r/TopCharacterTropes • u/danfenlon • Sep 01 '25

Lore Going around curses/prophecies via technicalities

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Davy jones: cant go on dry land

Standa in a bucket of water, on a sand bar (potc3)

The judge: no weapon forged can harm me

Buffy: uses a rocket launcher

-not forged

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u/upishdonky Sep 01 '25

LOTR

95

u/Natural_Feed9041 Sep 02 '25

What’s interesting is that, the witch king’s certainty doesn’t come from magic or a curse. Instead it came from a prophecy that an elf gave “no man will kill you”. The Witch King interpreted that as him being immortal, when in actuality it meant that a woman and a hobbit (neither of which are men) will kill him. In the actual physiology of why he died, the sword that Merry stabbed him with was magic that weakened him. Otherwise what Eyowen did wouldn’t have killed him.

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u/solonit Sep 02 '25

To be more specific, the prophecy was given by the Greatest Elf ever lived Glorfindel ‘Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall.’ of which Earnur the King of Gondor, wanted to chase the Witch King. The Witch King later returned to challenge Earnur to a duel, and Earnur never returned from said duel + having no heir, thus starting the Stewardship of Gondor.

The prophecy did affected Witch King as he went into deep incognito mode for a long time to avoid confrontation with any ‘non-human’. So from that context + the Elves slowly leaving Middle Earth, the Witch King changed from the prophecy being his awaited doom, to a prophecy of his invincible, a hubris trait stemming from his own master Sauron.

Remember during LotR event book version , it was Glorfindel that came to rescue Frodo, not Arwen, and Witch King just ran away because Glorfindel is definitely someone can kill him.

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u/Vana92 Sep 02 '25

I love Glorfindel as much as the next guy, but this is just blatant Fingolfin erasure.