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Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
This is a very common misperception, which PJ picked up and ran with- but it's in error. Tolkien was explicit (it's somewhere in HME or UT) that the Pony burglary was carried out by Bill Ferny, Harry Goatleaf and the cross-eyed Southerner at the Wraiths' orders, not by the Nazgul personally.
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Yes. I for a while thought it was the other Ringwraiths who attacked Bree, just as habit from other adaptations. And to be fair to Jackson, as
Inzil notes, all the adaptations I'm familiar have the Ringwraiths tear up the beds.
This recent reading I've been doing, I discovered it was Ferny and his men. At least Aragorn seems to think so, when they were expecting an attack on the inn:
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'No, I think not,' said Strider. 'They are not all here yet. And in any case that is not their way. In dark and loneliness they are strongest; they will not openly attack a house where there are lights and many people - not until they are desperate, not while all the long leagues of Eriador still lie before us. But their power is in terror, and already some in Bree are in their clutch. They will drive these wretches to some evil work: Ferny, and some of the strangers, and, maybe the gatekeeper too...'~Strider
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I believe it's noted that 4 of them entered the Shire and then raided Frodo's house at Crickhollow. That's quite a different situation though, as they didn't have any hobbits to do their bidding but there also wasn't going to be much resistance. At Bree, I believe 1 had ridden into town, there might have been 2 (the other 3 were south patrolling the Greenway), so they wouldn't have attacked "a house where there are lights and many people" when they had people already in Bree to do their bidding.
What I've found interesting also is the Ringwraiths orders weren't to kill/get the Ring from Frodo and take the Ring to Sauron. It appears Sauron doesn't trust anyone in possession of the Ring, not even the Ringwraiths. Their orders were to incapacitate Frodo and take him to Sauron, so Sauron could take the Ring.