The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power going so far as depicting certain elements from The Silmarillion — like Valmar and the Two Trees of Valinor — has led many fans to believe that we’re definitely going to see the Nazgul in the Amazon series. The timeline certainly seems to support such a hypothesis, but how likely are the Nine to make an appearance in the course of the series and when will we be seeing them?
Before there were any goblins, cave trolls, or Uruk-hai to occupy their thoughts, the Hobbits who set out from the Shire had to escape the dreaded Black Riders, hailed from Minas Morgul and led by their leader and Sauron’s second-in-command, the Witch-King of Angmar.
According to what Aragorn tells the Halflings in the movies, the Ringwraiths were once proud kings of men, who Sauron the Deceiver corrupted by giving them the rings as gifts. One by one they succumbed to its power, until at last there was nothing to distinguish them from mindless slaves, bound to the will of the One Ring and ceaselessly seeking it out.
The creation of the Ringwraiths traces back to the Second Age, when The Rings of Power takes place, so we’ve decided to include a brief history of these creatures of the shadow in this article, and whether you can expect them to pop up at some point during the forthcoming live-action adaptation.
What is the history of the Nazgul?
In the Second Age, Sauron tricked the Elven blacksmiths of Eregion into forging the rings of power. Nineteen rings were created, nine of which he gifted to great descendants of Adan and of Númenor. The nine lords used these rings to exert great influence over their realms, slowly increasing their power and growing all but numb to the terrible influence it was gaining on them. The nine rings were bound to the One, which Sauron forged himself, and in time it corrupted them to the very core of their souls.
Sauron ensnared the nine lords and they became the Ringwraiths, neither living nor dead, and bound to the fate of the One Ring. Not much is known of their past, and only two of these Nazgul have been named; the Witch-King of Angmar, and Khamul the Easterling.
According to The Return of the King appendices and Unfinished Tales, the Nazgul first appeared sometime after the second millennium of the Second Age, or the year 2251, to be precise. They served Sauron in his struggle against Numenoreans and the kingdom of Gil-galad, but when the Last Alliance of Men and Elves marched to Mordor and Isildur cut off Sauron’s fingers, they too perished like their master. Much akin to Sauron, who endured because of the One Ring, the Nazgul were also bound to its strength, which is why they reappeared in the Third Age to wreak havoc upon the world and hunt the ring-bearer, Frodo Baggins.
The first of the Nine to reappear was the Witch-King, who returned to Middle-earth in 1300 TA and launched an assault on Arnor. The kingdom had already been fractured into three smaller ones — Arthedain, Rhudaur, and Cardolan — and slowly they yielded to the shadow that extended its hand from Angmar. Arnor’s brother kingdom to the south, Gondor, came to Arthedain’s aid, but the king arrived too late and Fornost, Arthedain’s capital, had already fallen.
With Arnor all but destroyed, the king focused his efforts to thwart the Witch-King’s rule, which he managed with the help of the Elves. In the historic Battle of Fornost, Gondor’s armies reached a decisive victory and compelled the Witch-King to run. While the Men thought of this as a success, Sauron had achieved his goal by destroying the proud kingdom of Arnor, heaving yet another obstacle out of his path.
The Witch-King returned sometime later and gathered the rest of the Nine. Together, they attacked the twin city of Minas Tirith to the east, then called Minas Ithil. After withstanding siege for two years, the city fell to the Witch-King and became known as Minas Morgul, the Nazgul’s dwelling place.
Of the Nazgul’s stirring in the War of the Ring, much is known and even depicted in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, so let’s go back to the question at hand…
Will the Nazgul appear in Amazon’s show?
Since the Nine were so instrumental in Sauron’s rise to power, we’d be surprised if the show decided to completely forsake them. That being said, it’ll definitely be a while until the Ringwraiths show their face. For one thing, Sauron has yet to reveal himself to the Free Peoples in season one. The rings of power also won’t be forged by the second or third seasons if our estimations are anything to go by.
The biggest hurdle stems from the fact that seven out of nine of these Black Riders have enigmatic pasts. Which begs the question: is Amazon going to go through the trouble of actually depicting all of their lineages? The Witch-King and Khamul are easy enough to showcase, but what of the rest of them? One way to circumvent this problem is to announce their coming through a narrational montage. The audiences know the Nazgul well enough, so there’s no need to get into the nitty-gritty of each of their origins in order to establish them as compelling villains.
Since The Rings of Power is supposed to run for five seasons — ending with the downfall of Númenor and the War of the Last Alliance — audiences can expect Sauron to give the nine rings to Men and create the Nazgul at some point between the forging of the rings and his eventual destruction. Unlike many other familiar faces we’ve ruled out over the past few weeks as appearing in The Rings of Power, there’s practically no reason we shouldn’t see the Nazgul in the show, so definitely keep an eye out for them somewhere down the line.
