The White Council

Re: Nazgul Pondries - HOW does the ring draw them?

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: I do not think that attacking the wrong room alone acts as : proof that the Nazgul were not involved (although it otherwise : does seem unlikely that they were). In my opinion it's not : inevitable that the Ring would have guided the Nazgul to their : mark, because it does't seem that the 'signal' that the ring : sent was that clear. The Nazgul couldn't even tell for certain : whether the Ring was still close by (eg. they needed to raid : the house at Crickhollow to be sure), so they probably couldn't : have pinpointed it to the accuracy of one room. Sort of like : when you get too close to the magnetic north pole, your compass : becomes less reliable. It doesn't even seem to me as if the : Nazgul themselves were always (and perhaps never) aware that it : was the ring that drew them; otherwise they would have been : less hesitant on several occasions. The greatest proof for : this is when the Witch King senses the ring in front of Minas : Morgul. If he had known that what he felt was actually the One, : he would surely have made every effort to hunt it down instead : of just shrugging the feeling off after a moment.

You make some good points, and "The Hunt for the Ring", I believe, says that Khamul was chosen to go to Hobbiton because he was more sensitive to the One Ring than the others. But if the two in Bree could both sense the Ring at all, could they have triangulated? :)

It was a sort of hit and miss thing with them, but I think when there were more than one together their ability to detect the Ring was increased. They certainly knew where to find Aragorn and the Hobbits on Weathertop when there were five of them together (of course, their Lord was one of the five -- that may be significant).

: Of course the question would then be, why wouldn't the : Nazgul have been aware that the ring drew them? Perhaps they : were just too unused to it to recognise it instantly, since : until that time the ring had always been either far removed of : in the possession of its master?

Well, if the Nazgul were outside the inn, they may have been able to say to Ferny, "The hobbit is in there. Bring him to us." And Ferny then proceeded to the logical Hobbit room(s) and tried his little act of butchery. Maybe the pillows were slashed because he realized he'd been tricked, and he was too cowardly to go sneaking around the inn (even with two possible helpers in the Half-orc and Harry the gate-keeper) to find the Hobbits?