Gothmog (Third Age)

Gothmog
Tolkien's legendarium character
Aliases	Lieutenant of Minas Morgul
Book(s)	The Return of the King

Gothmog is a fictional character from Tolkien's Legendarium. He appears briefly in The Return of the King, the third volume of The Lord of the Rings as originally printed.

The only reference to Gothmog in The Lord of the Rings is one sentence in The Return of the King. He served in Sauron's army during the War of the Ring as the lieutenant of Minas Morgul, second-in-command to the Witch-king of Angmar, lord of the nine Nazgûl. He took command of the forces of Morgul during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields after the Witch-king was slain by Éowyn and Meriadoc Brandybuck. In response to the arrival of the Rohirrim and the parallel attack from Minas Tirith, Gothmog throws all of his army's reserves into the fray.

His fate is not described, although Tolkien writes that almost all of the servants of Sauron who fought before the gates of Minas Tirith were killed. Tolkien writes nothing else about Gothmog — not even what race he belonged to. In 1971, it was suggested in The Complete Guide to Middle-earth that he was possibly the second highest Nazgûl, but in Unfinished Tales (first published posthumously in 1980), previously unpublished texts by Tolkien called that character Khamûl, "the Black Easterling".

Gothmog shares his name with another character, Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, who is featured in The Silmarillion.

In 1988, a new species of Helferella beetles was named Helferella gothmogoides after Gothmog.

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