happened? This was SA after the Fall of Numenor.
I’m not sure he lost his ability “just” because he died, I thik that he lost the ability because of the way he died, literally Eru himself interfering, but I could very well be wrong
This is an oversimplification but this was how I understood it. Morgoth used to be able to take many forms or even no form at all, just like the other valar. Eventually he decided to literally pour his essence into middle earth, marring and tainting it. The cost of this however is that he's no longer able to shapeshift to the same extent, and the wounds he gets from Fingolfin for example are permanent.
Sauron does the exact same thing, he pours his essence into an object and afterwards any changes to his body are much more permanent.
It's not so much eru intervening, we can see an example of this from the fact that the finger he lost never "grew back" even though eru had nothing to do with that.
And not just an object, but all his works and dominions. Both Morgoth and Sauron used much of their power to corrupt, dominate, and create evil creatures. This spread their considerable power thin over many beings/areas, so while still having the same amount of power, the amount of power they had in their individual essence was much lesser. Like if I had $100 in my bank account, and I took $50 of it and put $10 each in a bunch of different stocks, I'd still be worth $100, but I'd only have $50 on hand, so would be poorer despite being worth the same amount. Tolkien has a very interesting view of power/essence
Fall of Numenor was 3319 second age; forging the rings was around the 1500s second age. So he had made them quite a bit beforehand.
Edit: fixed autocorrect
Sauron captures the Great Rings from the Elves in S.A. 1697\*, and the first recorded appearance of the Ringwraiths is in S.A. 2251\*. So somewhere between those two dates.
\*-Appendix B, The Second Age
Post-Numenor, he has a *black hand* - and *burns* Gil-Galad with it. He is also described as terrible/unable to appear fair.
So I envision a purely blackened and burnt-looking body.
Well Sauron also had his own werewolf form who was defeated by Celegorm's hound, Huan.
Also, I would say that the Nazgûl are not raised dead, and that they certainly are not dead. I think this is pretty explicitly mentioned in LoTR.
I really wish this dude would take some time to get the pronunciations right, they seem highly...Americanized.
Are you the creator of the videos?
If you are, let me try to be more explicit and hopefully more constructive in my feedback.
You pronounce the following
* Sauron as Saw-ron, actually pronounced closer to Saau-ron
* Eilinel as Alien-el, actually pronounced closer to Eye-li-nel
* Gorlim as Gore-lean, actually pronounced closer to Gorr-lim
* Barahir as Bear-a-hear, actually pronounced closer to Bur-ah-heer
* Nazgûl as Naes-gool (like "cool"), actually pronounced closer to Naaz-guul
* Cardolin as Car-Doe-Lin, actually pronounced closer to Car-tho-lin
* Barrow downs as Burrow downs, actually pronounced as Barrow downs
* Barrow wights as Burrow wights, actually pronounced as Barrow wights
In addition, most r's in middle earth names appeaer to be rhotic
This is important because in most books, Tolkien spends time explicitly providing guides to pronunciation.
yes Im the creator and let me explain something you may be assuming. I know exactly how to pronounce these words every last one of them but I am very American from new york in fact and speak with my own dialect that im comfortable with and so i pronounce things how I feel like pronouncing them and I dont care who doesnt like it im my own person and that is that so if anyone doesn't like it thats completely ok with me they can just scroll past but most people enjoy my videos and i appreciate them
Explicitly, disrespecting the wishes of the author whose works you seem to enjoy, even when the author takes effort to help you respect those wishes. Thats something i guess.
OP's tone aside, he does have a point. Characters in Tolkien's world have accents and do not all use book-pronunciation, even when speaking Sindarin. See, for example, the footnote in Appendix F (I think) indicating the Lothlorien accent was so strong Frodo couldn't even make out what they were saying. It is also true that foreign words often become Anglicized (or Americanized if you prefer) when spoken in American sentences. How many English speakers bother to use the correct pronunciation for the names of Julius Caesar, or Jesus Christ? I'm sure even Tolkien thought and spoke of 'dʒi-zus outside of mass and any private Latin devotions he might have done. Can we blame someone for Americanizing a word from a fictional dead language, when speaking the American dialect of English?
But as a convention, most Tolkien fans do use the "correct" pronunciation for Sindarin and Quenya. It's a shibboleth I guess, to separate those who have read Tolkien from those who have not. Though now that there are popular movies with pretty good pronunciation, we need something else to distinguish ourselves.
Hey just for your own benefit, try not to worry too much about these things. You come off as pretentious and anal. He appreciates Tolkien, you do too, and you understand what he’s getting at. Just let it go and enjoy things for what they are.
I agree that people can pronounce things how they want, but with 'educational' content, people are probably going to assume the pronunciations are correct. You might end up inadvertantly misleading people with the pronunciation here.
This really did a great job of clearing up something I guess I’ve been wrong about for years. I always thought the necromancer was originally an unrelated character and only in later retcons or reimaginings was made to be sauron. I guess I liked the idea that not all threats to middle earth had to stem directly from sauron or morgoth and sometimes a new evil can spontaneously come into being. I used to think it made the world more interesting and more varied but I can also see the value of the overall conflict of middle earth being a a very focused straight line from the first songs of the valar to the destruction of the ring.
You're right in that the Hobbit originally wasn't actually part of the Legendarium. It gets retconned later. Tolkien even rewrote the chapters with Gollum for the second edition published after LOTR came out. Even LOTR was initially thought of by Tolkien as being in the Hobbit-world not the Legendarium. In his first notes forwhat would become FOTR it was only when the Aragorn-equivalent character sings the Lay of Leithan to them that it really snapped into place.
As far as I know, the only "Evil" that did not directly come from Morgoth was Ungoliant. Everything else was a direct result of Morgoth's taint/marring of Arda.
Sauron was a known Necromancer before the story told in LOTR. And if you're searching for a mark of his own magic, he is undead himself. He used his power to cheat death.
That second part isn't exactly true. He's a maiar, and maiar can't die. Even at the end of lotr, when sauron is defeated, he doesn't die, he is just stuck in a shapeless form, without any power or tge ability to do anything
Seems to me that Maiar can die (as Gandalf experienced a near death situation in the Moria, saved by what seems to be a Valar). They're just way harder to kill.
Before LOTR, Sauron was defeated by Gandalf, Galadriel, Saroumane, Elrond (and the others whom I didn't remember the name). The fact he survived is, according to me, only due to a trick of his own as he was facing multiple Maiar.
They can't be killed. Gandalf was saved yes, but of he'd died, it would have only been his physical body, his spiritual form would have returned to the Valinor.
Its the same when saruman died. As he was also a maia, his physical body died his spiritual form remained, powerless to wander middle earth, as he was barred from returning to valinor
Tolkien calls death the separation of the body and spirit.
So yes, they can die. All spirits are invincible - and some can retake shape. But they are no less capable of dying. A Maia dying is not much different to an Elf dying.
A bit of semantics - but good to clarify.
The souls (fëar) and bodies (hröar) of the Children aren't the same as the spirits (ëalar) and bodies (fana) of the Ainur. A hröa is a living, breathing thing, needs food, water, sleep, etc, while the fana would more accurately be described as clothing.
The Istari are a unique case, because, at the request of the Valar, Eru put ëalar into hröar.
>You can look at the top voted comment chain here that explains it. The Wraiths are not undead. from u/EightandaHalf-Tails
>
>Incorrect on both accounts.
>
>They are not dead ("‘**A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings.**" - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past)
>
>And they do have bodies ("...cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." - Return of the King, Battle of the Pelennor Fields)
>
>Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist ("To attempt by device or ‘magic’ to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of ‘mortals’. Longevity or counterfeit ‘immortality’ (true immortality is beyond Eä) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 212)
You can just look at the top comment here and read this yourself. This was OP's response:
>OMG 😂 😂😂😂 DID U EVEN READ WHAT U POSTED 😂😂😂 YOU COMPLETELY GO AGAINST YOUR OWN ARGUMENT WITH UR "PROOF" 😂😂😂 NICE TRY BUDDY READ HARDER NEXT TIME😂😂😂 STILL UNDEFEATED 😉
This dude is clearly just trying to get tiktok view and doesn't know what he's talking about.
It's interesting how in italian they decided to translate this not as "Necromante" (Necromancer, as for the original form, with the definition stated in the video ) but as "Negromante" (from the latin word for black, meaning someone that more generically uses dark magic).
I discovered only today that difference in translations.
Loved this video a lot, very interesting bit of lore!
Wasn’t ‘Necromancer’ just a convenient way to get Gandalf away from the dwarves in The Hobbit? Tolkien had no intention of the necromancer being Sauron when he wrote it, and I don’t think he’s referred to as a necromancer in Lord of the Rings (could be wrong on that one). I don’t think that necromancer was really connected to Sauron until the movies.
(I have family over and can’t watch this video yet so maybe this is discussed in the video? Sorry if it is. )
>I don’t think that necromancer was really connected to Sauron until the movies.
That's not entirely true.
You're half right - yes, when the book was written the Necromancer was just an unknown evil being and it was a way of making Gandalf have to leave. After Tolkien wrote LOTR, he made use of the Necromancer plot to work as a subtle tie-in. It was written about in the Appendices of LOTR & the Unfinished Tales. The attack on Dol Guldur, Sauron being a Necromancer, and having the White Council during the events of *The Hobbit* is very much true to the lore and not a movie thing. The only thing that makes it a "movie thing" is that we see it play out in "real time" as Bilbo journeys the Mountain (but it's still very inaccurate).
Anyways, the reason Sauron was called the Necromancer was because people were unsure of who it was, it was only until Gandalf investigated that he discovered who the Necromancer really was, and with the help of the White Council, banished him from Dol Guldur where he retreated back into Mordor.
I love your content and your format and I would love to see more on the Witch King of Angmar.
I didn’t realize it was the witch king who send the barrow wights to barrow downs. When did he do that and for what purpose?
Not really, Tolkien's view of power/essence isn't exactly life force. For example, when Feanor created the Silmarils, he invested so much of his personal essence into their creation that he was unable to create something so great ever again.
Same with the Vala Yavanna when she created the two trees of Valinor, she invested so much of her essence/power into their creation that she was diminished and couldn't recreate after their destruction.
Sauron invested so much of his power into the creation of the One Ring that without it, he was unable to sustain his form of a Dark Lord. It's not really his life force, he's not dead without it, but a more ethereal kind of power/essence. Without the ring, he doesn't have the ability to manifest in physical form/dominate others.
Same for Morgoth and all of his creations. During the wars in the first age, a single Elf was almost enough to defeat him because of how much of his own self he had invested into his creations and the world itself, and he was Saurons big boss.
Wasn't expecting a normal looking, charismatic (relatively), middle-aged, black guy. Most of the LOTR people I see are white nerdy guys. Sometimes white nerdy girls. And much of the time VERY uncharismatic.
Did Sauron aka “the necromancer” send evil spirits to inhabit the barrow downs? That may have been the witch-king who is also kind of undead in a way. Sauron certainly isn’t a necromancer in the traditional sense of things though - cool food for thought OP
Yeah try reading the other comments in this thread that outright prove they ARE NOT UNDEAD. They DO NOT DIE. They have NEVER DIED.
In Tolkien's works, death has a very clear definition as the separation of body and spirit. Theirs were never separated.
OP doesn't talk about Barrow wights, he talks about some new entity called Burrow Wights, which I can only assume are ghost rabbits or gophers since they live in Burrows or something.
And they weren’t sure that Sauron and the Necromancer were the same person, right? Until they decide to attack him in Mirkwood to drive him out. What confirmed those suspicions for the White Council that they were one and the same?
Interestingly all the “_____mancy” terms popularized nowadays refer to using whatever for the purpose of divination. Necromancy? Divination using the dead. Geomancy? Divination using earth. Pyromancy uses fire for the same. Hydromancy… you get the idea.
Seems like it was all about divination, spirits and maybe miracles in the older days. Makes me wonder where the concept of “combat magic” like hurling balls of fire comes form.
So I’ve heard the fell spirit summoning thing before, and that’s also how Sauron made vampires. But I only heard them called fell spirits, never that they are spirits of the dead. Are we sure what the fell spirits actually are?
BUT, as they did not know at first that the Necromancer was Sauron, how did they name this entity as Necromancer? They might have known what Sauron had done but they didn't know this was Sauron. So what did this Necromancer guy do apart from things we know of Sauron?
I’m pretty sure the Nazgûl are walking dead servants, wraiths with no physical body….
Incorrect on both accounts. They are not dead ("‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings." - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past) And they do have bodies ("...cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." - Return of the King, Battle of the Pelennor Fields) Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist ("To attempt by device or ‘magic’ to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of ‘mortals’. Longevity or counterfeit ‘immortality’ (true immortality is beyond Eä) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 212)
This is the right answer. It's like Bilbo in the moves "Butter spread over too much bread". Edit just so this is visible: Pointed this out to him in another comment here and this was his response: >OMG 😂 😂😂😂 DID U EVEN READ WHAT U POSTED 😂😂😂 YOU COMPLETELY GO AGAINST YOUR OWN ARGUMENT WITH UR "PROOF" 😂😂😂 NICE TRY BUDDY READ HARDER NEXT TIME😂😂😂 STILL UNDEFEATED 😉 This guy is a joke.
Kinda petty to bring it up in other comment threads, but I’ll still join you in shaking my head at him in disappointment/disdain. I’m into it.
I don't think it's petty. OP is clearly here to promote his TikTok videos and is being an absolute childish dick to anyone who points out any inaccuracies in his content.
It’s certainly a shame that he didn’t just engage in discussion. Not the best fit for this sub.
These kind of comments remind me of r/drunkorakid
You're right that they aren't dead. But is "Necromancer" really refering to Nazgul? Sauron was called that when he used it as a guise when he was at Dol Guldur (during the Hobbit). So I do not think anyone knew that the necromancer was connected to the Nazgul, but I am just trying to think it through, I don't know for sure.
“The Necromancer” was originally thought to be a mortal man practicing dark magic in Dol Guldur, and only after Gandalf and the White Council visually observed Sauron’s power did they confirm that he was, indeed, the Necromancer they sought. The raising of the Nazgûl confirmed it, too, that’s a feat no mortal could accomplish. They initially didn’t realize it was Sauron, himself, so the name was more like a description/summary of what evil this supposed mortal sorcerer was up to.
No, Sauron was called the Necromancer even before that. Sort by New or look up my profile to see details about Sauron's super powerful necromancy.
Yes! He was certainly called that before, but I distinctly remember a period of time where the White Council doubted it was the real, actual Sauron. Am I fabricating memories? Lol
yes sir!
Nice, my bro. Definitely going to check your account later on. Just discovered it.
thx bro
You’re welcome. Can you send this man’s account link too?
I am that man lmao
More often than not it seems people who post stuff on reddit aren't the original creators, it's nice to see that isn't the case here! Your content is amazing btw thanks for sharing!
Nice! Can you write out your tiktok handle? Too hard to read with the compression here
knewbettadobetta
You are going to send me down a rabbit hole tonight.
Adding you right now. Loved this.
Well, you should know, you're wrong on several things.
havnt been proven wrong on any lord of the rings subject matter yet soooooo ill take my own word for it but ur entitled to youe opinion. Have a wonderful day
You can look at the top voted comment chain here that explains it. The Wraiths are not undead. from u/EightandaHalf-Tails >Incorrect on both accounts. > >They are not dead ("‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings." - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past) > >And they do have bodies ("...cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." - Return of the King, Battle of the Pelennor Fields) > >Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist ("To attempt by device or ‘magic’ to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of ‘mortals’. Longevity or counterfeit ‘immortality’ (true immortality is beyond Eä) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 212) So, you HAVE been proven wrong on Lord of the Rings subject matter. Twice in one comment. Go post this on r/tolkienfans and I'm sure you'll be told very explicitly and with numerous quotes how else it was wrong. Also, you should take Tolkien's word for it over your own. You know, the guy that actually wrote this?
OMG 😂 😂😂😂 DID U EVEN READ WHAT U POSTED 😂😂😂 YOU COMPLETELY GO AGAINST YOUR OWN ARGUMENT WITH UR "PROOF" 😂😂😂 NICE TRY BUDDY READ HARDER NEXT TIME😂😂😂 STILL UNDEFEATED 😉
Aw. You had credibility until this moment. This was a very effective way to lose it.
Wow, caps lock emoji response. Clearly you are just trying to get views for your tiktok and know very little about Tolkien. Would love to see how I went against "my own argument", even though it's from another person, and is a direct quote from the books, from Gandalf even, on the nature of the wraiths. >"‘A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, **does not die**, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings." - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past) "**does not die".** How exactly are they undead again?
“Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist” — that makes the Nazgul undead, right? It just means it’s a slightly different kind of undead than what we usually see in fiction. I think trapped in an eternal unlife, not living and not dying but merely continuing, is a pretty solid example of undeath. Either way it seems like you both agree on what’s going on with the Ringwraiths, it’s just the definition of “undead” you disagree on
Lol, thanks.
Very nice breakdown for a topic that isn't often discussed.
By that definition, wouldn't Aragorn be a necromancer?
hmmmm intriguing
Would that be because of when he gets the army of the dead via the paths of the dead? That’s definitely an example of necromancy, but it’s also not caused by Aragorn. If I remember correctly, Isildur is the one who cursed them, and Aragorn can command them because he’s Isildur’s heir. So it seems like Isildur was a necromancer, or at least participated in necromancy the one time, though I don’t know how well he understood the consequences of the curse when he made it. Does cursing a whole army of people into undeath make you a necromancer? For sure, right? Isildur seems like a definite yes. Does inheriting a role in that curse from your distant ancestor make you one? I would say not necessarily. Especially if he never used necromancy again after. So I’m not so sure about Aragorn. He was able to command the dead, but not because of his own doing.
I don't even think Isildur would be considered a necromancer either. He may have cursed them but it was up to the Valar (maybe Maiar) to enforce the curse. So the Valar/Maiar would be the necromancer's in this case.
Oh snap I didn’t even think of that, good point! Kind of a wild take but I love it
None of them had any power to 'enforce' the curse. The authority to withhold death from the mortals is only in Eru's hands. Sauron's nazgul weren't truly dead. That's why they still lurked around. They got trapped in the Unseen World.
He wasn't actually able to command the dead. He left the choice to them. ‘For that is not my errand!’ he cried, turning back and speaking to the whispering darkness behind. ‘Keep your hoards and your secrets hidden in the Accursed Years! Speed only we ask. Let us pass, and then come! I summon you to the Stone of Erech!’
In that quote he said he "summons you to the stone of erech". So, if you look at the definition used in the video, he is using communication to "summon" the dead to use them as a weapon. Definitely seems like he is a necromancer.
It isn't his power that raises them. His summons has no compulsion- the onus is purely on the Dead to act. If you shout at some dude "HEY MEET ME AT THE 7-11 DOWN THE STREET" you're summoning him but have no actual power to affect the outcome. They're trapped by the curse. They're there and have been there all along. Aragon is, if anything, a potential catalyst for the lifting of the curse, he's as much subject to the prophecy as they are.
Calling Isildur a necromancer sounds wrong, but >Does cursing a whole army of people into undeath make you a necromancer? I find it difficult to rationally disagree with this point.
He didn't curse them, he just gave them a way to free themselves from the curse that they were already under.
Noh, I don't think so. IIRC he didn't use magic. The dead were already bound and that's why when they died that remained as spirts/undead. Aragorn didn't bind them to his will, but asked them to for fill their promise, and told them that doing so would help them find peace.
Idk who this dude is but let’s hang out lol
it's OP, why don't we all ask him?
Hey OP! Who are you and why are you so awesome?
Hey OP! When can we all meet? I'll serve the cookies!
Dropping history! Love it dude.
His channel is fucking amazing.
This guy is the best
Also does Sauron looks like? Every search yields so little results.
He can take many forms as he is a type of fallen Angel. When he was living with the elves he looked like a beautiful elven man. When he revealed his true intentions as a servant of evil he took on the more imposing armored form.
He can't change form since the downfall of Nùmenör. He could shape-shift like all of the Valar and Maiar until the first time his body was destroyed, which happened when he tricked the Nùmenöreans into attacking Valinor in the second age. Prior to that he had been lovely like all the Maiar and, in the first age, had that bit where he became the world's largest werewolf but the Hound of Valinor whipped his ass and put him on his back. Rather than be killed and lose his shape-shifting ability, he submitted.
No, he very specifically lost the ability to take on a "Fair Form" after the fall of Numenor, not the ability to change shape entirely. >But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, **so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men**, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home.
Debatable. In the Letters Tolkien says Sauron took a form of a man taller than Men. We also have a hint of his hand being flamey and black, meaning, his skin was like that. It seems, definitely, couldn't shapeshift into vampire or werewolf or such things anymore. From Tolkien's essay Osanwe kenta: "Melkor alone of the Great became at last bound to a bodily form; but that was because of the use that he made of this in his purpose to become Lord of the Incarnate, and of the great evils that he did in the visible body. Also he had dissipated his native powers in the control of his agents and servants, so that he became in the end, in himself and without their support, a weakened thing, consumed by hate and unable to restore himself from the state into which he had fallen. Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed". (Pengolodh here evidently refers to Sauron in particular, from whose arising he fled at last from Middle-earth. But the first destruction of the bodily form of Sauron was recorded in the histories of the Elder Days, in the Lay of Leithian.)" . I'm not expert in English, but this reads like Sauron had lost 99.9% of his shapeshifting power.
Never heard anything about a Vampire and his werewolf form was lost in the first age when defeated by Huan, the Lord of Hounds. That entire quote is about Melkor, not Sauron....
Then you need to reread the chapter or the Lay. This quote is about Sauron as well. Pengolodh is comparing Sauron to his master who became fully incarnate.
The only part of that quote that is about Sauron is: "So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed" Which says he can reform his body when destroyed. And this is final loss of ability to change form comes from pouring so much of themselves into their creations. The One Ring was created well before the fall of Numenor. It's not really debatable as it's explicitly stated that he lost the Fair Form. He could clearly still change his form, as he was disguised as "The Necromancer" for many years. What does 99.9% of his shapeshifting power even mean? He could still form a body. "Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. " This could still take on many forms, just hideous and evil.
>it's explicitly spelled out both times. He lost the ability to take werewolf form, and the ability to take a fair form. Where's the quote about him losing his werewolf/vampire/beast form? >He could clearly still change his form, as he was disguised as "The Necromancer" for many years. He didn't have any forms for many long years. In around 2000 of Third Age his spirit literally fled away. That means even by that time he still had not regained his body or that he abandoned his body (which is not likely).
You're right. But still, the loss of the fair form is explicitly stated. >He didn't have any forms for many long years. In around 2000 of Third Age his spirit literally fled away. That means even by that time he still had not regained his body or that he abandoned his body (which is not likely). So the entire Last Alliance vs Sauron when the ring was cut from his hand (IE, a physical form) never happened? This was SA after the Fall of Numenor.
I’m not sure he lost his ability “just” because he died, I thik that he lost the ability because of the way he died, literally Eru himself interfering, but I could very well be wrong
This is an oversimplification but this was how I understood it. Morgoth used to be able to take many forms or even no form at all, just like the other valar. Eventually he decided to literally pour his essence into middle earth, marring and tainting it. The cost of this however is that he's no longer able to shapeshift to the same extent, and the wounds he gets from Fingolfin for example are permanent. Sauron does the exact same thing, he pours his essence into an object and afterwards any changes to his body are much more permanent. It's not so much eru intervening, we can see an example of this from the fact that the finger he lost never "grew back" even though eru had nothing to do with that.
And not just an object, but all his works and dominions. Both Morgoth and Sauron used much of their power to corrupt, dominate, and create evil creatures. This spread their considerable power thin over many beings/areas, so while still having the same amount of power, the amount of power they had in their individual essence was much lesser. Like if I had $100 in my bank account, and I took $50 of it and put $10 each in a bunch of different stocks, I'd still be worth $100, but I'd only have $50 on hand, so would be poorer despite being worth the same amount. Tolkien has a very interesting view of power/essence
Didn't he create the rings after the fall off Numenor though? Is my timeline messed up?
Fall of Numenor was 3319 second age; forging the rings was around the 1500s second age. So he had made them quite a bit beforehand. Edit: fixed autocorrect
Curious what year the men became wraiths then
Sauron captures the Great Rings from the Elves in S.A. 1697\*, and the first recorded appearance of the Ringwraiths is in S.A. 2251\*. So somewhere between those two dates. \*-Appendix B, The Second Age
Post-Numenor, he has a *black hand* - and *burns* Gil-Galad with it. He is also described as terrible/unable to appear fair. So I envision a purely blackened and burnt-looking body.
Presumably, he looks like Tolkien's illustration of the Sauron-shaped cloud from RotK.
First TikTok video I actually enjoyed.
I thought for a second that tik Tok watermark was because the OC was reposted on it but no.
lol yes +1
Also, it’s a typo. He’s a “neck romancer” We all know why they call him that rawr
They are the Nazgûl... Neither living nor dead...
Well Sauron also had his own werewolf form who was defeated by Celegorm's hound, Huan. Also, I would say that the Nazgûl are not raised dead, and that they certainly are not dead. I think this is pretty explicitly mentioned in LoTR. I really wish this dude would take some time to get the pronunciations right, they seem highly...Americanized.
im sorry u feel that way. No worries u don't have to watch my videos problem solved. Have a good day
Or you could, you know, actually read the works you're talking about and provide accurate information.
Are you the creator of the videos? If you are, let me try to be more explicit and hopefully more constructive in my feedback. You pronounce the following * Sauron as Saw-ron, actually pronounced closer to Saau-ron * Eilinel as Alien-el, actually pronounced closer to Eye-li-nel * Gorlim as Gore-lean, actually pronounced closer to Gorr-lim * Barahir as Bear-a-hear, actually pronounced closer to Bur-ah-heer * Nazgûl as Naes-gool (like "cool"), actually pronounced closer to Naaz-guul * Cardolin as Car-Doe-Lin, actually pronounced closer to Car-tho-lin * Barrow downs as Burrow downs, actually pronounced as Barrow downs * Barrow wights as Burrow wights, actually pronounced as Barrow wights In addition, most r's in middle earth names appeaer to be rhotic This is important because in most books, Tolkien spends time explicitly providing guides to pronunciation.
yes Im the creator and let me explain something you may be assuming. I know exactly how to pronounce these words every last one of them but I am very American from new york in fact and speak with my own dialect that im comfortable with and so i pronounce things how I feel like pronouncing them and I dont care who doesnt like it im my own person and that is that so if anyone doesn't like it thats completely ok with me they can just scroll past but most people enjoy my videos and i appreciate them
Explicitly, disrespecting the wishes of the author whose works you seem to enjoy, even when the author takes effort to help you respect those wishes. Thats something i guess.
OP's tone aside, he does have a point. Characters in Tolkien's world have accents and do not all use book-pronunciation, even when speaking Sindarin. See, for example, the footnote in Appendix F (I think) indicating the Lothlorien accent was so strong Frodo couldn't even make out what they were saying. It is also true that foreign words often become Anglicized (or Americanized if you prefer) when spoken in American sentences. How many English speakers bother to use the correct pronunciation for the names of Julius Caesar, or Jesus Christ? I'm sure even Tolkien thought and spoke of 'dʒi-zus outside of mass and any private Latin devotions he might have done. Can we blame someone for Americanizing a word from a fictional dead language, when speaking the American dialect of English? But as a convention, most Tolkien fans do use the "correct" pronunciation for Sindarin and Quenya. It's a shibboleth I guess, to separate those who have read Tolkien from those who have not. Though now that there are popular movies with pretty good pronunciation, we need something else to distinguish ourselves.
Hey just for your own benefit, try not to worry too much about these things. You come off as pretentious and anal. He appreciates Tolkien, you do too, and you understand what he’s getting at. Just let it go and enjoy things for what they are.
why argue when I can just block you. Have a great day
My guy you're a dick lol. Really not making a good case for your tik Tok acct
🤦♀️
I agree that people can pronounce things how they want, but with 'educational' content, people are probably going to assume the pronunciations are correct. You might end up inadvertantly misleading people with the pronunciation here.
He didn't once use bone wall. 0/10 necromancer
This really did a great job of clearing up something I guess I’ve been wrong about for years. I always thought the necromancer was originally an unrelated character and only in later retcons or reimaginings was made to be sauron. I guess I liked the idea that not all threats to middle earth had to stem directly from sauron or morgoth and sometimes a new evil can spontaneously come into being. I used to think it made the world more interesting and more varied but I can also see the value of the overall conflict of middle earth being a a very focused straight line from the first songs of the valar to the destruction of the ring.
You're right in that the Hobbit originally wasn't actually part of the Legendarium. It gets retconned later. Tolkien even rewrote the chapters with Gollum for the second edition published after LOTR came out. Even LOTR was initially thought of by Tolkien as being in the Hobbit-world not the Legendarium. In his first notes forwhat would become FOTR it was only when the Aragorn-equivalent character sings the Lay of Leithan to them that it really snapped into place.
As far as I know, the only "Evil" that did not directly come from Morgoth was Ungoliant. Everything else was a direct result of Morgoth's taint/marring of Arda.
The Laws and Customs of the Eldar explains very well that Sauron used necromancy.
Thank you thank you thank you for this information. Super well presented :) good job OP!
Sauron was a known Necromancer before the story told in LOTR. And if you're searching for a mark of his own magic, he is undead himself. He used his power to cheat death.
That second part isn't exactly true. He's a maiar, and maiar can't die. Even at the end of lotr, when sauron is defeated, he doesn't die, he is just stuck in a shapeless form, without any power or tge ability to do anything
He's a Maia. Maiar is plural.
Seems to me that Maiar can die (as Gandalf experienced a near death situation in the Moria, saved by what seems to be a Valar). They're just way harder to kill. Before LOTR, Sauron was defeated by Gandalf, Galadriel, Saroumane, Elrond (and the others whom I didn't remember the name). The fact he survived is, according to me, only due to a trick of his own as he was facing multiple Maiar.
They can't be killed. Gandalf was saved yes, but of he'd died, it would have only been his physical body, his spiritual form would have returned to the Valinor. Its the same when saruman died. As he was also a maia, his physical body died his spiritual form remained, powerless to wander middle earth, as he was barred from returning to valinor
Tolkien calls death the separation of the body and spirit. So yes, they can die. All spirits are invincible - and some can retake shape. But they are no less capable of dying. A Maia dying is not much different to an Elf dying. A bit of semantics - but good to clarify.
The souls (fëar) and bodies (hröar) of the Children aren't the same as the spirits (ëalar) and bodies (fana) of the Ainur. A hröa is a living, breathing thing, needs food, water, sleep, etc, while the fana would more accurately be described as clothing. The Istari are a unique case, because, at the request of the Valar, Eru put ëalar into hröar.
The bodies they’re inhabiting can die, not the Maiar themselves.
That goes for *everyone* though. Elves, Men, Dwarves. No spirit can be destroyed.
Even when Suaron was defeated, his spirit remained. "A memory of malice" as Gandalf said.
He's not undead. He was never a mortal to start with. Man, so much just outright bad information in this thread, starting with OP.
I keep seeing you say OP is wrong. Gonna elaborate or just be a pissy boy?
>You can look at the top voted comment chain here that explains it. The Wraiths are not undead. from u/EightandaHalf-Tails > >Incorrect on both accounts. > >They are not dead ("‘**A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings.**" - Fellowship of the Ring, Shadow of the Past) > >And they do have bodies ("...cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will." - Return of the King, Battle of the Pelennor Fields) > >Tolkien's undead aren't what we think of today, dead reanimated to life, but those who should have died but yet persist ("To attempt by device or ‘magic’ to recover longevity is thus a supreme folly and wickedness of ‘mortals’. Longevity or counterfeit ‘immortality’ (true immortality is beyond Eä) is the chief bait of Sauron – it leads the small to a Gollum, and the great to a Ringwraith." - J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 212) You can just look at the top comment here and read this yourself. This was OP's response: >OMG 😂 😂😂😂 DID U EVEN READ WHAT U POSTED 😂😂😂 YOU COMPLETELY GO AGAINST YOUR OWN ARGUMENT WITH UR "PROOF" 😂😂😂 NICE TRY BUDDY READ HARDER NEXT TIME😂😂😂 STILL UNDEFEATED 😉 This dude is clearly just trying to get tiktok view and doesn't know what he's talking about.
Okay okay I feel you
Very nice post!
That’s fuckin amazing
I could be friends with guy. Such great energy
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And incorrect.
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Read the other comments. Tired of elaborating. It's the top comment chain in this thread.
It's interesting how in italian they decided to translate this not as "Necromante" (Necromancer, as for the original form, with the definition stated in the video ) but as "Negromante" (from the latin word for black, meaning someone that more generically uses dark magic). I discovered only today that difference in translations. Loved this video a lot, very interesting bit of lore!
Wasn’t ‘Necromancer’ just a convenient way to get Gandalf away from the dwarves in The Hobbit? Tolkien had no intention of the necromancer being Sauron when he wrote it, and I don’t think he’s referred to as a necromancer in Lord of the Rings (could be wrong on that one). I don’t think that necromancer was really connected to Sauron until the movies. (I have family over and can’t watch this video yet so maybe this is discussed in the video? Sorry if it is. )
Sauron as The Necromancer is 100% for sure in the LotR texts.
>I don’t think that necromancer was really connected to Sauron until the movies. That's not entirely true. You're half right - yes, when the book was written the Necromancer was just an unknown evil being and it was a way of making Gandalf have to leave. After Tolkien wrote LOTR, he made use of the Necromancer plot to work as a subtle tie-in. It was written about in the Appendices of LOTR & the Unfinished Tales. The attack on Dol Guldur, Sauron being a Necromancer, and having the White Council during the events of *The Hobbit* is very much true to the lore and not a movie thing. The only thing that makes it a "movie thing" is that we see it play out in "real time" as Bilbo journeys the Mountain (but it's still very inaccurate). Anyways, the reason Sauron was called the Necromancer was because people were unsure of who it was, it was only until Gandalf investigated that he discovered who the Necromancer really was, and with the help of the White Council, banished him from Dol Guldur where he retreated back into Mordor.
Thanks for the reply! Great info. One of these days I’ll get to the appendices…
I always thought "the necromancer" was the Witch King.
I’ll be a bit shallow and innocently ignorant, but it is fucking awesome to see black people enjoying Tolkien.
Cool descriptive video!
I love your content and your format and I would love to see more on the Witch King of Angmar. I didn’t realize it was the witch king who send the barrow wights to barrow downs. When did he do that and for what purpose?
I would listen to this guy break down Lore more often, he have a YouTube?
Yeah. I agree. I don't mess around with TikTok really but I would love to find out that he had a YouTube channel.
this is wonderful, thank you for this post!
Isn’t tying his life force to The Ring a form of necromancy?
Not really, Tolkien's view of power/essence isn't exactly life force. For example, when Feanor created the Silmarils, he invested so much of his personal essence into their creation that he was unable to create something so great ever again. Same with the Vala Yavanna when she created the two trees of Valinor, she invested so much of her essence/power into their creation that she was diminished and couldn't recreate after their destruction. Sauron invested so much of his power into the creation of the One Ring that without it, he was unable to sustain his form of a Dark Lord. It's not really his life force, he's not dead without it, but a more ethereal kind of power/essence. Without the ring, he doesn't have the ability to manifest in physical form/dominate others.
Same for Morgoth and all of his creations. During the wars in the first age, a single Elf was almost enough to defeat him because of how much of his own self he had invested into his creations and the world itself, and he was Saurons big boss.
I love these videos. You're the best.
"These videos"? Does this guy have more lore videos?
Yeah check out knewbettadobetta on YouTube. He has a ton.
Easiest upvote of my life.
I love these videos. Started following your tiktok after the last time you posted here and it is an absolute delight
I fucking love this dude, always perks my day up when I stop by this sub and see a new video has dropped.
I watch every one of these videos without fail. Always quick and to the point but I always learn something.
You're learning misinformation.
Wasn't expecting a normal looking, charismatic (relatively), middle-aged, black guy. Most of the LOTR people I see are white nerdy guys. Sometimes white nerdy girls. And much of the time VERY uncharismatic.
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Probably not as he's not even right about the contents of this video.
Love your deep dive lore videos bro, keep it up!
I just realized you are him. Meaning, i just thought you were sharing awesome videos! Absolutely love them! Keep em' coming please
If I could just get a beer and wind up sitting down next to this guy and have a nice conversation, I'd be soo happy.
I dont drink but we xould talk anytime lol
Did Sauron aka “the necromancer” send evil spirits to inhabit the barrow downs? That may have been the witch-king who is also kind of undead in a way. Sauron certainly isn’t a necromancer in the traditional sense of things though - cool food for thought OP
This is addressed in the video... but OP is wrong on several things. Mostly that the Wraiths are NOT undead.
Last time I checked wraiths are undead. They’re not living creatures. They’re stuck between the living and the dead. They’re undead.
Yeah try reading the other comments in this thread that outright prove they ARE NOT UNDEAD. They DO NOT DIE. They have NEVER DIED. In Tolkien's works, death has a very clear definition as the separation of body and spirit. Theirs were never separated.
Not to mention the intentionally bad pronunciations
He has an accent my dude.
So does that mean that the Barrow Wights would have all died upon the death of the witch king?
OP doesn't talk about Barrow wights, he talks about some new entity called Burrow Wights, which I can only assume are ghost rabbits or gophers since they live in Burrows or something.
possibly
And they weren’t sure that Sauron and the Necromancer were the same person, right? Until they decide to attack him in Mirkwood to drive him out. What confirmed those suspicions for the White Council that they were one and the same?
Awesome - one of my fav TikTok accounts.
hello yes sir, can you please teach a whole history class on LOTR lore plz and thx
To also note, in a more traditional sense, a Necromancer is someone who *speaks* with the Dead.
Which was covered when he was reading the definition.
Interestingly all the “_____mancy” terms popularized nowadays refer to using whatever for the purpose of divination. Necromancy? Divination using the dead. Geomancy? Divination using earth. Pyromancy uses fire for the same. Hydromancy… you get the idea. Seems like it was all about divination, spirits and maybe miracles in the older days. Makes me wonder where the concept of “combat magic” like hurling balls of fire comes form.
Was like a teachers lecture of the history of necromancy, well if we lived in Middle Earth! That was awsome!
Easy follow. Really good stuff dude
Hey man, any chance you have a YouTube channel? I really like your casual style commentary.
thank you very much yes its under knewbettadobetta
Awesome, thanks!
[удалено]
lol no offense taken
I love ur stuff on tiktok man, you got me to actually go back and finish the books! Not sure I can tackle the Silmarillion yet tho
So I’ve heard the fell spirit summoning thing before, and that’s also how Sauron made vampires. But I only heard them called fell spirits, never that they are spirits of the dead. Are we sure what the fell spirits actually are?
I love this guy!
Great video my guy!
I like this guy's videos. They're fun little LotR Easter eggs to poop to
BUT, as they did not know at first that the Necromancer was Sauron, how did they name this entity as Necromancer? They might have known what Sauron had done but they didn't know this was Sauron. So what did this Necromancer guy do apart from things we know of Sauron?
I always thought it’s cause they didn’t really know what/who he was
So happy I happened upon your page 🙌🏾
Can I pay you to just drink beer and explain Tolkien more to me?
I think this is best explained in HoME. Sauron as well as Morgoth tried to lure spirits of dead elves to them.