# How Did Aragorn’s People Seal the Ringwraiths in Tombs?



## Erestor Arcamen (Jan 3, 2013)

Excellent article I found explaining this for those that aren't familiar with Tolkien's work. (please read before you go telling me that Aragorn's people didn't seal the Ringwraiths in tombs, I know they didn't lol...)

I just figured this would be good for you to show to someone if they ask you this question. This site seems to have many excellent essays and articles on the subject of Middle Earth and the legendarium.



> *How Did Aragorn’s People Seal the Ringwraiths in Tombs?*
> 
> January 2, 2013
> By Michael Martinez
> ...



Erestor's Disclaimer: this is not my work, just posting it here as content that is relevant to this forum. Credit for above answer other enriching essays/articles on the above site go to Michael Martinez


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## Troll (Jan 4, 2013)

Aw, I had hoped that there was an explanation in evidence for how the Witch-King was allegedly "imprisoned..." Ah well, here's to hoping it will be revealed in the next two films.

It could be a decently satisfying twist if the (film) White Council only _believed_ the Nazgul to have been imprisoned in any meaningful way and their feigned inertia was just part of the plan.


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## HLGStrider (Jan 4, 2013)

I remember thinking "Uhhh. . .is that based on the books in any way and I'm just missing it or did they totally pull that 'explanation' out of thin air?" when that line came up. Because I have not read every inch of the HoMe like some of our fans (most libraries don't have them and I'm sorry, I'm just cheap.) I was hoping someone would debunk it for me because it smelled like made up nonsense. 

I kind of understand, from a film makers point of view, the desire to "condense" the history of the Necromancer a bit, but I do think the whole "sealed in a tomb" thing was unnecessary exposition. There really wasn't a stated question as to the Witch King's location that needed an "easy" answer. (I'm in a "" sort of mood tonight. Too much sugar.) It could've just been glossed over. True fans could find the answer to where he was hanging out in the books and casual movie goers probably wouldn't care.


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## Valandil (Jan 5, 2013)

This was just some 'movie-reality' as opposed to 'book-reality'. There's nothing in the books to substantiate it.

I just like to think - maybe in the 'movie-reality', the Witch-King faked his own funeral, to throw everyone off. I'm not sure at what point everyone started to figure out that the King of Angmar was indeed the Witch-King. I often tend to think that it was after Angmar's fall (in 1975).

I was glad to at least have a mention of Angmar, and acknowledgement of a deeper, richer past. Even if somewhat distorted by the script. That itself almost implies the existence of an Arnor - which was totally absent from the movie background painted in Lord of the Rings (and notably - not very present in the book itself, other than some hints - until you reach the appendices).


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## Gandalf White (Jan 5, 2013)

Bearing in mind that I've only seen the movie once, so I may be missing something important, here are my thoughts on the matter:

1) Was it specifically mentioned that it was the Dunedain who placed the spells over the Wringwraiths' tombs? I got the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that it was the work of Elrond or Galadriel, which was why they were so surprised to hear of the "break-in." 

2) Perhaps PJ saw this as the easiest way to establish the returning Sauron as (a) powerful, due to his ability to break through the spells and (b) the Necromancer, able to bring his most powerful servant(s) back from the dead.

Those were my initial takes at least..


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## Erestor Arcamen (Jan 5, 2013)

Gandalf White said:


> Bearing in mind that I've only seen the movie once, so I may be missing something important, here are my thoughts on the matter:
> 
> 1) Was it specifically mentioned that it was the Dunedain who placed the spells over the Wringwraiths' tombs? I got the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that it was the work of Elrond or Galadriel, which was why they were so surprised to hear of the "break-in."
> 
> ...



From what I remember it says the northmen/people of the north sealed the tombs, so that's where someone must have gotten Dunedain.


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## Valandil (Jan 5, 2013)

Like the rest of you - I only saw it once, and I had a different impression. I got the impression that it was the King of Angmar's men who buried him. I didn't recall them saying 'imprisoned'. But I could well have missed it. I intend to see at least once more, so I'll try to listen more carefully the next time.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Jan 6, 2013)

I think the term they used was sealed. Like they sealed the witch king in his tomb in a place so dark it could never see the light of day


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## HLGStrider (Jan 6, 2013)

One thing I kind of wondered about was that this little innocuous looking blade was somehow immediately identified with the Witch King. I can understand it being obviously a Morgul blade, but aren't there more than a few of those? Seeing as that they tend to melt on impact, you'd assume the Nine would need access to replacements. Which seemed to be Saruman's point, of course. Still, Elrond and Galadriel immediately leap to the conclusion that this is from Angmar and could've come from no place but a sealed tomb. Just lazy writing or is there some reasoning behind this that I'm missing?

That said I have always been a little curious about the melting away aspect of Morgul blades. Is is to stop them from falling into enemy hands? Is it to make them deadlier because they become shrapnel in the victim's body? Does stabbing someone activate the self destruct or does being separated from the Nine do it? When I read the book I had some sort of impression that Aragorn was so good that his touch destroyed the blade, but looking back I think that is unlikely. Aragorn's touch melts hearts, not blades. All this is more of a discussion for book than movie forums, however.


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## Bucky (Jan 9, 2013)

The Wizard of Oz gets exposed and says: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

PJ's moronic plot twists get exposed & we just have to say: "Pay no attention to the book behind the movies." :*confused:


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## kirby smith (Mar 25, 2017)

Troll said:


> Aw, I had hoped that there was an explanation in evidence for how the Witch-King was allegedly "imprisoned..." Ah well, here's to hoping it will be revealed in the next two films.
> 
> It could be a decently satisfying twist if the (film) White Council only _believed_ the Nazgul to have been imprisoned in any meaningful way and their feigned inertia was just part of the plan.


I know this is a bit of a necro' post but in the movies I was wondering why they just didn't cremate the bodies instead of entombing them further to that would that have affected the resurrection of the wraiths (in the movies) as we all know in the books they (their spirits) were enslaved by the One Ring.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 14, 2017)

I found a video recently on Youtube which is a scene of the Dunedain sealing the Witch-King.

You might look that up.

CL


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## Olorgando (Aug 22, 2019)

Let's see, the Nazgûl take Minas Ithil in the year 2002 TA, it is renamed Minas Morgul, then they capture Eärnur last-king of Gondor in 2050 TA. So I guess in the almost 900 years until the (second) Smaug incident, someone just has to march into Minas Morgul, clap the irons on the nine miscreants, drag them past Dol Guldur and seal them in these tombs - where were they supposed to be, anyway? Mount Gundabad? Is it ever explicitly stated? But anyway, it should be a piece of cake, shouldn't it? 😬 _*headbang*_


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Aug 24, 2019)

I guess my best advice on this sort of topic is -- stop torturing yoursel! 😟


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## Alcuin (Aug 25, 2019)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> I found a video recently on Youtube which is a scene of the Dunedain sealing the Witch-King.
> 
> You might look that up.


URL, please? Google did not immediately reveal anything pertinent, and I am lazy.


Olorgando said:


> Let's see, the Nazgûl take Minas Ithil in the year 2002 TA, it is renamed Minas Morgul, then they capture Eärnur last-king of Gondor in 2050 TA. So I guess in the almost 900 years until the (second) Smaug incident, someone just has to march into Minas Morgul, clap the irons on the nine miscreants, drag them past Dol Guldur and seal them in these tombs... But anyway, it should be a piece of cake, shouldn't it? 😬 _*headbang*_


_Who will bell the cat?_ Some bell. Some cat!



Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> I guess my best advice on this sort of topic is -- stop torturing yoursel! 😟


Torture only for the Elves and Dúnedain involved! BTW, were only Dúnedain involved? With my (intentionally) limited familiarity with the movies (I’ve only seen them once or twice), I thought Jackson’s Elrond indicated that it took both Elves and Dúnedain to lock up Angmar.


Olorgando said:


> [W]here were they supposed to be, anyway? Mount Gundabad? Is it ever explicitly stated?


That was my impression, but then I am not intimately familiar with Jackson's cinematic rendition.


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## Olorgando (Aug 25, 2019)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> I guess my best advice on this sort of topic is -- stop torturing yoursel! 😟


To correct any erroneous impression you may have gained by whatever convoluted paths:
I am *not* a masochist - at least by conventional standards. 
_(I did *once*, well over ten years ago, spend a Saturday doing binge watching of the entire LoTR film trilogy EE versions. Point is, I haven't done it again. And the LoTR EEs were worthwhile.) 
(Or again, I own both cinematic and EE versions of TH trilogy - but the EEs are mainly interesting for the "making of the film" etc. "appendices", not the bleh additional footage)._



Alcuin said:


> _(about the tombs of the Nazgûl)_
> That was my impression, but then I am not intimately familiar with Jackson's cinematic rendition.


"Go to the tombs in the mountains" (Galadriel), "The high fells" (Gandalf) during some telepathy at the entrance to Mirkwood (in "Desolation").
High fells seems to be a PJ invention. As per Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas, there are Coldfells, perhaps a bit less than 100 miles north of Rivendell, but therefore *west* of the Misty Mountains, and a High Pass, near Goblin Town. Keeping things obscure, PJ is, and understandably so. He'd been taking plenty of lumps from the nerds as is.


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 25, 2019)

Alcuin said:


> URL, please? Google did not immediately reveal anything pertinent, and I am lazy.
> _Who will bell the cat?_ Some bell. Some cat!
> Torture only for the Elves and Dúnedain involved! BTW, were only Dúnedain involved? With my (intentionally) limited familiarity with the movies (I’ve only seen them once or twice), I thought Jackson’s Elrond indicated that it took both Elves and Dúnedain to lock up Angmar.
> That was my impression, but then I am not intimately familiar with Jackson's cinematic rendition.



I found this video of them burying the Witch King. It's only 0:35 long and doesn't seem like anything special, just more of PJ's stupid imagination.


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## Olorgando (Aug 25, 2019)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> I found this video of them burying the Witch King. It's only 0:35 long and doesn't seem like anything special, just more of PJ's stupid imagination.


Is that an actual part of the official TH EEs? I certainly don't remember it (my guess would be the scene in the cinematic version where Gandalf and Radagast meet in the tombs in those "high fells", perhaps a flashback to the "entombment").
Or is this something which "ended up on the cutting-room floor", as one said in the days of celluloid, and someone scooped it off the floor and posted it on YouTube? 😒


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## Alcuin (Aug 25, 2019)

The clip shows Gandalf speaking with someone hairy – Beorn, I suppose – who asks if there are tombs in the “high fells”. The film cuts to Gandalf remembering words of Galadriel’s, but showing the Dúnedain burying a body “in the high fells of Rhudaur”. That sure sounds like the Coldfells to me, though perhaps you could make an argument that it was the west-reaching arm of the Misty Mountains that separated Rhudaur from Angmar.

Tolkien would care where this was. Would Jackson? Should we?


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## Olorgando (Aug 25, 2019)

Alcuin said:


> The clip shows Gandalf speaking with someone hairy – Beorn, I suppose – who asks if there are tombs in the “high fells”. The film cuts to Gandalf remembering words of Galadriel’s, but showing the Dúnedain burying a body “in the high fells of Rhudaur”. …


Thank you for those details, Alcuin. But to rephrase my question above, is this something that is in the actual EE of (I'm guessing) "Desolation" (or any of the EEs, I own all three), or is it what in earlier times (mostly for music) would have been called a "bootleg", that somehow ended up on YouTube? If the latter were the case, I could fast-forward all three EE DVDs and not find it. And would be seriously grumpy for it.


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## Miguel (Aug 25, 2019)

Forget about that scene and imagine something like this with Pharazôn and Sauron instead. That ambience is tremendous.


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## Olorgando (Aug 26, 2019)

Ah, the version with Klaus Kinski, one of Germany's more notorious actors. The majority of his roles could be bunched under the category of being that of a "loose cannon".
Remake of a 1922 (also German) silent film which apparently ran into legal trouble with Bram Stoker's heirs over not having been authorized. Thankfully, despite a court order (it doesn't say where) to the contrary, some prints survived. I'm pretty sure I've seen this version completely, not as sure about the Kinski one. Though it was one of his more low-key performances.

Off the top of my head, I would envision Pharazôn a lot closer to the movie Théoden before his being released from Saruman's influence by Gandalf (definitely one of PJ's overboard explicitness "sins").


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Aug 26, 2019)

For those who somehow haven't seen it, the original Murnau film is available in several versions on youtube. Here's one with the Erdman score reconstucted:






Another one, reconstructed from various partial prints:


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## Erestor Arcamen (Aug 26, 2019)

Olorgando said:


> Is that an actual part of the official TH EEs? I certainly don't remember it (my guess would be the scene in the cinematic version where Gandalf and Radagast meet in the tombs in those "high fells", perhaps a flashback to the "entombment").
> Or is this something which "ended up on the cutting-room floor", as one said in the days of celluloid, and someone scooped it off the floor and posted it on YouTube? 😒



Posting this in the RIGHT forum now....

Yeah, I'm not sure which movie but it's from the Extended Edition of one of them. I own all three but never even bothered to watch Battle of 5 armies yet because it was so bad in the theater.


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## Olorgando (Aug 26, 2019)

Since the topic of vampires has cropped up – and there is the odd vampire *bat* flitting around even in the published Silmarillion, never mind HoMe – somebody should have told the Dúnedain the bit about driving a wooden stake through the heart. 
But then again, the Nazgûl didn’t belong to *that* category of the undead … 😕


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Aug 26, 2019)

To continue dragging the thread OT, I recommend "Shadow of the Vampire" from 2000, about the making of the 1922 film, with the conceit that Murnau, in order to create a film as "authentic" as possible, found a real vampire to play Count Orlock:






The situation with the Murnau film is similar to that of the Spanish version of 1931's "Dracula", in that parts were missing; much more of the latter, of course, to the extent that it was considered a "lost" film, until a print was discovered in Cuba in the 1960's. Still not generally available until released on home video, in 1992, I believe. Of course, that was a case of simple neglect, rather than deliberate destruction.

I'd been reading about it for decades, and was delighted to finally have it, as it is in many ways superior to the English version; for one thing, Dracula actually rises from his coffin, something Todd Browning wasn't able to figure out how to do. The camera work is much more fluid, too, compared to the Browning version, which, after the great first reel, becomes a bedroom farce without the comedy. The only thing missing is Lugosi.

OTOH, it replaces the bloodless female actresses, to whom one early reviewer quipped "no self-respecting vampire would give a second glance", with much sexier Latinas, especially the delicious Lupita Tovar, who was still alive to give an introduction to the home video release:


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## Olorgando (Aug 26, 2019)

Murnau’s actual family name was Plumpe. He took his pseudonym from the Bavarian town (south of Munich), though whether he ever actually was there is speculative, at least at the time he changed his name (1910). The town’s mansion museum did a special exhibition on him in 2003 (115th birthday?) and produced an exhibition catalog for the event. A copy of which catalog I was able to purchase in 2006 when I was in an even smaller town, one train station south of Murnau, for some weeks.

F.W. Murnau seems to have been regarded quite highly as a director of the silent film era, first in Germany, and after his emigration in 1926 in Hollywood (he died from injuries suffered in a car accident near Santa Barbara in 1931).

In the filmographic section of the catalog, there is an impressive collection of film stills, posters, and paintings which may have served as inspirations to him, the latter by artists which included Munch, Velazquez, and Goya (to name those that ring a bell even with me, art philistine that I am – this is my wife’s area of interest). To bring my post, wheels screeching and skidding, back to topic, from those pictures I would think that F.W. Murnau could have done things with the tombs and Dol Guldur scenes that would have put PJ absolutely to shame. Though I often wonder if what we “Hildor” consider to be the special atmospherics of many of these silent-era films boils down to the limited lighting capabilities of the era. But then again one could argue that they did wonders with the limited resources available to them at the time, compared to today’s technical overkill.


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## Miguel (Aug 26, 2019)

Olorgando said:


> Ah, the version with Klaus Kinski, one of Germany's more notorious actors. The majority of his roles could be bunched under the category of being that of a "loose cannon".
> Remake of a 1922 (also German) silent film which apparently ran into legal trouble with Bram Stoker's heirs over not having been authorized. Thankfully, despite a court order (it doesn't say where) to the contrary, some prints survived. I'm pretty sure I've seen this version completely, not as sure about the Kinski one. Though it was one of his more low-key performances.
> 
> Off the top of my head, I would envision Pharazôn a lot closer to the movie Théoden before his being released from Saruman's influence by Gandalf (definitely one of PJ's overboard explicitness "sins").



This movie is a masterpiece and definitely my favorite version of this story, there are moments where it stops feeling like a movie and becomes sort of a documentary with long scenes of absent dialogue and the visuals/landscapes taking over to talk for themselves. There are two cuts of this movie, one with the actors speaking German and in the other English. The scenes on both cuts are nearly identical, like i wouldn't have noticed if i didn't read it.


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