The Nazgûl's State

The Nazgûl, also called the Ringwraiths, the Nine Riders, or the Black Riders, are the most terrible servants of the Dark Lord Sauron, and their state is one of profound and irreversible enslavement. They were once mortal men, kings among the races of Middle-earth, who accepted the Nine Rings of power and were thereby bound to the will of their maker. Gandalf's account of the Ring's history reveals that these nine rings were given to mortal men 'doomed to die,' and the consequence of their acceptance was a slow but total transformation: they became wraiths, neither living nor dead, their wills utterly subsumed into Sauron's own. Their state is thus a cautionary tale about the corrupting power of the Ring, a fate that hangs as a shadow over every mortal who might be tempted by it, including the hobbits who now carry it.