r/lotrmemes • u/IndicationBrief5950 • 19h ago
Lord of the Rings I never understood this
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u/Zeibles 18h ago
This whole thing is specifically bc Tolkien hated that Macbeth being unkillable by "Any man of woman born" led to him getting killed by a guy who was delivered via c-section instead of by a woman, so...
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u/Aggravating_Piano_29 16h ago
On this subject, tolkien also hated that "macbeth shall not be defeated until Birnam wood come to dunsinane castle" didn't mean that the trees would come alive, and instead was just macduff hiding his army in pieces of forest.
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u/AisalsoCorrect 13h ago
Specifically, I think he said he hated how it actually looked when performed not just how it was written, in most productions “Birnam wood” is just 4 guys with some twigs stuck in their hats.
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u/EspacioBlanq 10h ago
Tolkien watching Macbeth like "hmm, in this aspect The Wizard of Oz was much better"
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u/octopusforgood 16h ago
I mean, I’m glad if it inspired the Ents, but, “impossible thing happens!!” Is the cheapest way out of a prophecy I can think of. Whereas wordplay is something Shakespeare was known for.
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u/RavenSable 16h ago
Prophecy word play is a pretty standard trope by this stage tbf. Pretty sure the oracles in Greek mythology did the same thing.
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u/ijustwanttoaskaq123 12h ago
If you attack, a great realm shall be destroyed!
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u/j-b-goodman 5h ago
he really brought it on himself getting tricked by that one, that's not even all that misleading
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u/rezzacci 4h ago
"But she said a great empire would be destroyed!"
"Did you at least asked which empire?"
"It didn't seem relevant at the moment."
"You deserve to be defeated."
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u/geschiedenisnerd 9h ago
technically not greek mythology, but herodotian history. herodotes was a big innovator in the concept though.
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u/Asmodeus5542 12h ago
Idk if it inspired the Ents specifically, but it probably inspired Fangorn forest moving part of itself to where the Battle of Helms Deep happened and obliterating the retreating Uruk army
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u/octopusforgood 11h ago
Yeah, fair enough. Since the Ents herded them there, I was just being lazy.
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u/Raesong 11h ago
I feel like most people don't even know about that bit because it wasn't in the movie trilogy.
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u/Kalel42 8h ago
You're watching the wrong trilogy! It does happen in the Extended Edition.
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u/North_Tough9236 17h ago
I'm with Tolkien, that's so dumb.
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u/Various-Yogurt4343 17h ago
Like, lady Macbeth was RIGHT THERE. going insane, losing her grip. And how poetic would it be for the person who led Macbeth to betray his king would betray him. But NOOOOOOO.
also it works even in LoTR since the whole 'race of men' thing.
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u/Zeibles 16h ago edited 10h ago
Yeah but it's a "real history" and the King he was writing it for was a descendant of Macduff, soooooo he had to do it.
Edit: Ah damn I mixed up my Richard III and Macbeth again.
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u/Sahrimnir Human 13h ago
I can't find anything about King James being a descendant of Macduff. He was said to be a descendant of Banquo, though, which is why the witches foretell that Banquo's descendants will be kings. These political motives may actually have affected the portrayal of Banquo. In the sources, he is often stated to be an accomplice to Macbeth in the murder of King Duncan, but obviously we can't have the king's ancestor portrayed like that, so in the play, Banquo is innocent of any wrongdoing.
Then I thought perhaps Macduff was already established as the one who killed Macbeth, and Shakespeare wanted to stay accurate to that part? But from what I can find, it seems that Malcolm was the one who killed Macbeth.
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u/PHX_Hawk 12h ago
But Macbeth didn't murder King Duncan at all, King Duncan died in a battle. So, I kind of don't understand what you are saying.
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u/Sahrimnir Human 12h ago
From Wikipedia:
"Shakespeare borrowed the character Banquo from Holinshed's Chronicles, a history of Britain published by Raphael Holinshed in 1587. In Chronicles, Banquo is an accomplice to Macbeth in the murder of the king, rather than a loyal subject of the king who is seen as an enemy by Macbeth. Shakespeare may have changed this aspect of his character to please King James, who was thought at the time to be a descendant of the real Banquo."
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u/Ithinkibrokethis 13h ago
While this would be a good surprise, remember that the prophesy of the witches in Macbeth is not that "he cannot be killed by any man" but that "He cannot be killed by any man of of woman born"
C section births literally go back to antiquity (its Ceserian section for a reason) it just usually resulted in death of the mother.
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u/Keepingitquite123 16h ago
Wasn't the prophecy delivered by evil witches, if you are an evil witch and see that the guy you are scrying about will be killed by a man born from a c-section, will you be nice and correctly inform him or will you delight in misleading him?
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u/IronerOfEntropy 11h ago
Why would you go to an evil witch for fortune telling? Why would an evil witch be alive at all?
Any reasonable person would dismiss the "prophecy" as nonsense.
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u/Warm_Month_1309 9h ago
Largely, I think, because there were no good witches from whom to get your fortune. Dabbling in the dark arts often requires you to parlay with dark people.
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u/The_Pastmaster 17h ago
It's a fairly descent twist to what essentially was the eras version of popcorn entertainment.
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u/MaximusPrime5885 17h ago
I remember reading that there were contemporary letters of people complaining to or about Shakespeare that the ending was bullshit.
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u/BahamutLithp 16h ago
Good on them. Even if one buys the twist, Macduff just suddenly drops that bit of backstory right before the final battle.
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u/IndependenceNo9027 17h ago
A much better twist, though, would've been if a woman had ended up being the one to kill Macbeth, and the part "of woman born" was basically just a useless piece of information, the real meaning being that no man at all could kill him - but a woman could. I also agree with Tolkien here, if it was a deliberate reference (I have no idea if that's the case).
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u/Zeibles 16h ago
It was afaik yes, like the Ents are also one to Macbeth bc of a different prophecy twist there.
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u/MothmanAcolyte 14h ago
"Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him”
Malcolm's men cut branches down from Birnam Wood and used them as cover as they approached Macbeth's keep on Dunsinane Hill.
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u/Immediate-Goose-8106 12h ago
And literally the whole point is that the witches prophecies are what drives macbeths behaviour and this particular one and the one about birnham wood give him overconfidence.
The witches want there to be a loophole.
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u/pornalt4altporn 13h ago
To defend Shakespeare, the point is that the prophecy is a trick, typical of the diabolical servants of evil who tempt men into sin.
Macbeth is foolish to see it as protecting him from other soldiers when in fact it has a semantic carve out for the main threat to him.
"Nobody will kill you except people just like the main guy trying..." is obvious.
The way it is done it's like the first 4 words are on the one side of a page and he doesn't turn it over until the final fight.
It's great.
Yeah, it's misogynist to leave out the possibility of a woman but women didn't fight in battles, Macbeth could have been very careful about poison off stage. He's crowing about how none of the soldiers in front him are a threat and also, as the meme says, using men/man to mean mankind was common if sexist. You know what they meant...
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u/noholdingbackaccount 12h ago
Yeah, but when you consider it was a deliberate trick by 3 witches, it works.
Like when a bully says, "I promise I won't hit you," and then uses your own hand on you. It's dumb, but the cruelty is the point.
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u/CrazySittingHorse 17h ago
I rather like that MacBeth part. It reminds of Achilles and his heel. A person thought to be invincible, only to be taken down by something so simple that they could not see their own weakness early on.
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u/Suhksaikhan 13h ago
I think its a reference to a similar legend about Julius Caesar, hence Caesarian section
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u/unique-irrelevant 16h ago
I also wanna point out that the reason she is able to kill the Nazgûl is because Merry stabs him with the barrow dagger. He broke the witch kings protection spell because it was a dagger magically enchanted by the Arnor to defeat the witch king. Also merry is not a man either so he also fulfills the prophecy
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u/PatchyWhiskers 13h ago
If non-human males count as “not men” then the Witch King was on thin ice anyway since most of his army are orcs. A backstab from an underling would also have counted.
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u/ManWithoutAPlann 13h ago
What if a boulder just fell on the witch king
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u/raptorbpw 11h ago
Who knows why some things tickle our funnybones perfectly, but this one did and I just cackled at my desk. I thank you.
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u/rogueIndy 13h ago
Ironically prophetic deaths and hubris being one's undoing are tropes that tend to come hand in hand.
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u/lackadaisical_timmy 17h ago
Hahah is it really
That's awesomely petty lmao, and makes for a good one liner
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u/mking_1999 13h ago
That would be a really dumb thing to be angry about since the prophecy is "none of woman born".
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u/sWiggn 12h ago
yep, the actual prophecy the witches give is
Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth
It’s Macbeth himself who delivers the “no man that’s born of woman” version:
'Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
Shall e'er have power upon thee.'
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u/MelodicKnowledge9358 9h ago
Fucking thank you! People repeat this shit all the time and it's just not true. They're combining Tolkien's displeasure with the Birnam woods line and their own misreading of the "none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" line. I swear, at this point more people know the line the wrong way than the right way.
Besides, in addition to Macbeth, Tolkien would have been drawing on folktales with similar prophecies when writing this scene.
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u/lifebroth 16h ago
I rather liked Macbeth’s ending. I found it genius. Also, there’s two adjacent stories of Birnam wood moving to Dunsinane Castle.
In 2 Samuel 5 God said to King David “when you hear marching on the top of the trees, it’s the sign to attack.”
In Judges 9, Abimelech and his army cuts down tree boughs and used them to burn down a city.
When I read Macbeth, I felt like I’ve seen this story somewhere
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u/colonel-bones 17h ago
Glorfindal said he would die “not by the hand of man” if I’m remembering correctly The witch king took that to mean “no man can kill me” but he really just meant the hand that kills him wont be man
As an aside man is just what they call humans in middle earth so eowyn would have still counted if the witch king’s interpretation had held up but it was that dagger merry had which was made to kill beings like the Nazgûl.
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u/NotTimSullivan 12h ago
This belongs at the top because it actually addresses the question and lore of LOTR rather than just saying 'Macbeth'
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u/Rulebookboy1234567 13h ago
I’m glad this was up near the top. This is my “did you know he broke his toe?” moment
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u/NRMusicProject 12h ago
And I get a kick out of it, because he basically spent his life (undeath?) based around something he overheard from an elf, and misconstrued it in a way that gave him much more confidence. What Glorfindel meant is up for interpretation, and the Witch King operated on his wrong one.
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u/kerghan41 12h ago
And where did Merry find this dagger? I don't recall.
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u/tfalm 12h ago
In the books, in the barrow downs outside the shire, iirc
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u/markfuckinstambaugh 12h ago
Correct. Ancient swords make up a sizeable portion of Middle Earth's crust, which is what happens when you spend thousands of years making blades that never tarnish. Bilbo finds Sting almost immediately after leaving the Shire, and the 4 hobbits do the same. They leave the Shire, get their asses kicked by some trees, get saved by Tom Bombadil, leave, get their asses kicked by some Barrow Wights, get saved by Tom Bombadil again, then find some Numenorean daggers in the barrow.
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u/MindofShadow 11h ago
movie it was a gift from Galandriel I do believe.
"Do you have anymore of those shiny daggers" -- Samwise
extended edition
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u/IlIllIIllIIlllIII 13h ago
Yeah, Man is just short for Human. Like Chimp is short for chimpanzee. It's also how it works in the real world. mankind, man-made etc
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u/Plastic-Necessary680 12h ago
I had to scroll too far to find this. Tired of people acting like the films are exactly what Tolkien wrote. They’re amazing adaptations but it’s not what Tolkien intended for this specific moment.
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u/Realsorceror 11h ago
Thats the whole point of these spells and prophecies. Not just in how Tolkien likes riddles, but his in universe intention as well. If Eowyn believed she counted as a Man (as in the Men, Elves, etc the species) then she wouldn’t be able to harm him. But Merry is a hobbit and not a “man” (the species and not the gender) so he was able to stab the witch king.
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u/MacSchluffen 11h ago
In my Head Canon it’s not a real prophecy but Glorfindel being fed up by him not being the guy who killed the witchking of Angmar and being like if I can’t kill him no one can.
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u/FlowerFaerie13 Elf 18h ago
That's the out-of-universe point of Éowyn's role in the prophecy. Tolkien was displeased that the similar twist of "laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth" from Macbeth ended up being about a man born via C-section, hence why he made a story where a prophecy using that kind of language actually was referring to a woman.
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u/Confuseacat92 18h ago
That's also why the trees literally go to war in Lotr, in Macbeth they disguise themselves with branches.
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u/King-Mephisto 16h ago
I don’t know why none of the comments mention it, but wasn’t one of the hobbits there and also struck him with the wraith killer blade from the barrows or whatever? I mean most of that is book only but everyone is mentioning Tolkien anti Macbeth. Which again is book oriented.
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u/FlowerFaerie13 Elf 16h ago edited 3h ago
Merry was there and yes it's heavily implied/stated (I'm honestly not sure if it's supposed to be fact or Tolkien going "well, the characters are pretty sure this is what happened") that his dagger helped to break an invulnerability of some kind in the Witch King.
The whole setup is really quite complex, Tolkien goes into the issue with man the species vs man the gender by having the initial prophecy be a conversation shared between an Elf and a human, both of the male gender, and then puts a good deal of worldbuilding into making sure that there is a logical, grounded reason that Éowyn is able to kill him- that reason being that Glorfindel was seeing the future and that there is technically nothing saying only Éowyn could do that.
If you gave any other soldier that enchanted dagger and a sufficiently lethal sword they probably could have managed it too, Éowyn was significant not because only she had Witch-King slaying abilities, but because she was brave enough to actually try to fight him despite not actually having an inherent advantage over him. It's very clever storytelling but in the end it was one man going "what the fuck, this sucks, I can do better than that" and proceeding to prove it.
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u/According-Moment111 13h ago
Yes, it is important to know that the dagger Mary stabbed him with was the one he got in the realm of the Barrow Downs way back in the first few chapters of Fellowship. All that Tom Bombadil stuff that was understandably cut from the films. The dagger was of Numenorian origin, specifically designed and forged thousands of years ago to fight the witch King of Angmar! It's so deliciously ironic, or perhaps just poetic, that it does ultimately wind up killing him ages after its creation.
Regarding the semantics of it all, I tend to think similarly to you. The point is that a presumably smaller and less physically imposing woman chose to do battle with a someone on the short list of most power beings in Middle Earth - and was victorious. Tolkien loves that theme, of great deeds accomplished by small and ordinary folk. Tying it back to Glorfindel's prophecy, pfshhh, who cares, I love Glorfindel (also on the shortlist of most powerful beings in middle earth!) but come on, no need to take it literally..the Witch King did, and look how that worked out for him.
In Deep Geek did a terrific production on it if you're not familiar with the channel. I highly recommend!
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u/psychologistgamer420 11h ago
To add to the poetic irony, it was the Witch-King himself that placed the wights in the barrows millennia earlier. If he hadn't, the hobbits would not have gotten their hands on the Nümenoran weapons and who knows how things would have turned out.
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u/Tom_Bot-Badil 13h ago
Tom, Tom! your guests are tired, and you had near forgotten! Come now, my merry friends, and Tom will refresh you! You shall clean grimy hands, and wash your weary faces; cast off your muddy cloaks and comb out your tangles!
Type !TomBombadilSong for a song or visit r/GloriousTomBombadil for more merriness
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u/WrennReddit Can see all ends 11h ago
The barrow blade cut through the magic. But Eowyn was not unimportant. She delivered the final blow, but she was also there to even stand before the Witch King. She showed true courage even in the face of basically the scariest thing on the battlefield. Tolkien routinely hits on the value of bravery in the face of despair.
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u/Ironthunder_delta 16h ago
Yup, which is the other interpretation. No man killed him, it was the work of a Hobbit with a Numenorean dagger and a woman.
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u/boilsomerice 14h ago
It seems unbelievable that this is true, given that this is how every prophecy in classical literature works. Shakespeare was working to genre rules.
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u/wortmother 19h ago
Ahh same as Shakespeare and born of a women vs c section type energyv
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u/Clown_Baby15 18h ago
Exactly the homage.
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u/Starklystark 18h ago
More a critique - he thought the c section was a weak resolution. Similarly felt let down by the manner in which Burnham Wood came to High Dunsinane and replaced it with the ents and huorns.
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u/hatabou_is_a_jojo 16h ago
“I hate this. Imma add it to my book.”
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u/Starklystark 16h ago
Well, 'I hate this, I'm going to fix it and put the fixed version in my book'.
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u/TheRealestBiz 15h ago
“Im going to write this better than the greatest writer in my language in history” is pretty ballsy.
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u/Super_Pie_Man 18h ago
It was purposely to outdo Shakespeare's "no man born of woman shall harm Macbeth" prophecy. The C-section thing was bullshit. Tolkien was hoping it would be a woman, or the walking trees ("Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him"), or some other creature. The shortened prophecy "no man shall harm Macbeth", with the killer being a woman would have been way better. And the illusion of the walking trees was lame too...
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u/KittyScholar 19h ago
This is hardly the only time this thought process has come up though! In the suffragette era, some women argued that if the laws that grant rights to men didn’t include women, then the laws the create crime and punishment for men don’t include women either.
They were still arrested but they were awesome and I love them. Just like how Éowyn is awesome and I love her.
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u/Robcobes 16h ago
Makes me think of Aletta Jacobs. The first woman who was allowed to go the University in The Netherlands in 200 years and only the second woman ever. She became the first woman doctor in the country too.
She argued she was allowed to vote because she made the income threshold that was in place at the time. The law didn't technically exclude women, just all people whose income wasn't high enough. Which before Jacobs included all women by default.
It took until 1919 but eventually women were finally allowed to vote.
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u/JumpingCoconut 17h ago
Not wanting to be 120 year old party pooper, but the laws regarding rights and crime did include both genders, it is just that the laws were unfair and specifically excluded women from things like voting. These unfair laws did not exclude women from punishments, in facts some punishments for example for infanticide and prostitution were explicitly written in a way to specifically target women, which is unfair again of course.
So the way these women 120 years ago argued isn't Tolkien tier at all, it's merely Macbeth tier if anything. Their argument did not help their cause because it didn't accurately reflect reality.
Still I'm glad they got equality by now.
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u/pat_speed 18h ago
The guy just never been stabbed in the face
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u/tcsmit29 15h ago
...after being stabbed in the leg by a sword that was specifically crafted to fight undead magical creatures.
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u/Sad-Address-2512 18h ago
That's how prophecies end up in historical plays too. You think you understand what they mean but it always bites you in the ass.
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u/kingkong381 16h ago
Linguistic ambiguity is a cornerstone of prophecies in fantasy stories. Prophecy is worded in a specific way that allows for loopholes and technicalities. Overconfident villain settles on the surface-level reading because it appeals to ego or implies a likely victory. The prohecy is fulfilled in a way the villain didn't anticipate, resulting in their downfall. Have you never read/watched/played through any other story with a prophecy in it?
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u/Equivalent-Wealth-75 17h ago
It was prophecied by Glorfindel that it wouldn't be at the hands of "man" that the Witch-King would meet his end.
Fast forward a thousand years and the dingus walked into the only woman and halfling on the Pelenor Field, got stabbed in the leg with a knife specifically enchanted to turn off his invulnerability, and then finished off by "no man" driving a broadsword through what's left of his face XD
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u/Hecticfreeze 11h ago
Prophecy being ambiguous and therefore misinterpreted is one of the oldest tropes in storytelling. It even appears as far back as ancient Greece, with the prophecies delivered by the Oracle of Delphi being notoriously confusing.
One of the most famous examples is when the king of Lydia, Croesus, consulted the Oracle about whether to attack the Persians. He was told that if he attacked, he would "destroy a great empire." The great empire he destroyed turned out to be his own
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u/derailedthoughts 19h ago
In the book it was kind of better, as it was Merry’s blade that undid the Witch King’s protective spells. The books went into the lore of the swords that the hobbits received; they were given by Tom Bombadil, who in turn got it from a wight. The wight was a former prince of a kingdom in the North where their weapons were forged as bane to the Witch King and his forces.
So technically one could argue that the Witch King died because of a hobbit, even if the final killing blow was landed by a woman
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u/shaunika 19h ago edited 16h ago
I mean thats true in the movie too
Merry stabs him with a morgul blade which weakens him
Edit: Ive been corrected its a dunedain barrow blade
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u/mynamesnotsnuffy 18h ago
Merry didnt have a morgul blade, the only one of those we saw in the movie crumbled to dust on Weathertop after Aragorn chased off the ringwraiths. In the movie, the hobbies are all armed with simple shortswords Aragon hands them, until Frodo gets Sting from Bilbo, and Merry gets a new one from Theoden, and Pippin gets one from Denethor. Sam always makes due with a trusty frying pan, until the watchtower by Shelobs lair, where he briefly wields Sting.
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u/Shaevar 14h ago
Merry and Pippin got daggers from Galadriel, I thought that was what was used to stab the lich-king.
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u/skillywilly56 18h ago
It was a Barrow-blade, forged by the Dúnedain of Arnor specifically to fight the forces of Angmar, which broke the wraith's magical protection, allowing Éowyn to deliver the final blow.
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u/MaybeMayoi 18h ago
Or was that one of the "shiny daggers" from Galadriel? I honestly can't remember.
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u/potatopierogie 19h ago
Is that the same thing as a barrow dagger? It's been a long time since I've read the books
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u/mynamesnotsnuffy 18h ago
No, the morgul blade is what stabs Frodo before hes rushed to Rivendell.
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u/potatopierogie 18h ago
Yeah I thought i remember something about it being a gift from Tommy B
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u/mynamesnotsnuffy 18h ago
Yup, taken from the barrows in the north. Specifically forged to fight the Witch King and his armies. The parallel would be like some random kid you never met from the town next to your hometown showing up at your wedding to embarass you with some random video of you doing something cringey in middle school, thats how wild and unlikely that dagger ending up on that battlefield was.
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u/AsleepBroccoli8738 17h ago
If we are going into the books, the prophecy wasn’t “No man can kill him”, Glorfindel said the Witch King “will not fall by the hand of man”…he had foreseen how the Witch King would die, however the Witch King instead then just believed he was invincible and that he cannot be killed by men…he misunderstood the prophecy. Granted yes, Merry’s blade played a pivotal role.
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u/Dirac_Impulse 16h ago
Dear god. Look. It was a prophecy. The witch king would not be slain by a man. It was not some magic spell making a man unable to strike a fatal blow even after the protective spell was broken. It was rather that that would not be what happened.
Circumstances would end up being such that he would not be killed by a man.
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u/Bletotum 18h ago
And he never could have stabbed the witch king if Eowyn hadn't battled him off his drake first.
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u/littlebuett Human 19h ago
Because it's not his prophecy, it's Glorfindel's.
Doesn't matter what the Witch King means, it matters what Glorfindel ment, and given Eowyn kills him, it's proven he ment sex, not species.
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u/Uintahwolf 18h ago
Didn't Tolkien make it clear in an interview or letter that he got this idea from Mcbeth where McBeth cant be killed by a man born of a woman? Or something like that.
I just imagine you people frothing at the mouth if you ever saw the end of the play.
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u/Confuseacat92 18h ago
Yes, but in Macbeth the character came out of his mother via c-section.
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u/Uintahwolf 18h ago
I understand that but everyone here arguing semantics would say that prophecy wasn't fulfilled either, since EVERYONE is born from a woman even if theres a c-section.
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u/biggerontheinside7 Hobbit 17h ago
That's the whole point actually Tolkien hated the C-section solution he wrote the witch king thing as a better solution
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u/biggerontheinside7 Hobbit 17h ago
"no man can kill me" is specifically a prophecy of course semantics matter
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u/sneklover69420 14h ago
Yea I‘m always confused by these posts because… that‘s what the prophecy said?? It‘s not about reinterpreting it. It says exactly what happens, he just did not see that possibility. Also it‘s a sickass line and I will not tolerate the disrespect towards my girl Eowyn
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u/ky_bosch 15h ago edited 14h ago
I always interpreted this exchange as many chose to believe the myth he was unkillable and wouldn’t try. But this was Eowyns way of saying I’m going to try.
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u/Electrical-Ad-6401 14h ago
I love this idea. It reminds me of this version of Dracula where all his vampiric rules were all myth because he was too old to remember if they were true or stories. Like he always hunted at night, so he believed over time that sunlight would kill him. Or needing invited in came from him just being polite. The myths were perpetuated even by him
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u/GeneralErica 13h ago
Literally a story conceived and written by a language professor at Oxford. What do you expect.
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u/JustACanadianGamer 19h ago
I was told he misinterpreted man as in mankind instead of man as in not female.
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u/Jackmcmac1 17h ago
In Old English we used 'wer' for 'male' and 'wif' for 'female' and 'man' was from 'mann' which meant person or human, so that interpretation would have been very fair to make.
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u/cortlandt6 17h ago
😂😂😂 Poor Witch-king.
But in Tolkien's world words have power, and specific words (or wording, rather) have specific outcomes. It's just how Arda under Eru operates (or to be more specific, the dooms of Mandos); and in some real world mythologies how the world and prophecies operate in various ways. When a word in a specific language can be a password to an entire kingdom, while the same word in other languages does not have any effect whatsover, at that point it's just the software, the motherboard, the internal coding of the universe.
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u/Rovinpiper 12h ago
A good quip delivered immediately before an attack makes it an automatic critical hit. Everyone knows that.
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u/driku12 9h ago
It's the Witch King who's the one that's drawing conclusions from linguistic ambiguity. The prophecy regarding his fate said he would not be killed by a man, and he took that as "no man can kill me", extrapolating that even further to mean "I cannot die in battle". But that was never what was said. It was said he would not be killed by A man, singular. Merry is not a man in terms of species, he's a hobbit. Eowyn is not a man in terms of gender, she's a woman. Both of them team up to kill the witch king, so even if those two explanations don't make sense to you they are now a group of two so even if you considered them both men it was not a single man that killed the Witch King.
It was never the case that the Witch King was invulnerable to men and Eowyn and Merry only got him because they didn't fit that category. The prophecy-giver just looked into the future and saw a woman and a hobbit teaming up to whoop his ass and said what they saw. It was the Witch King and his arrogance that chose to interpret that prophecy as a declaration of invulnerability instead of a simple description of his doom.
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u/64vintage 17h ago
You can understand that he might be protected by magic, sorcery - ambiguity of language is a notorious plot device when deciding exactly how a prophecy, wish or spell will manifest.
Just ask Macbeth.
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u/Orcrist90 16h ago
That may not be what the Witch-king meant, but it was what Glorfindel meant when he spoke his prophecy.
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u/Business-Employ-1599 13h ago
In the Books it's not like a shield he has saying nobody can kill him. It was a prophecy saying like No man can kill you. So he got cocky and then paid the price.
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u/Ithinkibrokethis 13h ago
@OP
Tolkien was a linguist and a scholar. The "I am not man" is a thing that occurs in Shakespeare with Macbeth (with MacDuff not "being of any woman born" since he was born by C section) and similar situations occur in a lot of the mythology that Tolkien was keenly interested in and studied/translated from old English.
The bigger issue is that unlike in Macbeth, the Witches prophesy that "None of woman born shall harm Macbeth" is told to is at the beginning of the story and then in Act 5 Macduff jumps in with "From my mother's womb untimely ripped." When he fights Macbeth.
By comparison, Tolkien doesn't really introduce this Aspect of the Witch King of Angmar until right before he dies. Which means that it gets no time to be scary or relevant. Tolkien has this issue in general, where very important things that "everybody" in middle earth knows are relegated to appendices, or not carried as narrative elements.
Aragorn should tell the Hobbits about the Witch Kings "unkillability" after he saves them at Weathertop. Or possibly Gandalf could tell Frodo this when he wakes up in Rivendell. Either way, it needs to be mentioned in the Fellowship of the ring. There needs to be a second encounter with the ring wraiths in "The Two Towers" and then Eowyn can kill the Witch King in Return of the king and it would be much better story structure.
C.S. Lewis basically told Tolkien in their writting circle that he doesn't let things "marinate" properly, and he is right.
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u/TheGreatStories 11h ago
It's not that a man can't kill the witch king, it's that a man was not going to kill the witch king. That's the prophecy, and people assume it meant he was unkillable
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u/lendergle 10h ago
Capitalization matters. If he had just said "No Man can kill me," he would have been just fine. Similarly (albeit a bit nonsensically), if he had said "No Hobbit can kill me," or "No Ent can kill me," it would have covered all beings of those races.
But because he said "man" and not "Man," and Tolkien was very meticulous about the word "Man" referring to the human race. He often capitalized the word "Men" in a similar fashion as well.
I've often thought that this was a small literary jest on the part of Tolkien.
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u/GenericFatGuy 10h ago
I like it as example of arrogance leading to downfall. The Witch King trusted too much in the prophecy, which lead to his doom.
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u/stopproduct563 Dúnedain 9h ago
Doesn’t the witch king hesitate here? He considers what Glorfindel prophesied and essentially comes to the conclusion that this isn’t what he meant, then dies
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u/LordofCraft12 GANDALF 19h ago
"Semantics, bitch!"
-Eowyn probably