Why Didn't the Witch-king Kill Gandalf in The Return of the King Extended Cut?

If you think Gandalf is so very easy to kill, I don’t think you paid very much attention to his career up to that point.

Why the Scene Was Add-On

The movie got it so wrong. The Witch King was not more powerful than Gandalf and never broke Gandalf's staff. In the book, the Witch King rides through the gate of Minas Tirith on his black horse at the break of dawn and all flee before him except Gandalf sitting upon Shadowfax who holds fast. They stand their ground while the Witch King talks smack, "Fool! Do you not know Death when you see it." Then just as dawn breaks, a rooster crows, and a horn sounds. It is the Horn of Rohan. The Rohirrim has arrived at last. The Witch King turns to ride away and deal with Theoden and his riders while Gandalf is prevented from following him because Pippin runs up to tell him that Denethor has lost his mind and is about to burn Faramir alive. Gandalf has to go save Faramir and before he gets a rematch, the Lord of the Nazgul gets taken out by a terrified but courageous young hobbit and a suicidal young shieldmaiden.

Battle Scene Analysis

The short answer is that he couldn’t. First of all, that entire scene was made up strictly for the movie. It didn’t happen anything like that in the book. In the book, the Witch King rides through the gate of Minas Tirith on his black horse at the break of dawn, and all fProxy flee before him except Gandalf sitting upon Shadowfax who holds fast. They stand their ground while the Witch King talks smack, "Fool! Do you not know Death when you see it." Then just as dawn breaks, a rooster crows, and a horn sounds. It is the Horn of Rohan. The Rohirrim has arrived at last. The Witch King turns to ride away and deal with Theoden and his riders while Gandalf is prevented from following him because Pippin runs up to tell him that Denethor has lost his mind and is about to burn Faramir alive.

Gandalf has to go save Faramir and before he gets a rematch, the Lord of the Nazgul gets taken out by a terrified but courageous young hobbit and a suicidal young shieldmaiden. The Witch King finds out the hard way that he is not as invincible as he believes and apparently, "not by the hand of man will he fall" does not include the hands of hobbits or women! Who knew?

In-Universe Analysis

A more "in-universe" reason that the Witch King couldn’t spare ten seconds before flying off to stop the Rohirrim is that he was quite simply nowhere near powerful enough to kill Gandalf! That scene made no sense at all. It should not have been made. Gandalf the White was far far more powerful than the Witch King.

Historical Battles

Don’t forget that just a few months earlier, Gandalf the Gray, who was far less powerful than Gandalf the White, fought the Witch King and all eight of his buddies on Weathertop and rode away unscathed. In the book, the Witch King was left pretty rattled by that fight, and the next night, Frodo who was supposed to be just a terrified and completely helpless little halfling little more than a fly to be swatted not only manages to resist the Witch King’s command to hand over the ring but then he pulls out a 1600-year-old enchanted sword made specifically to kill Ringwraiths and attacks him with it! Frodo very nearly cut him, and if he had his Sword of Westernesse, would have been just as dangerous and deadly to the Witch King as the Witch King’s Morgul knife was to Frodo. After that, the Witch King becomes even more rattled.

Conclusion

Then Aragorn shows up swinging flaming torches, and the Witch King decides, "You know what? Job done. The ring-bearer has been stabbed with a Morgul blade. He’ll turn into a wraith soon and I’ll have him. All I have to do is follow. There is no point in staying here and continuing this dangerous fight." So he leaves. He definitely did not expect Frodo to resist the dark magic of the Morgul knife for more than ten days longer than anyone else ever had and then to escape into Rivendell with help from Glorfindel, Elrond, and Gandalf.

The best thing to do is simply forget that scene ever happened because it should not have happened. It was ridiculous.