Willpower of a Ringbearer vs the Nazgul

[Gordis]

This has spun off from the Hunt for the Ring thread HERE
As the question seems of more general interest than the intricacies of the Hunt, I have decided to open a new thread for it.

Alcuin posted:

Originally Posted by Alcuin

This brings up an interesting point that we should probably discuss in another thread:

What did the Nazgûl and Sauron make of it that the Ringbearer was “a v[ery]small spiritless creature with no pride or willpower, and is filled with terror at the approach of a Nazgûl.”

Sauron and any of his adherents would have seized any desirable good from another, weaker creature in a heartbeat. Could Sauron or the Nazgûl even imagine that any of the Wise or Aragorn (once Sauron knew of him) pass up an opportunity to take the Ring for his own? Sauron knew that Saruman had already fallen to the temptation of the Ring. He must have assumed that in the Company of the Ring, the One Ring was in the possession of one of the other members – Gandalf or Aragorn, most likely – and not with any of the halflings, which explains the sarcastic abuse heaped upon Gandalf and all Hobbitry by the Mouth of Sauron at the Morannon: “What use you find in [these imps] I cannot guess; but to send them as spies into Mordor is beyond even your accustomed folly.”

Allowing Gandalf to approach the Bearer surely meant, to the Nazgûl, that the wizard would claim the Ring for his own. They would be caught in conflicting allegiances and subject to his commands. It explains the perplexity of the Witch-king at Weathertop cited from “The Hunt for the Ring” MSS in RC 196 (I:208), where Tolkien says the Witch-king “now knows who is the Bearer, and is greatly puzzled that it should be a small creature and not Aragorn, who seems to be a great power though apparently ‘only a Ranger’.”