Q: How Was Sauron Able to Trap the Nazgul in Middle-earth?
ANSWER: This question arises occasionally and sometimes sparks interesting debate. I don’t know of any authoritative answers from Tolkien but rather than pick a side and argue in favor of or opposed to some specific point(s), let me suggest something ambiguous.
But first, a word from Jason Fisher, aka Lingwë, who wrote in March 2012:
… the argument is problematic either way. The Ainur had no part in the making of the Children of Ilúvatar, and it is too great a leap to suppose that Sauron (who is only a Maia, not even one of the Valar [< Ainur]) could impart any of his own nature to Men. Sauron’s slaves might imitate him, but could Sauron fundamentally alter their nature? Again, the idea is hard to swallow. Could even Melkor have done this? It was within Melkor’s power to “ruin” Elves and Ents (the genesis of Orcs and Trolls). This is also problematic from the standpoint of Tolkien’s fictive theology, though he states it explicitly (but may have become uncomfortable with the idea later in life). The Valar have the wherewithal to promote to Eärendil to something like immortality, though one could argue that his nature is altered with and through the direct authority of Eru. And there are other exceptions. But those who have utterly rejected Eru (e.g., Melkor, Sauron) could make no such appeal and channel no such power. There are no exceptions to the design of Eru except through Eru, and since through Eru, they are not exceptions at all, but merely his will and his design. This is how supreme godhead works! But the Ringwraiths are more than 4 ,000 years old by the time of the War of the Ring. How could Sauron accomplish this, and why would it be permitted by the theology Tolkien has established for his fictive world? Unless of course, Tolkien is not playing by his own rules — a distinct possibility.
I think the (answer to the) question may have something to do with Tolkien’s view or interpretation of “free will”. Not being studied in Catholic theology I hesitate to pontificate upon such matters, but there is an interesting passage in the Book of Daniel that has always fascinated me. Perhaps someone with greater knowledge of how the Roman Catholic Church interprets this passage can offer some insight into the matter. The passage is found in Daniel 10:12-13, where after three weeks of fasting and praying Daniel is visited by an angel, who says:
12…’Daniel, do not be afraid: from that first day when, the better to understand, you resolved to mortify yourself before God, your words have been heard; and your words are the reason why I have come.
13The Prince of the kingdom of Persia has been resisting me for twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the Chief Princes, came to my assistance. I have left him confronting the kings of Persia…
God sent an angel to answer Daniel’s prayer, but the angel was delayed for 3 weeks by “the Prince of the Kingdom of Persia” (I believe most Protestant writers interpret this to mean Satan or the Devil — but there could be other interpretations). If Satan (or someone) has this kind of power in a Biblical tale, I don’t think Tolkien is necessarily breaking his own rules by having Sauron restrain the spirits of 9 men who were enslaved to his Ring for thousands of years. For that matter, Isildur proclaimed a somewhat similar doom upon the Dead Men of Dunharrow, who died and became ghosts haunting the White Mountains until his heir (Aragorn) came to call upon them to fulfill their oath (to Isildur, which they had broken by refusing to fight against Sauron).
In the past I have argued that Isildur’s curse must have been accepted or enforced by Iluvatar himself, taking up Isildur’s righteous anger to his own purpose. This would be consistent with Tolkien’s description of the Numenorean kings as priest-kings. Isildur had the authority to make such a curse, perhaps because Numenorean oaths called upon the Valar and/or Iluvatar as witnesses. Hence, the oath-breakers did not simply betray Isildur they also betrayed the Valar, who were Iluvatar’s appointed emissaries in Arda.
As for the Nazgul, I am not sure we can propose so clear-cut a hypothesis. I think that Tolkien’s theological background must have contributed to his conception of the Nazgul but I don’t know enough about the teachings of Catholicism to piece the clues together. Nonetheless, if the passage in Daniel served as a model or justification (in Tolkien’s mind — and the Book of Job may have a similar passage or two) for how Melkor or Sauron could get away with perverting the natural order of things (at least temporarily), then I would say that Tolkien’s rules (even if they are not clear to us) may not be so inflexible as to require breaking.
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As you might guess Michael, I am not going to agree with very much here! I hope what follows is not too long-winded, but my essential thought is to figure in Tolkien’s conception of the Rings hemselves, which seems fairly vital in discussing the Nazgul.
Lingwe puts the question first in this way: “How is it within Sauron’s capacity in the context of Tolkien’s larger theogonic structure to extend their lives so far?”…
http://lingwe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/already-dead-not-quite-dead-and-those.html
…but it is the wrong question. He has been led to it by this:
They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them.”
– ‘Of the Rings of Power’
But it is the Rings themselves that have done this, not Sauron directly (he just handed them out). Of course, it could be that the immortality effect follows from the deception visited on the Elven-smiths; but based on the following I think this is not so:
The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e. ‘change’ viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance – this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor – thus approaching ‘magic’, a motive easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron… such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible.
– from Letter 131
To me, “prevention or slowing of decay” sufficiently accounts for the death-postponing property. This clearly follows (I’d suggest, perhaps unintentionally) from the original purpose of Celebrimbor.
As often with Tolkien, Platonic thought runs below the surface, quite consistently with Christian theology (as I think he would have liked to call it) on which it is a major influence. Briefly, Plato teaches (i) the immortality of the soul and the possibility of its separate existence from the body (Phaedo) and (ii) the need to escape from “the world of becoming” (i.e. change) to that of “reality and truth” (Republic 525c).
So that is where the Elves went wrong. “They wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of ‘The West’, and yet to remain on the ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor” (Letter 131). I think that here, without straining the interpretation overmuch, “Valinor” answers to Plato’s “world of reality and truth”; in a word, Heaven.
Regarding Daniel 10, I understand interpretations vary, but it seems the “Prince of the kingdom of Persia” could be, more literally, either Cyrus the Great or a later Seleucid. At any rate, Sauron isn’t exactly Satan. At one point he is equated on the angelic scale with Gandalf: “coeval and equal” (UT, ‘The Istari’). That sounds like Manichaeanism (allowing a bad power to be equal to a good one), a heresy to be sure, but I expect the Professor would have had an answer. At any rate, direct “power” exercised by Sauron is scarcely an inconsistency; in fact it is central to the conception.
Again, regarding “free will” the Nazgul’s enslavement to another’s will seems to follow fairly naturally from the Sauronic input to Ring design. They are in fact made into slaves by their own rings (UT, ‘The Hunt for the Ring’).
There is to be sure one fairly glaring inconsistency, which Tolkien passes off as best he can (via Gandalf): Smeagol, who never “fades”.