The Most Terrifying Beasts in Lord of the Rings Lore Explained In 25 Minutes

The Nazgûl. The Nazgûl are the ringwraiths, and they are the closest thing Middle-earth has to walking death. They were once men. Nine kings of men, powerful lords in their own right, each handed a ring of power by Sauron in the Second Age. The rings gave them everything a mortal could dream of. Wealth beyond counting. Dominion over their kingdoms. And life that stretched on and on, far past the natural span of any man. But that was the trap. The rings were never gifts. They were leashes. Over the centuries, the power that kept them alive also hollowed them out. Their bodies faded until there was nothing left to see. Their souls were stretched thin across the years until they became wraiths, beings that exist half in the world of the living and half in the world of the unseen. This is the part the films only hint at. The Nazgûl do not simply wear black robes because it looks menacing. The robes are all that is left of them. Underneath, there is no body at all. They live permanently in the shadow world, the wraith-realm that overlaps our own, which is why they can sense the One Ring when a hobbit slips it on, and why the Ring makes its wearer visible to them and them alone. When Frodo puts on the Ring on Weathertop, he does not vanish. He crosses over. He steps into their world, and suddenly he can see them for what they truly are, pale and terrible kings robed in grey. Their greatest weapon is not a blade. It is fear. The mere presence of a Nazgûl drains the courage out of everyone near it. Seasoned warriors, men who have faced orcs and trolls without flinching, drop their weapons and run at the sound of a ringwraith's shriek.