: I take your point about physical injury, the Nazgul are recorded as fleeing on a number of occasions when pursued by soldiery (rather than sorcery), so their constitutions were not impervious to physical harm. However, physical injury does not result in a being becoming "empty and shapeless." Broken bones and battered flesh still has form. Something other than physical damage was inflicted on the Nine in the flood.
Why? We're dealing with something outside our conception - a wraith. We all agree a wraith is able to interact with the physical word and can be subject to physical harm. What we're talking about is what happens to a wraith when it encounters physical harm.
It struck me that the words Tolkien used to describe the fate of the wraiths after Bruinen is very similar to how he described what Sauron was threatened with by Luthien and Huan. When Bat-Sauron was threatened with physical injury he was threatened with being sent back to
: : Gandalf first tells Frodo one of the Nazgul's main problem: they have no mounts. "Their horses must have perished, and without them they are crippled". That is because the Nazgul cannot just steal new horses; they would be too frightened and useless. Thus, the Nazgul were now on "foot"
: Yes, but the Nazgul were on foot but they were still close to their quarry. Instead of going after the Ring again, they had to make the long journey back to Mordor (on foot). The mere loss of a horse when so near your goal would not have such a debilitating effect.
But it was more than that as the subsequent quotes showed. Clearly what happened at the Ford weakened them to such an extent that they could not complete their mission. The Nine at full sterngth couldn't assail Rivendell; how could they after being scattered and injured?
: : Later Gandalf tells Frodo: "You cannot destroy the Ringwraiths like that...Th power of their master is in them, and they stand or fall by him. We hope that they were all unhorsed and unmasked, and so for a while made less dangerous; but we must find out for certain.
: : After finding no sign of them, Gandalf concludes: "...I think we may hope now that the Ringwraiths were scattered, and have been obliged to return as best they could to their Master in Mordor, empty and shapeless, If that is so, it will be some time before they can begin the hunt again..."
: Why are they "empty and shapeless?" The physical damage theory does not account for this. If their physical bodies were battered to the point that the Nazgul no longer posed a threat to the Walkers, how were they able to make the arduous journey back to Mordor?
I don't think the Nazgul had physical bodes in the normal sense. The physical dmage they sustained operated on a different level than to a normal person. In fact, only a special ensorcelled blade could physical damage the unseen sinews as Merry's had and break the spells that knit them to unseen bone. Nevertheless, the Nazgul were affected by "physical" harm.
: Gandalf's comment on their lack of horses implies that he expected the Nazgul to still have physical bodies (if they had become intangible spirits they would not have needed, or be able to use, horses for transport). Therefore, the "shapeless" and "empty" Nazgul still had a physical presence after the flood, and were hale enough to make the long journey back to Mordor; therefore I would maintain that something other than physical injury had rendered them impotent as a result of the flood. Either, the loss of their cloaks (which must have had special properties in this theory) or their dip into running water weakened their powers.
I think there is a weakness in the loss of cloak and touched by water theory.
In The Hunt for the Ring in UT, tolkien tells us that after Osgiliath was taken, "The Lord of Murgul therefore led his companions over Anduin, unclad and unmounted, and invisible to eyes, and yet a terror to all living things that they passed near. It was, maybe, on the first day of July that they went forth. They passed slowly and in stealth, through Anorien, and over the Entwade, and so into Wold, and rumor of darkness and a dread of men knew not what went before them. They reached the west-shores of Anduin a little north of Sarn Gebir, as they had trysted; and there received horses and raiment that were secretly ferried over the River. That was (it is thought) about the seventeenth of July."
Thus, the went unclad, day and night, for 16 days from July 1 to the 17th. They also crossed the Entwade on foot, thus obviously getting wet. Thus the mere fact that they lost their robes and were touched by the waters of the Bruinen could not have caused their impotence. It could only have been the physical injuries they sustained by the flood.
: : Thus, it appears that while the Nazgul could be rendered temporarily impotent by regular physical injury, such could not kill them once and for all. This discussion has raised some thoughts in my mind concerning the death of the WK at Pellennor and the general vulnerabilty of the wraiths. Clearly, physical injury could do something to the Nazgul - the physical injury they sustained at the Ford rendered them "unmasked" and "empty and shapeless". But it did not kill them.
: For the reasons I have given above I do not think that mere physical injury could have rendered them shapeless.
Fir the reasons I have given above I think that the physical injuries were the only reason they were rendered shapeless. Russ
