Nazgul "siege" of Minas Ithil

[WiscLukeRadedir]

In the last class we floated the idea that the siege of Minas Ithil was more of a spiritual battle, which I hadn't considered before. But after listening to the discussion on it, I'd have to say that I came around.

What I think turned me more towards the idea, though, is that the Wraiths came out of the pass of Cirith Ungol, rather than the Morgul/Ithil pass, which I am guessing is lower and easier to get through. Coming from the higher, more difficult pass, and long after "the watch on Mordor slept," I think it would seem more reasonable that the Crickhollow-method follows. You'd have to guess that Minas Ithil, being populated, still keeps a watch on the lower pass, but the higher pass, being unmaned, allows the Wraiths to pass unnoticed and set up around the city. I see it, if we're talking about how to advise a long-running TV series on the War of the Ring, as the Wraiths starting high up in the mountains, gradually coming down, the fear and dread on the city growing, and the citizens eventually succumbing to the Black Breath because nobody is quite aware of what is happening or why. Those that survive, if any, live to serve the Nazgul. There's more than one way to interpret "the dead city."

Once the "hour has come" the Nazgul simply come in and take over the city. This is also, in my mind, the most likely reason for the Palantir to be captured. If the city knew what was happening, wouldn't they have tried to get that away or call for help? It's not that Gondor has no aid to send, they were able to send a massive force to the Battle of Fornost just a few decades earlier that, while large to the Arnorians and people of Cirdan, was but a part of Gondor's army.

 

[Flammifer]

The siege of Minas Ithil lasted for 2 years (or part of 2 years), as it started in 2,000 and the city was taken in 2002.

I think a large part of the siege was 'spiritual', but I am not at all sure that all of it was.

We have almost no details about the siege of Minas Ithil, but one would have thought that Gondor would have made some efforts to break the siege and relieve Minas Ithil. That would have involved armies, rather than spiritual battle. Now, it could be that the spiritual efforts of the Nazgul were enough to halt the relieving armies of Gondor and repel them, but I doubt that could be achieved by spiritual force alone.

Whatever spiritual powers the Witch King had, were not enough to prevent his armies from being defeated at the Battle of Fornost, and then the remnants of his fleeing forces being destroyed by the cavalry of Earnur, and forces from Rivendell under Glorfindel.

Now, it could be that if all nine of the Nazgul were present at the siege of Minas Ithil, their spiritual force might have been greater than that which the Witch King alone could muster at Fornost. Though, how much greater? In all our knowledge of the Nine, the Witch King seems to be considerably more powerful than the rest of them.

It might also be that at Fornost, and in the subsequent annihilation of the Angmarian retreat, the spiritual power of Cirdan, Glorfindel, and other Elves, was critical in negating the spiritual power of the Witch King, in a way that was not apparent to the Gondorians. Gondor had no mighty Elven allies to help them break the siege of Minas Ithil. (I think this was probably a key, though unappreciated, factor).

Still, I doubt that the Nazgul victory at Minas Ithil was entirely won spiritually. Really, I find it surprising that they did take Minas Ithil, given how roundly they (at least one of them) had been defeated in Eriador just 25 years earlier.

 

[Arnorion]

Let's not forget that the spiritual power of the Nazgul increases significantly the closer their proximity to Mordor, or perhaps to Sauron who holds their Rings of Power, something like the inverse of the distance squared. So the addition of extra Nazgul backup (or rather more likely the completion of their order rather than any discrete increase in their party size) plus the "proximity to source of power" factor probably made their fear effect on the City of the Setting Moon more disastrous than was observed in the campaign against Arnor/Arthedain.

That said, we have other examples of Nazgul-led attacks on towers that were decidedly physical. Consider the assault on Amon Sul prior to the final fall of the North Kingdom. Unless we are to believe that spiritual catapults, terror trebuchets, and black-breath ballistae reduced the physical tower to physical rubble (the rubble which we see in chapter 11, Knife in the Dark), then we must admit to at least a significant physical/military component to the battle strategy of Nazgul when sieging towers in general: Dunedain, Elven, or otherwise.