Hiiiiiii omg can you please tell me more about your design for the Witch-King and how that idea came to be?? I'm enraptured body and soul and want to know more!! Any headcanons about him at that time??
I love your art!! Thank you so much for sharing 💖😭
hello!! :D 🤍
i'm so happy to hear you like my silly little concept, i assume you mean the design of him in white & masked? IF SO ILY <3 <3 i always love talking about this, but it essentially came into being when i was rereading the series and got to the part where frodo sees the nazgûl's true forms whilst wearing the one ring, where they appear as ghostly, corpse-like, pale, and dressed in white and grey in contrast to their invisible, black-clad 'seen' forms. it really made an impression on me and i just LOVE non-traditional depictions of evil so it was like putting two and two together!
for the witch-king i think it particularly fits, especially during his time as angmar's ruler, because no one knew he was a servant of sauron (let alone a nazgûl!) for many years while he ruled, and what better way to keep up the charade than to present yourself as completely different from what you are?
i knew i wanted him to wear elaborate, intricate clothing from the start and i just Love masks. initially i wanted him to wear a skull-like mask, but i saw the 2005 kingdom of heaven movie so i settled on a metallic, face-like mask with a peaceful, pleasant expression. i think it fits him perfectly for the era for reasons i'll elaborate on.
as for headcanons, i got plenty so i'll need to put them under the cut <3
the witch-king was pretty picky with who he allowed to settle in his kingdom, at least initially. it was mostly humans at first and he made sure to portray angmar as a safe haven — away from war and away from the conflicts of elves, men, and dwarves; the people worked for a living and obeyed their king, who protected them in return for their loyalty. it was nothing special and nothing remarkable. over time he allowed orcs and dwarves to settle as well, but he always kept a tight grip on the safety of the kingdom, as violence among the populace was harshly punished and he had strict laws to ensure people's safety. (this served to superficially portray him as a just and fair ruler, but in reality it was only to ensure that the people's restlessness and anger was pointed away from each other and towards his enemies.)
over time, he had an effect on the populace not unlike brainwashing. nothing to do with magic, just his own manipulation and twisting of the truth; they didn't see angmar and its king as aggressors towards its neighboring countries; they saw the remnants of arnor as envious of angmar's glory and territorial expansion, and the arnorians as the aggressors. this in turn practically made the people blind to what the witch-king's true intentions, and made them all the more loyal to him since he framed it as him just defending the angmarrim from the thieving, malicious arnorians. it's easy to kill for your king when you think he will protect you with his life.
likewise, he portrayed himself as just a man and nothing more. the people saw him as long-lived, not too different from the númenóreans of old (and they didn't know how right they were) and a powerful warrior and sorcerer. the reason he hid his face with masks was, obviously, because he had no face under there that was visible, but he portrayed it as having been so grievously disfigured that he wore masks and veils to 'protect' his people from the horrific sight of his face (the story was liable to change based on the decade; sometimes it was a war injury that developed into a nasty scar, sometimes it was a horrific illness, sometimes it was a result of his birth, sometimes it was an unfortunate wound from childhood that didn't heal right, and each time it was a different lie that ensured people wouldn't ask more than necessary) — of course, no subject is going to ask his king the uncomfortable question directly.
on the topic, no one in angmar's borders called him 'the witch-king'. he didn't use or offer a name or a title, preferring only to be addressed by his royal title, but within less than a decade a title caught on that he ended up using anyway; angaran, the iron king of the iron home.
he had no king's guard, funnily enough. he didn't need one, although he had about a dozen trusted, hand-picked men who governed the different regions of angmar. this, too, was a manipulation in which he made people (these men included) think it was an important task that he bestowed upon them when in reality they had very simple jobs of keeping the peace and commanding different branches of the military, things of very little consequence when it was him who pulled the strings regardless.
however, he did employ a temporary king's guard on diplomatic missions. the goal was always to appear as peaceful and benevolent, fair and reasonable, and a lot weaker than he really was. this temporary king's guard title was a position which was highly sought after by the best soldiers in his arsenal, as a means to push the idea that he comfortably walked among his people unguarded, but that outside of angmar even he in his 'endless mercy and understanding' felt unsafe due to arnor’s hostility; something that only furthered the people's view of him as good and everyone else as bad. almost every action and word of his was with the purpose of furthering his hold on the thousands, later a couple of million people under his command and protection.
although not intentional, it was partly his magic at fault that nullified the aura of terror and despair the angmarrim were seemingly resistant to. other beings (this is especially prevalent in the books) find it difficult to be in the presence of the witch-king and the other nazgûl due to their overwhelming, oppressive air of fear and darkness, instantly marking them as something to Run Away From As Fast As You Can. but this doesn't always work and it isn't always the case! a normal person walking into the borders of angmar would probably be very wary of the witch-king for reasons they aren't even aware of, while the people themselves are just fine. it was not at all uncommon to walk the streets of carn dûm and see the witch-king’s towering, white-clad, masked form conversing with his people and passing them by while tending to his daily Totally Not Evil Duties as he inclined his mask in response to their smiles; their own comfort at the sight of him making it odd that your own uneasy feeling in his presence has to be… a problem with you, obviously, since no one else seems to feel this way.
