LogFAQs > #906362126

Darkman124 posted...

scar the 1 posted...

Fun fact, the original Swedish translation has Merry kill him, because the translator misread the whole thing. So in Sweden people for decades thought that the prophecy was circumvented because Merry is a Hobbit. Which also made sense, because in the context of Glorfindel's (IIRC) prophecy probably everyone thought he meant the race "Man", rather than the gender.

Strictly speaking, both were true: the Witch King was defeated by the combined efforts of two people, neither of which would meet the full literal definition of 'man' in middle earth (a male human)

Well the "prophecy" says "not by the hand of man shall he fall", and it mostly served as a warning to Ernur that he would not be successful in chasing down the Witch-King. Most likely, when he said "no living man may hinder me", it was not even a reference to this prophetic statement, but rather just absolute confidence that no one among the race of Men possessed the necessary power to bring him down.
Technically yeah, no living man did hinder the poor Witch-King.

But the Swedish version was still mistranslated, it had Merry deliver the final blow, which also introduced a weird discontinuity because his blade had just dissipated and he still used it.
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