#wraith world

"With a clamour of dismay the hosts of Harad turned and fled, and over the ground a headless thing crawled away, snarling and sniveling, tearing at the cloak. Soon the black cloak too lay formless and still, and a long thin wail rent the air and vanished in the distance." --"The Battle of the Pelennor Fields," The War of the Ring, p. 366

"The ambassador laughs, and gives a dreadful cry. Flinging off his garments he vanishes; but at that cry the host prepared in ambush sally from the mountains on either side, and from the Teeth, and pour out of the Gate." --"The Story Foreseen From Forannest," The War of the Ring, 362

Just to clarify, the garments that the Witch-king casts aside refer to the clothing that he wears in the world of the living, not to the garments that he wears in the wraith world. I believe that a Nazgul's appearance in the wraith world is more representative of his soul/fëa, and has little correlation with what he wears upon his physical body/hröa. This explains why the Nazgul are described as wearing black garments when pursuing Frodo, but gray robes when he puts on the One Ring and sees them in the wraith world for the first time.

Now one might assume that the Witch-king in these early drafts did not possess his Ring. It has often been assumed that the Nine Rings work in the exact same fashion as the One Ring: the moment that the wearer puts one of the Nine Rings upon their finger, they become invisible to mortals, clothing and all. Using that logic, if the Witch-king had his Ring in these two scenes, he would have had no need to tear off his clothing to become invisible. He would simply take his Ring from a pocket in his cloak, or from a chain about his neck, and slip it onto his finger. Instant invisibility - with far more dignity.

However, this is the tricky part.

Tolkien might have intended for the Witch-king to be wearing his Ring in both of these scenes.

"The Nazgul came once more, slaves of the Nine Rings, and to each, since now they were utterly subject to his will, their Lord had given again that ring of power that he had used of old." --"The Siege of Gondor," The War of the Ring, 335

Now, there is very strong evidence in the published version of Lord of the Rings that Sauron had possession of the Nine Rings of the Nazgul in the latter part of the Third Age. Tolkien even stated in Letter 246 that Sauron held the Nine Rings and used them to have "primary control of their wills." So it is obvious that Tolkien abandoned the idea of having the Witch-king and other Nazgul wield their Rings at the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Over the years, I have read theories that perhaps Tolkien did not want to address the situation which might arise if someone found the Witch-king's Ring after he fell upon the battlefield, and that it would be better if the Nine Rings were destroyed during the fall of Barad-dur. Whether or not this was Tolkien's actual line of thinking when he made this decision, only Eru and the Professor know.

But back to the early drafts in which the Witch-king was wielding his Ring at the Battle of Pelennor and at the Black Gate.

If the Witch-king's clothing was visible when he was wearing his Ring, that means that the Nine Rings might work more like the Three Elven Rings as opposed to the One Ring. In other words, the clothing of the wielder stays visible, while the wielder can will the Ring itself to appear invisible. Remember how Frodo could see Nenya on Galadriel's hand, while Sam could not.

While we do not know the exact properties of the Nine Rings, we do know that they were originally created for elves. When Sauron's plan to control the elves through rings did not pan out, he reclaimed sixteen of them and gave nine to powerful men. Tolkien writes, "The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay […], the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance […]. But they also enhanced the powers of a possessor […]. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron […] such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible." (Letter 131)

These preservation effects have a unique effect upon Men: "A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings." - "The Shadow of the Past," Fellowship of the Ring, p.56

Of the Nazgul, we know: "Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thralldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron's. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows." - "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age," The Silmarillion, p.289

I posed this question some time back on Reddit, and one person theorized that since the Nazgul were already wraiths, the property that Rings of Power have of drawing a mortal wearer into the spirit realm would no longer have any effect upon them. So, based upon this theory, the Nazgul would function more like elves or maiar when wearing their Rings. We know that Galadriel, Gandalf, and Elrond were visible at all times, although Nenya, Narya and Vilya remained hidden.

So could a Nazgul wear his own Ring without his clothing turning invisible?