Sauron vs Voldemort

[Rutee]

I have, indeed, admitted that three orcs (roughly) surrounding a wizard would force him to retreat. Or sit there for a few minutes until the orcs couldn't fire arrows non-stop any more, and take them out individually at that point. How is strategic retreat a bad idea? I don't know why the wizard ended up in the middle of those orcs in the first place.

Unless the entire MO of the entire Death Eaters is "lolzfiendfyre and run", It's a pretty common situation. Wizards are not omniscient. 100 feet is not very far. matters a LOT that they can be forced to 'strategically withdraw' that easily.

And uh, you have got to be kidding. If the Wizards wants to put up a shield charm and turtle..
The Orcs stop firing. 2 orcs keep watching him. The other guy starts moving to circle the wizard. If he so much as twitches dropping the shield, he gets arrow'd. Assuming there's no reinforcements coming, anyway

As to how they got there.. *IF* orcs are good at stealth.. I could see how that could happen, no questions asked. Heck, you could catch 'em in a pincer right off the bat.

I'm not dismissing the post because of non-definitive language, I'm just pointing out that a lot of Sauron's vaunted powers are described in vague terms and hearsay. "I am more powerful than you", while impressive for a trilogy's BBEG who never appears 'on panel', does not say much when we want to match points against points.

Uh. The vast majority of points against Sauron have been, in fact, "This is what he is responsible for."

Killing Sauron once is enough. Isn't killing the Nazgul once enough, too?
Sauron can be killed by physical cutting. If we want to say he can ward off direct blast-assaults, fine. That wasn't really part of the plan anyway. A hail of dancing swords would probably be a problem for his physical form, wouldn't it? Or those animated trees? Or animated boulders? A burning touch can't kill an object like it can a hero.

Animating swords and making them /useful/ would in fact require knowledge of swordplay. As pure projectiles.. seems like they'd bounce off the armor. It'd take really precise aiming you won't see at a longer range. Boulders, yeah, that might be a problem. Assuming (And I in fact assuming this for a moment) that he can't shatter them with the mace (Not a special power, just.. you know. Feat of Strength), that probably could hurt him. I doubt it'd kill him.. remember, "Can hurt" is not the same as "Will OHKO". Hell, he might in fact have some unbelievably useful magic ready for the occasion.. I wouldn't quite know as well as the others :P

As to the Nazgul.. they reform much quicker then Sauron. Killing Sauron once is pretty much game for purposes of this thread. He will inevitably win in the long term (Because he lives for thousands of years and Voldemort and the rest will be dust in 100), but a single defeat of Sauron, to me, is in fact game for the purpose of this thread. And it seems to most people who are still speaking. If someone demands absolute destruction.. Voldemort's going to lose /on those grounds/. But since that's not what's being judged?

But yeah, the Nazgul reform on their own, and pretty darn fast, compared to the main bad guys, so them dying once doesn't remove them from the fight in any notable sense.

Saruman fights in furtherance of getting the Ring. He never wanted Sauron to rule Middle Earth. Snape was totally on board with Voldemort until Voldemort killed his looooove (read: Lily threw herself on Voldemort's sword). He very much agrees with his philosophy, but got smacked upside the head with an attack of morality (in a crappy flashback sequence, no less) - and is still a Huge Wanking A-hole for the rest of his life.

If "He's still a jackass" qualifies Snape as a servant, there's no way that Saruman counts as a defector. Snape defected long before Lily got killed; He was Dumbledore's doublecrosser /before/ the Potters' death, after all...

-When does anybody animate a hail of dancing swords, boulders or trees in Harry Potter? I don't recall that tactic ever being used in a fight, and if it were feasible to animate ten sharp objects and have them kill an enemy, you'd think somebody would have tried it.

Rowling isn't very good at APPLYING her magic in her settings. I call it plot-induced stupidity; Sirius needed exactly one thing to be safe. Veritas Serum. Hell, you could have saved a lot of trouble on the Death Eater Trials with it. Don't throw any rarity or expense excuse at it; The simple fact is if it's that good, a supply of it would be held on hand for such high class, high crime cases. If you can animate 10 items at once (And you can DEFINITELY animate one item), you can animate 10 swords (Assuming you ahve 10 swords on hand; Not too hard. Carry a supply of toothpicks, trans-whatever them into swords as needed) and toss them at someone. The only point of contention I could have is with whether you can animate 10 items at once. CAn't remember someone doing it offhand.. but if it can be done, a sword rain is not terribly /difficult/. Time consuming, perhaps... roughly 3 curses worth of time. Actually that might make it unfeasible. Depends on whether wizards really understand how to dodge or not...

[warty goblin]

The reason that the wizard has to be within a relatively short distance is that they really cannot be effective combatents from farther away- spells just don't go fast enough to be useful, if the orcs opponant has three or four second to get out of the way, the wizards may as well be throwing firecrackers. Fiendfyre can be avoided by small, fast moving groups, which is specifically why I used small groups of spaced out orcs- which is not a hard strategy to impliment at all. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be orc casualties from fiendfyre in this senario, just not ones that matter ("Sir, Lord Sauron! They just set fire to another five orcs! Also the latest spawning numbers are in, looks like a hundred orcs were spawned in the last five minutes") Is there some sniper style spell that I'm missing here that allows wizards to shoot high speed projectiles over long ranges?

And the orcs don't need to fire continously, all they need to do is to keep the wizard defensive enough that starting an actual attack would be a scary and not attractive option. Personally, if I was a wizard sitting in my protective protego bubble, with four orcs training bows and the arrows of hurting on me, I'd definately keep my emphasis on the sheild, not shooting off spells which may or may not hit. Running away until I have space to apperate would be high on my list of priorities, much higher than shooting off the spell which may get me killed and take out what? Five, six, eight orcs? Sure its not a dynamic victory, but the wizard is beating it for the bush, and the orcs are in possesion of the territory. Can't see how that's a death eater win (except that they are still alive I suppose).

Sauron uses armies to fight armies, but that doesn't mean its the only thing he can do.

[WhiteKnight777]

Killing the Nazgul once isn't enough because they return pretty fast with Sauron's aid (within a month or so), and the fight isn't over when a Nazgul dies; all you've done is temporarily set back a minion.

Much less than that, really. When Frodo wakes up, Gandalf indicates that the Nazgul have already been reclothed and re-horsed, and that was only a couple of days.

[Rowanomicon]

Killing Sauron once is pretty much game for purposes of this thread. He will inevitably win in the long term (Because he lives for thousands of years and Voldemort and the rest will be dust in 100), but a single defeat of Sauron, to me, is in fact game for the purpose of this thread. And it seems to most people who are still speaking. If someone demands absolute destruction.. Voldemort's going to lose /on those grounds/. But since that's not what's being judged?

Basically, the way I see it, this thread got to the point that in an all out, all things considered war Sauron would win and no one could effectively argue with that.
Now it's: OK, so what if Voldemort only had to kill Sauron once?
I still think that Sauron would win and it seems to me like this thread will come to that conclusion.

[Eita]

Sweet Buddha with dancing shoes... This is still going on?

[ss49]

I'm not gonna slog through all 22 pages to see if this has been brought up already, sorry-
but the Nazgul are not immune to harm. It does take a magic weapon (the "written blade of Westernesse") to injure them. The Witch-king was a special case in that he thought he was safe because of a misinterpreted prophecy ("not by the hand of man shall he fall") made or repeated to Earnur.

[Setra]

Sweet Buddha with dancing shoes... This is still going on?

Still not as bad as Link vs. Sephiroth.

[dehro]

These are the sorts of inferences that don't quite matter in this debate.

They do, when you make a point of making the distinction between HP and other possible opponents to Voldy, taking great pains to state that HP had a chance of beating the bad guys because he was a wizard just like them...
suggesting that Sauron and his folks are not..and therefore have less of a chance in "magic terms"
(that is however how I interpreted the post I was replying to)

also, when you talk about Sauron's mind control and it's power over the "wise ones"...please consider that voldemort is a lot of things, cunning, highly intelligent, powerfull...but wise? no! he definitelly isn't wise, because all of what he does, especially when he moves against HP (or any other mayor enemy of the case, in our case Sauron), is based upon misunderstandings and underestimations and is basically fuelled by anger and entirely the wrong reasons...and allow me, these are not signs of wisdom at all.
so, well.. if the wise had any chance of escaping Sauron's control (and it has already been demonstrated that they haven't) then it still does not give any edge to Voldy, since he is far from wise. therefore, this really is a point that is not worth mentioning.

ahem... you do realize that it took all of the greater gods of mount olympus to fight against the 6 male Titans and that all they could do was to jail them up? (and not even all of them at that)
giving Sauron a Titanic status instead of putting him in Zeus's league is not really working in your favour.
anyway, I find the whole of the digression quite useless. it is hard enough as it is finding a common ground of debate for the powers and the "rules of magic and combat" of HP and LOTR without putting other scenarios in the field, be it only for comparison.

[dehro]

I'm not gonna slog through all 22 pages to see if this has been brought up already, sorry-
but the Nazgul are not immune to harm. It does take a magic weapon (the "written blade of Westernesse") to injure them. The Witch-king was a special case in that he thought he was safe because of a misinterpreted prophecy ("not by the hand of man shall he fall") made or repeated to Earnur.

In fact if I am right, it is stated by Gandalf that as long as the ring exists, the Nasgul will and shall return again and again.
the only vulnerable, in fact is the Witch-king, since he has a prophecy working against him (although he thinks it's in his advantage... rings a bell, somehow) ..and because of the Supreme Rule of Plot, he is the only exception to the general rule "ring=nazgul"
then again... iI don't know if any of the non-human minions of Voldy have the power to fight against the leader of the nazgul, and Voldy is a man, all considered, and thus can not beat or kill him.

As far as I have understood, apparating means you suddenly appear in a place far from where you was before.
doesn't it take time to , you know, realize which way you are looking, and if you are alone or not on the "new scene"? and if you decide to apparate in a house that has just been raided and set on fire by a bunch of orcs?
if you are on a battlefield, apparating is probably the worst thing you can do if you don't have perfect knowledge of who is where, specially your foes.
it's a bit like parachuting troops behind enemy lines without having any sort of knowledge of what is, in fact, behind enemy lines (more enemy lines? troops moving about? a minefield?) something no sensible comander would even consider.
all this extended mobility of the wizards, when put against overwhelming forces swarming all over the place, could backfire quite nastily.

also, I still think that most of the death eaters are useless when out of direct control of Voldy. they tend to be beaten by the simplest of tricks and to resort to treachery, money and social status far more than to actual skill and dedication. whenever they are put against someone vaguelly able to counteract to them, they choose not to fight or simply flee the scene.
even when Voldy has really returned; they tend to gang up against weaker opponents, whenever they see a chance of doing harm without having to suffer retribution, but any single time they are contronted by opponents of some value, their plans and their spells tend to be ineffective, the harm they do quite little in the big picture.
and Voldy can apparate like crazy, but he still can't be everywhere... while most of Sauron's chieftains (the nazguls) are powerfull, dedicated and capable of handling situations on their own.

[Ossian]

hmm....I read it differently. The Nazgul King shall not fall (in battle) by the hand of a man. That is, a woman was meant to take him down, and that was, closing the citcle, the end of all things for the Baddies' league since shortly thereafter Sauron was to fall, and the ring destroyed. No Ring= No Nazguls, fair enough. Still, I understood that an immense amount of punishemtn could temporarily take down any nazgul, such as, say a river enhanced by magic with foam horses. After a few days, given the time for their spirit to fly to mordor and get new horses and disguises, they were back to the game. So, for me the Nazguls are not much unlike the ghosts of Pacman when they were eaten. Two blinking eyes fly to the central box, get a new ghost cloth, and start chasing you again.

Too bad that the Witch King, who had (and could never have) seen defeat in battle, didn't make it to get a new dress. Frodo and Gollum took care of it.

O.

[dehro]

I too think that in the end he would have returned, given time and lotsa band-aid...

but it would have been a very long journey...and probably he'd never be quite the same after that...not unlike his master Sauron who takes centuries to build up his strenght again and has lost some of it for ever (a body, shapechanging a.s.o.)
but I guess this is where Plot and Epic step in, and for the sake of giving the good guys a chance, Tolkien decides to stick with the prophecy and bring down Sauron before anyone can point towards the inconsistency with the ring=nazgul rule.
this is however how I choose to interpret the matter

[Ditto]

For one, Dumbledore animated the statues in the Ministry of Magic at teh end of book 5. Another, Flitwick charmed every suit of armor in the castle to come to arms in Hogwarts' defense. Impromtu Ents is not out of the question. Can Sauron destory objects with any great facility? Enough bludgeoning force should do enough damage to soften him up for the stabby bits, I think.

The Witch-King has had more time to do his kind of magic, but (as with Sauron) people credit dispelling and such abjuring powers when most of their magic seems to be enchantment or necromancy, if anything. Voldemort could have un-animated Dumbledore's statues, but it probably would have required full attention and some skill since Dumbledore is at least at his power level in general, and a master of transfiguration specifically.

I don't think a bunch of whirling swords (better than mere projectiles, yes?) or boulders would OHKO anything, not at all. But sheer dint of numbers against one fellow standing still (compared to a wizard, anyway) is going to give him a messload of trouble. (There are probably plenty of swords lying around on the battlefield, too, but transfiguration works just fine.) Nazgul do reform relatively quickly, but it's still officially dying... damn, we should have set a time limit on that rule.

If Sauron'd gotten the Ring, I don't know what Saruman would have done... probably gone crawling in his skin until he found another way to ultimate power. Snape *quite clearly* defected because of Lily's death, no sooner. The 20 years of service qualify him as a servant. 'He's still a jackass' qualifies him as being a jackass... I just never liked the idea that redemption makes you a nice guy, just cuz you'rea good guy.

Dehro, when I point out that HP etc. are wizards, I'm refering the 'Potterverse wizards'. Sauron & co. are vague defined casters who I've avoided calling wizards for simlicity's sake, especially since Saruman is the only one who takes that title so far as I know. ::shrug::
-The fun thing about Fiendfyre specifically is that it doesn't require aiming. Pop in, release it, leave. Watch burnination from a distance.
-The fact that the Witch-King has the prophecy is the only thing *protecting* him. The other 8 don't have a corrolary that states "The Witch-King shall not be defeated by the hand of man; the eight shall not be defeated at all."
-The titan point was to make an analogy to his nature, not explicitly their relative power levels. Titans are not gods, even though they hang in those circles.
-The Death Eaters relied on money, social status, etc., because it *worked*. Voldemort was not a warlord - he didn't take over the ministry and set up a new one in a coup d'etat. And yes, when Death Eaters are faced individually with forces who can beat them (that is, members of the Order), then it's quite prudent to flee. Orcs are not overpowering forces. Wizards don't need to flee because they're outmatched, they only need to reposition and relaunch the attack.

Veritaserum is supposed to be illegal to use in civilized procedings. The fact that Dumbledore had Snape whip it out on Moody/Crouch doens't make it legal (like many 'little rules' Dumbledore ignores), and Umbridge's use was only legitimized because she made the rules up as she went. It can also be resisted by a wizard who's aware of its presence or otherwise alerted ahead of time. It's like sodium pentathol... effective, but not at all foolproof. Certainly not admissible as foolproof evidence. When memories can be modified by magic, there's a terrifically high standard of evidence.

If the wizard is surrounded, pull up a solid bubble of dirt, and apparate out. The orcs don't know whether he's in there unless it's a translucent Protego bubble. And he isn't necessarily running away - coming back at the orcs from one side in a more advantageous position allows him to go on the defensive. Now that he has an idea of the perimeter he's working against, he can Nightcrawler around the area using localized area effects when necessary, individual attacks if the opportunity presents itself. And I don't want to hear that the orcs are always immediately ready for 360 degrees of attack, especially when they're in smaller groups, if not alone, in this scenario.

Not all effects shoot little lightbolts, generally only the pure-offense spells. As indicated, various hexes are lightless and other effects can be accomplished with nothing more than line of sight (Quirrell/Snape jinxing Harry's broom, Dumbledore's (and most others') transfiguration effects...).

As I understand it, Rowan, We limited it to the one-kill-one-war-neutral-ground parameters because we were trying to keep things as controlled as possible to remove the most "You cannot fire the arrows of men on the hills of Farin Ungol!" situations. In an all-out Age-long war, the Ring would come into play and we'd have to expand to that whole discussion again, where we have wildly different opinions about the Ring and how well it can talk to Sauron and what 'becoming another Dark Lord' means when you're already evil and all manner of other issues.

[warty goblin]

Pull up a solid bubble of dirt? When does anybody actually do this, or anything remotely similar to it? I'm sorry, but saying HP wizards can do this or that without an actual example is pretty weak.

[Greebo]

Hmmm, i thought the light of the trees was put in a ship, but maybe it was just a vessel

It was contained then carried by two Maia. The only ship was that of Earendil.

Debatable

The books clearly state it was Merry's sword that pierced the enchantments, but say nothing of Eowyn having a fancy sword, so I reject any such debate that "she might have!". Neither Merry nor Eowyn had a Hand of Man, and so they combined brought his downfall.

Return of the King, Faramir is shot by the Nazgul, the arrows isn't fatal, and isn't enchanted, but was touched by the Nazgul and so he goes into a coma.

Close. Nazgul's Black Breath is an Area of Effect. Meriadoc is overwhelmed by it in Bree just by being near a Nazgul who's trying to stay concealed. Imagine the power of a Nazgul uncloaked on the field of battle. Black Breath affects those around the Nazgul simply cause the Nazgul is there, not by some contaminated pass along.

Fourth book, duel at close range, Harry proves that it is possible to simple avoid almost all of Voldemort's spells

I quote you now, "Then please explain how Harry can avoid every single one of Mr. V's apperently nasty spells?". Hardly "every single one", he got crucio'd, imperiused (resisted) multiple times, and hid behind objects the rest. The final "dodge" was another dues ex machina, calling upon a badly introduced magic, Priori Incantatum, while adding the new twist after the fact that hey, if two kindred wands fight, they won't... puh-lease.

Well Saurman is corrupted by the Plantir, along with Denethor, Gladrail, Elrond and Gandalf both admit they would be taken over by the One Ring, general concept here?

Denethor is driven to madness and despair by visions of hopelessness shown to him by Sauron. Saruman is corrupted by desire of the ring, and the ring itself would indeed corrupt any who used it. Corruption, however, is not mind control.

[WalkingTarget]

The Witch-King has had more time to do his kind of magic, but (as with Sauron) people credit dispelling and such abjuring powers when most of their magic seems to be enchantment or necromancy, if anything. Voldemort could have un-animated Dumbledore's statues, but it probably would have required full attention and some skill since Dumbledore is at least at his power level in general, and a master of transfiguration specifically.

I broke out my Silmarillion the other day to look for some "casting" and I actually found some. Finrod Felagund, Galadriel's brother, disguised himself and Beren as orcs at one point during Beren's quest and he and Sauron essentially had a magical duel (keeping the illusion vs. dispelling it). Sauron won. Alas, most other mentions of Sauron's abilities are still of the "he had become a mighty sorcerer" variety, but there we have it, at least one explicit spell used in Tolkien and evidence of countermagic used to oppose it.

-The fact that the Witch-King has the prophecy is the only thing *protecting* him.

The prophecy doesn't protect him. Prophecies don't work that way, they're the power of plot. It's not "'He will not fall by the hand of man' therefore he's only vulnerable to women and/or hobbits," it's "A women with an assist from a hobbit bring him down in the future, therefore 'not by the hand of man' is a good way to word it." Wherever a prophecy comes from, it's assumed that the source is aware of how the story ends (Eru in Tolkien whether it be inspiring Glorfindel or Mandos or somebody else vs. whatever makes the Divination teacher's voice go all spooky in HP). Just a nitpick that's been bugging me for a while on that topic (from both sides of the discussion). And since the power of plot is irrelevant outside of the framework of that plot, we've agreed to ignore it anyway in this thread.

-The titan point was to make an analogy to his nature, not explicitly their relative power levels. Titans are not gods, even though they hang in those circles.

The differences between the Titans and Olympians (and for that matter, the Primordials) are mostly just generational ones. They're all gods, the Titans and Primordials are just more basic concepts. Again, off topic, just nitpicking.

[dehro]

I'm not questioning what a HP wizard "could do"...I'm questioning what they will eventually do, and why.
It seems to me that every time Voldemort is not directly present and actively involved in the battle and magickery, his death eaters show the moral fibre of a broken chamber pot.
at the slightest chance of something bad happening they squabble and run.
Granted, bellatrix and a few other fanatics are exceptions to this rule..but even so...
and I sincerelly think that if the death eaters had a chance of dominating other than by behind the back schemes, they would do so, and in an open confrontation army against army with Sauron, these means don't work.
I am not saying that their magic, when they are put in a corner, won't bring havoc amongst the orcs, but how many, really, can they kill and will they kill before deciding that a solid wall of arrows is working on their nerves? I simply doubt they have the stamina to keep apparating in different places to avoid attacks and the guts to keep fighting against a horde of enemies when they are not directly pushed by Voldy.
when I said previously that Sauron has dedicated henchmen I did so on purpose.. Voldy dominates half of his death eaters through fear, bossing and pain. While this is certainly true also for the goblins and orcs, it must be said that Sauron also has legions of servants who do so of their own free will, and who are really "dedicated" to serving him with their very last breath...
ultimatelly, more than half of the Death Eaters will hide under their bed when things go bad for Voldy. They have done so before, or would all be locked up in azkaban.
as for voldemort's troops other than the death eaters, it seems to me that they are mostly allies and not really motivated by other than maliciousness and a penchant for violence and chaos...and most of them will realize that Sauron has much more to offer in this department than Voldemort ever could.

in other words, how long will it take, once the war is afoot for Voldemort's army to unravel ? how long will he be able to control every single death eater and the strongest allies he has? how many imperio's can he cast in one go?

Sauron has only to say "go" and a very large part of his army will march happily to it's death, because they know that the alternative is much worse... where Voldy has a hard time finding all his death eaters and getting them to do what he wants the way he wants it done... And I'm not going to talk about his allies.

If I understand the "rules" of the game we are talking of one big scrap between 2 armies, right?
if so.. just how many are voldy's allies? He trows them all against the walls of Hogwarts, so there must be room for all of them to fight and walk/fly around.
this gives me the idea that their number is nowere near the tens of thousands bows, spears and clubs Sauron can count on..
(I have a rough figure of 45.000 fighters on the pelennor fields alone, + the army at the black gates of Moria, which was much bigger, presumably around 60,000, but was also stated to be just one of his armies and not the strongest one)

I'm all for magic taking down a couple hunderd foes in one go..but it seems to me that even allowing for a particulary brave, heroic, creative and swift fight from the death eaters (and how many of them have it in them?)...they are heavily outmatched by the "common fighter" alone, even without Sauron pulling out the big guns..

[EvilElitest]

Still not as bad as Link vs. Sephiroth.

Oh god, the horrors, at least i'm on your side now.


But weren't you playing the devil advocate?
from,
EE

[EvilElitest]

It was contained then carried by two Maia. The only ship was that of Earendil.

Alright, you have hte book

The books clearly state it was Merry's sword that pierced the enchantments, but say nothing of Eowyn having a fancy sword, so I reject any such debate that "she might have!". Neither Merry nor Eowyn had a Hand of Man, and so they combined brought his downfall.

1. Makes perfect sense on two counts for Eowyn to have a fancy sword.
2. All eight of the Nazgul can't be hurt by normal weapons
3. Merry is male, i thought it was refering to gender not to race

Ok, lets assume Eowyn did not have a magic sword, just a normal one, then to kill the WK you need to
1. Have a nonhuman stab him with a magical blade (not an enchanted one, real magic like the sword harry has in the second book). That person/creature will then lose the weapon as it will fall apart, and die from the Black Death
2. Have a female drive a different weapon into his face. So that means that Belatrix could animate a sword to stab him provided that a magical weapon pieced him first
Still kinda hard

Close. Nazgul's Black Breath is an Area of Effect. Meriadoc is overwhelmed by it in Bree just by being near a Nazgul who's trying to stay concealed. Imagine the power of a Nazgul uncloaked on the field of battle. Black Breath affects those around the Nazgul simply cause the Nazgul is there, not by some contaminated pass along.

So, what you saying is that should a death eater teleport near a group of orcs, and the Nazgul flies over him, he could get the black breath?

I quote you now, "Then please explain how Harry can avoid every single one of Mr. V's apperently nasty spells?". Hardly "every single one", he got crucio'd, imperiused (resisted) multiple times, and hid behind objects the rest.

I was refering to the AK, but he had douged every single one of Mr. V's spells at least once, with the exception of the "Bowing spell"

The final "dodge" was another dues ex machina, calling upon a badly introduced magic, Priori Incantatum, while adding the new twist after the fact that hey, if two kindred wands fight, they won't... puh-lease.

But it is possible to avoid an AK at 15 feet

Denethor is driven to madness and despair by visions of hopelessness shown to him by Sauron. Saruman is corrupted by desire of the ring, and the ring itself would indeed corrupt any who used it. Corruption, however, is not mind control.

Gandalf says that Saruman kept looking up up and up until he saw the Dark Lord, and then he was "lost". Aka, he went evil/mad only after communicating with Sauron
from,
EE
Edit

if so.. just how many are voldy's allies? He trows them all against the walls of Hogwarts, so there must be room for all of them to fight and walk/fly around.
this gives me the idea that their number is nowere near the tens of thousands bows, spears and clubs Sauron can count on..
(I have a rough figure of 45.000 fighters on the pelennor fields alone, + the army at the black gates of Moria, which was much bigger, presumably around 60,000, but was also stated to be just one of his armies and not the strongest one)

Well lets see

Mr. V has
Himself
About 50-100 death eaters, are we counting only the ones in hte Harry Potter books?
A big snake
I'd guess a thousand Dementors
A few dozen giants
A single Basalik
The two faced dude from the first book
Ummmmmmm, am i missing anything i think that is it
Snape does not work for Voldemort

[Greebo]

1. Makes perfect sense on two counts for Eowyn to have a fancy sword.
2. All eight of the Nazgul can't be hurt by normal weapons
3. Merry is male, i thought it was refering to gender not to race

It does and it does not. Hobbits are not men, and so in the prophecy, Man refers both to Gender, for Eowyn, and to Race, for Meriadoc.

Ok, lets assume Eowyn did not have a magic sword, just a normal one, then to kill the WK you need to
1. Have a nonhuman stab him with a magical blade (not an enchanted one, real magic like the sword harry has in the second book). That person/creature will then lose the weapon as it will fall apart, and die from the Black Death
2. Have a female drive a different weapon into his face. So that means that Belatrix could animate a sword to stab him provided that a magical weapon pieced him first
Still kinda hard

No, no, no. You are confused about the concept of a Prophecy. The Prophecy saw something of how the Witch King WOULD be destroyed, it didn't set the terms. Rowling's treatment of prophecy is much different from that of Tolkiens.

So, what you saying is that should a death eater teleport near a group of orcs, and the Nazgul flies over him, he could get the black breath?

The mere presence of a Nazgul is sufficient to create a feeling of despair, yes. Much like the aura that radiates from Dementors, but with longer potential range.

I was refering to the AK, but he had douged every single one of Mr. V's spells at least once, with the exception of the "Bowing spell"

Technically he resisted that...but when you said "every single spell" it sounded like you were claiming Harry had never been hit at all. SOrry for the confusion.

Gandalf says that Saruman kept looking up up and up until he saw the Dark Lord, and then he was "lost". Aka, he went evil/mad only after communicating with Sauron

Citation, please. I do not recall this statement of Gandalf's, and I've recently re-read LotR:FotR, so I'm sure it's not in books 1 or 2.

[dehro]

ahem... there is a difference between killing and hurting.

it is perfectly possible to hurt all of the nazgul, but not to kill them (and I mean, not forever, unless you destroy the ring)..if the opponent survives the black breath and spiky weapons of the nazgul, that is.
the nazgul are very very powerfull and not one of their opponent has ever managed to kill one (unless maybe the one legolas shot down from the skies had to return home to fetch another body and not just another steed)
possibly the heroes of the LOTR could have killed the 8 nazgul, but probably they would have returned in some other form (this is, to give Gandalf credit when he says that they exist as long as the ring exists)
they would have failed if they had tried it with the witch-king because he was fated not to be killed by any living man (but he could have been beaten severely and sent home crying for mama even without being killed, so maybe even this is debatable)
what happens is that eowyn delivers the final blow, that's all that matters. enchanted weapon or not, has no influence. Common weapons can not kill the Nazgul, but they can harm them allright
we do not know if the ring would have been able to bring back any of the nazgul, because we have only Gandalf's word stating this link (but I feel that if anyone should know, he should).. in fact it has never happened or witnessed. no nazgul has ever been killed except their leader, and by then whatever power could have restored him even after death, was vanquished by the destruction of the ring itself.
(the analogy of the pac-man ghosts is very fitting, btw.) had the ring survived for several months/years, had some other nazgul been killed, we would have the answer on how the link between ring and Nazgul would have brought the latter back in the play.. and how the other Nazguls could have died.
but it was not to be, and this is because LOTR is a book and not a game made of statistics.. it worked well that the Nazgul's existence was linked to the Ring, it worked great that what seemed an unbeatable opponent was reduced and killed because of a misinterpreted prophecy.
Drawing things out in order to find out if it really worked and how exactly the powers in play got restored is something we can do for the sake of debate and or roleplaying, but books have no truck with our ramblings.
to return to "facts"
The Nazgul can be reduced/killed because this is what happens to their leader.
they are however linked to the ring and said to be impossible to dispose of (terminally, that is) as long as this artifact exists.
A woman (or maybe, an just maybe a non human male...but this option is not considered by Tolkien and thus should be disregarded) is needed to kill the Witch-king.
powers and skills of the nazgul are slightly undefined and rest primarily on a sort of poisoning of body, mind and morale of their opponents. do we call these powers "magic"? in lack of a better term of comparison in the HP universe, I do. on top of that they are also warriors and fearsome leaders (what with being ex-kings and actual chieftains of Sauron's army)
another fact worthy of notice is that they are totally poised, nothing short of being killed will stop them from pursuing their tasks..and even that might not be enough, in the long run..but this is, again, speculation. their loyalty is unquestionable and their very nature is to be absolutely obedient to the best of their capacities to the ring and it's creator.

Personally, I do not believe that anyone in the HP saga (among the bad guys, that is) has a chance of beating any of them...avoiding being killed, yes, setting their clothes on fire, yes..but that's about it. maybe voldemort "could" take it up against one Nazgul, and never the witch-king..but since the other 8 are always seen traveling in groups, I doubt voldy could win a direct confrontation. Bellatrix is his best chance against the leader of the nine..but I simply don't see it happen.

[WalkingTarget]

1. Makes perfect sense on two counts for Eowyn to have a fancy sword.
2. All eight of the Nazgul can't be hurt by normal weapons
3. Merry is male, i thought it was refering to gender not to race

1. Having a noble heritage would make it reasonable to assume that there are weapons with a history to them, but family heirloom doesn't equate to magical item. Aragorn has the ring of Barahir, but that doesn't make it a magic ring. If we want to break out the formal logic, you can say that "Magic Items all are heirlooms" and I don't think anybody would argue. So "Magic Item" implies "Heirloom". However, implication isn't reversible (that is, "Heirloom" does not imply "Magic Item"). Another demonstration of implication: All octopuses are animals (so Octopus -> Animal), but not all animals are octopuses (so Animal !-> Octopus). Her weapon isn't even named (which seems to be another convention here, you might make an argument that Eomer's sword is magical, since it has a name - Gúthwinë - even if it has no other detail provided, but hers isn't described with any detail whatsoever). There is no proof either way, but the conventions of the narrative stack in favor of no-magic-sword.
2. Frodo tries to stab the WK, Merry and Eowyn finish him off. All 9 try to avoid torches swung at them and Glorfindel manages to force them into the river. There aren't really any instances in the text of anybody actually landing a blow on any of the other Nazgul, so it's hard to say what they're impervious to.
3. That's the nice thing about prophecies, they can play on multiple word meanings.

Anyway, the point others are arguing here, EE, is that the book explicitly says that Merry's blow is the one that severed the WK's enchantments. The prophecy has nothing to do with what was protecting him, it was a prediction on the circumstances of his defeat (see my last post).

Ok, lets assume Eowyn did not have a magic sword, just a normal one, then to kill the WK you need to
1. Have a nonhuman stab him with a magical blade (not an enchanted one, real magic like the sword harry has in the second book). That person/creature will then lose the weapon as it will fall apart, and die from the Black Death
2. Have a female drive a different weapon into his face. So that means that Belatrix could animate a sword to stab him provided that a magical weapon pieced him first
Still kinda hard

Well, it'd be easier to say, "Have anybody with a magic sword stab him in a fatal way." Again, the "hand of man" part is the power of plot and the order of events you give is just how things worked out. I'd imagine that if Eowyn (or Belatrix) stabbed him in the face with Merry's sword it would have killed him too (or Harry or Wormtail if we leave prophecy out of it). Merry broke the spell but wasn't a fatal hit, Eowyn's blow would have killed a normal person too and the WK was unprotected at the time.

So, what you saying is that should a death eater teleport near a group of orcs, and the Nazgul flies over him, he could get the black breath?

Yes, that's what we're saying. Being wounded probably increases your despair and therefore your susceptibility to the black breath, but isn't a requirement.

Gandalf says that Saruman kept looking up up and up until he saw the Dark Lord, and then he was "lost". Aka, he went evil/mad only after communicating with Sauron

This doesn't say anything about the amount of time involved. Saruman's motivation is that he studied Sauron's methods until he saw Sauron's point - the world would be better off if run by somebody who can put it in order and "I'm just the guy to do it." This is the same motivation as most of Doctor Doom's schemes (that and to prove he's better than Richards).

[ss49]

I love equating Nazgul with Pac-Man ghosts. Classic!

So have we done WoT channelers vs. either S or V? A strong enough channeler could give either a run for their money, but would never actually end their move

[turkishproverb]

It does and it does not. Hobbits are not men, and so in the prophecy, Man refers both to Gender, for Eowyn, and to Race, for Meriadoc.

Actually, it has more to do with teh fact that MErry hadn't turned 33 yet, and thus was not an adult by Shire standards.

[Ditto]

Dumbledore wrapped Voldemort in a bubble of water and crystalized it, and he, Voldemort, and Quirrell have all wreathed themselves in flame. Many wizards have unleashed whirlwind bursts. Clumping dirt around oneself is very much in the same vein, and transfiguring it into something more solid is hardly anything beyond that.

In HP, true prophecies are anything but certain. They are the embodiment of self-fulfilling prophecies. Dumbledore makes it quite clear that prophecies become true just as much as you believe in them - by trusting entirely in Trelawney's first, he ended up creating the situation that led to his death. In LOTR, prophecies work as you said - cryptic phrases by someone who knew what was going to happen. LOTRites are much more bound by prophecy than HPers.
So Merry is five kinds of not-a-Man. Get it, team? Prophecy is shifty!

Death Eaters are squabblesome when not under Voldemort's leadership - as in when he's dead, or out of contact, or indisposed. He's very much around and in contact with the Death Eaters in this scenario. It's also been shown that Sauron's forces are composed of individual soldiers, like any other army. The grunts are not mental pawns of Sauron, nor are they fanatically loyal - they fight because It's What We Do. They're bred for war, unlike men, and that gives them their relatively higher ferocity. But they squabble to the point of civil war even when Sauron's very much around.

Voldemort's allies are still very, very overmatched when facing the orcish armies. Aside from the Dementors, I'm sure the giants and acromantulas and all other little creatures will put in a sterling showing, but in the end it's melee and they'll be overwhelmed. It's not a question of motivation, though - this is a brawl. Sauron's means are extraordinarily slow and subtle, and likely lost on the giant tribe after they're told "Go smash!"

EE, I don't know why, when presented with the statement "Merry had a magic sword and Eowyn didn't", you say "See? Like you say, it makes perfect sense that she had a magic sword." Mundane weapons crumble when they strike Nazgul (unless they've had their shielding smashed by magic weapon)... There's nothing saying the Nazgul are immune to direct magical assaults. Bat-Bogey Hex FTW! The other 8 are most definitely *not* always seen traveling around as one group - doesn't the first half of FotR show that? The Nazgul can be smothered by waves or crushed by rocks are any of a host of other ways of killing something (permanently or not) other than being stabbed with a magical or mundane sword. Squishing a Nazgul has been shown to kill(-ish) it. The Shiny Light and flame attacks are also effective. That trick'll work again and again, and they're not so great when you turn their fell beasts into ducks - or gobs of molasses! Talk about losing mobility...

The Black Breath, again, is like crop dusting. If you're within a certain (comparatively limited!) radius of the Nazgul when he comes by, you get the gagging and the coughing and the retching and the dying. It's not the same as the fear aura's range at all.

[dehro]

not one group, indeed...but when they appear, especially when they take direct action (other than just flying about and being shot at by legolas) there is always mention of 2 to 4 of them in the same location or homing in on the same target.
I think you will agree that any wizard, be it Bellatrix or Voldy, would be hard put against not one but two ringwraiths...don't you? the only exception to this logistic situation seems to be the Witch-king, who, again I hope you will agree, personally outclasses just about anyone in the HP universe in a one-on-one combat (except maybe dumbledore, who is unlikely to get anywhere near our debated scenario, except for sitting in a corner munching on pop-corn and watching Voldy being moped the floor with)

going OT...
I am a bit confused about the need to give merry amore important role than he has in the undoing of the nazgul...
he was instrumental in giving eowyn a chance to regain her concentration, posture and a few seconds to make her move, but appart from that I don't recall him being the one to somehow "fullfill the prophecy"...
Eowyn goes as far as to say, when the wraith states the wording that indeed she is "no mortal man, but a woman" (not exact quote but very close), and the author does nothing whatsoever to deny her the right to call the kill her own, nor gives any hint that this is not the exact interpretation of the misleading caused by the prophecy.
the whole thing, from a litterary point of view, is perfectly satisfying...
why do so many people have the urge of giving meriadoc the central role in fullfilling the prophecy when nothing in the writing suggest any of this kind?

[Rutee]

Given how LotR Prophecy works, there's no way it's applicable here :P
The original prophet's knowledge of what will happen is pretty much decimated the second the fight happens, because it never does, within continuity :P

Prophecy probably is more binding on the HP people in this context, since it seems the HP Prophecies set the terms, rather then simply glimpsing into the future. At least, that's the impression I'm getting.

Death Eaters are squabblesome when not under Voldemort's leadership - as in when he's dead, or out of contact, or indisposed. He's very much around and in contact with the Death Eaters in this scenario. It's also been shown that Sauron's forces are composed of individual soldiers, like any other army. The grunts are not mental pawns of Sauron, nor are they fanatically loyal - they fight because It's What We Do. They're bred for war, unlike men, and that gives them their relatively higher ferocity. But they squabble to the point of civil war even when Sauron's very much around.

Funny; the impression I get is that Orcs have overall excellent unit-cohesion in battle. They may go close to mutiny against their immediate CO after the fact, but NEVER close to civil war (That requires, you know, an attempt at a coup). In battle, they seem to be mostly obedient soldiers. Which makes sense, as they're definitely the grunt level, and you usually don't think about faceless grunts rebelling anyway.

Death Eater cooperation (I don't think unit cohesion as-such is really applicable to a group working in cells) seems abysmal in comparison.

The Black Breath, again, is like crop dusting. If you're within a certain (comparatively limited!) radius of the Nazgul when he comes by, you get the gagging and the coughing and the retching and the dying. It's not the same as the fear aura's range at all.

You seem to be missing the point; The Black Breath's range IS the Fear Aura's range. Those who are thrown to despair when a Nazgul has taken tot he field is taken by it (Or at least, that's my reading of it here. If I'm wrong, LotR-ites, lemme know!)

That pretty much means Voldemort is screwed beyond a shadow of a doubt. The death eaters probably have abysmal morale right off the bat, because of how they're lead. Add in a Fear Aura, and any who feel despair becoming completely useless in the long term? I think that's pretty much game for Voldemort.

I don't think a bunch of whirling swords (better than mere projectiles, yes?) or boulders would OHKO anything, not at all. But sheer dint of numbers against one fellow standing still (compared to a wizard, anyway) is going to give him a messload of trouble. (There are probably plenty of swords lying around on the battlefield, too, but transfiguration works just fine.) Nazgul do reform relatively quickly, but it's still officially dying... damn, we should have set a time limit on that rule.

Whirling swords, unless you could get phenomenal amounts of force behind them (And assuming that Sauron's armor is only as well made as full plate in the real world) would be pretty much useless. Voldemort definitely doesn't have the knowledge of weak points in armor that he'd need, and I doubt any of his servants would have it either, to be able to turn a sword slash into something useful, against someone clad in full plate. Boulders should be fine; It's the impact that does the work, after all. I don't think Voldemort could put the force behind such an animation to make anything puncture the armor (If he could, it'd be moving considerably faster then a traditional personal combat spell, and thus, be a more common tactic. Then again, by my own admission, Rowling seems to have nfc how to apply magic in her own world. Or perhaps it's a perfectly valid tactic and Wizards are idiots at innovation (which would still probably discount it from use in the fight.. we have to consider what the characters would come up with, I suppose. A limitation I hadn't thought of, because I tend to assume these big bads are smarter then me.. :P)

I don't think a bunch of whirling swords (better than mere projectiles, yes?) or boulders would OHKO anything, not at all. But sheer dint of numbers against one fellow standing still (compared to a wizard, anyway) is going to give him a messload of trouble. (There are probably plenty of swords lying around on the battlefield, too, but transfiguration works just fine.) Nazgul do reform relatively quickly, but it's still officially dying... damn, we should have set a time limit on that rule.

I'm more amused at the prospects of no limit. By all rights Sauron is the inevitable winner if it's to the absolute finish Sauron is far more likely to destroy the Phylacteries then Voldemort is to dispose of the ring, since no moral fiber is really needed to destroy said phylacteries.

Veritaserum is supposed to be illegal to use in civilized procedings. The fact that Dumbledore had Snape whip it out on Moody/Crouch doens't make it legal (like many 'little rules' Dumbledore ignores), and Umbridge's use was only legitimized because she made the rules up as she went. It can also be resisted by a wizard who's aware of its presence or otherwise alerted ahead of time. It's like sodium pentathol... effective, but not at all foolproof. Certainly not admissible as foolproof evidence. When memories can be modified by magic, there's a terrifically high standard of evidence.

Who resists it? And what evidence? All they 'knew' about Sirius was that he was the Secret Keeper, and that he went looking for Pettigrew. As to 'illegal'... isn't that somewhat irrelevant when discussing the body of law that decides what's legal? Assuming we borrowed our system of law from the brits (I haven't examined their laws in depth, quite frankly), then as long as it's not banned in their constitution..

[warty goblin]

OK, so the two most powerful wizards in the world can create non-protego barriers, so what? They still can't attack through them, and if they drop them they are still shot. HP wizards seem to be basically limited to either attacking or defending, but not doing both at the same time. Their defenses can stop pretty much any number of arrows, but if they drop them for long enough to attack, they'll sprout some feathers in their internal organs. It all comes down to the number of actions that can be taken- HP wizards can cast spells probably somewhat faster than an orc can nock and fire an arrow, but are so vastly outnumbered its functionally irrelevant in all but one on one combat. Four or six orcs can simply act more often then the wizard can, and with a roughly comperable degree of lethality (spells more deadly but less likely to hit), and so can either score a kill or force the wizard to flee, while taking minimal losses- even if the wizard kills 5 out of six, as long as the sixth orc manages a kill, its still a win for Sauron.

As for Gandalf running off the Nazgul, at that point Gandalf was the second most powerful being in Middle Earth, and the most powerful force for good, a literal walking demi-god of good in fact, who turned the Nazgul with a radiant blast of holyness. Probably not something that evil human wizards can pull out of their hats...

[Rowanomicon]

Here's a thought:

1) Harry Potter magic is akin to science in that it is specific spells with specific "recipes" or words, material components, motions, etc.

2) New spells can be discover if you discover their "recipe."
So in that sense we know that things similar to other spells are possible.

3) One must learn a "recipe," and practice some more in order to be able to cast a spell properly.
Therefore to cast a new spell one must discover and practice the "recipe."

So, if we're going strictly by the books then no Death eater knows any spells that they did not use in the books.
Now I think it's pretty safe to assume that most Death Eaters would know almost all of the spells we see taught in the early years of school as well as a decent amount of those taught in the later years. However, this is still an assumption, not evidence.
I definitely think that we cannot assume that any Death Eater knows any spells that were not specifically in the books, even if similar ones were.

OK, so that was three thoughts and some added logic...

[Ditto]

Black breath != Fear Aura. For one, BB can be supressed. For two, not everyone who gets fearinated dies of breathiness. For three... seriously, the breath is not the same range as Fear.

Voldemort is Dumbledore's equal in combat. If you want to quibble about 100% of one and 99.9% of the other, that's fine, but Voldemort is not *significantly* weaker by any means - and depending on who you ask, he's the slightly stronger one.

Weak points in the armor? You mean the joints and thin parts? It's not rocket science... and when you have enough swords swarming (spinning with signficant amounts of force, yes, it's not like spinning fast is difficult...), they'll hit something eventually even if they *don't* break through outright for some reason.

A wizard throws up a solid barrier of some sort (hell, summon material if you don't want to mold the dirt), and apparate away. That's the trick, s'all. Attacking and defending is hard for anyone. That's why you leave until you can attack without being pinned down... Matching action against action only matters when you have fixed targets trading blows, which is not what wizards do. If you have him pinned down with arrow fire, he'll start over from another angle.

Moral fiber isn't needed to destroy the Ring. Willpower, accidents, evilness, logic... we've gone over various arguments on how to defy this "Don't kill me!!!!!" pulse the Ring sends out, but moral fiber wasn't the answer anyway.

...+1 Shiny Flashlight.

EDIT: Rowan, I'm not sure I understand. What spells specifically are you referring to, and why is this logic a liability? And the toolkit already present in the book is plenty large... and this 'recipe' approach to spells sort of cements a wizard's ability to endlessly adapt. It's documented that wizards dabble in odds and ends of magic throughout the series, so it's not just something Dumbledore does in his spare time.

[warty goblin]

If Gandalf's staff = +1 shiny flashlight, then Voldermort's wand = +1 laser pointer.