Ele não se desviou do livro ... muito
Pelo menos um Ring-Wraith entra em Bree durante a noite e é visto por Merry:
"I have seen them Frodo! I have seen them! Black riders!...Here. In
the village. I stayed indoors for an hour. Then as you did not come
back, I went out for a stroll. I had come back again and was standing
just outside the light of the lamp looking at the stars. Suddenly I
shivered and felt that something horrible was creeping near"
Merry continua sua história:
"I went to pieces. I don't know what came over me." 'I do,' said
Strider. 'The Black Breath. The riders must have left their horses
outside, and passed through the South-gate in secret.'
Strider / Aragorn está ciente de que existem inimigos humanos e nunca se saem bem na cidade que de bom grado desistiriam da empresa:
"They will know all the news now, for they have visited Bill Ferney;
and probably that Southerner was a spy as well. Something may happen
in the night, before we leave Bree".
Aqui é onde o principal desvio ocorre:
'What will happen?' said Merry. 'Will they attack the inn?'
'No, I think not', said Strider. 'They are not all here yet' And in
any case, that is not their way They will drive these wretches to do some evil work; Ferny, and some of the strangers, and maybe, the gatekeeper too.
Aqui, novamente, encontramos alguma semelhança entre o filme e o texto:
[Aragorn] 'Stay here, and do not go to your rooms! They are sure to
have found out which those are. The hobbit-rooms have windows looking
north and close to the ground. We will all remain together and bar
this window and the door.
Nob, o hobbit que trabalha na estalagem, cria um engodo:
'Well Masters' said Nob, "I've ruffled up the clothes and put in a
bolster down the middle of each bed. And I made a nice imitation of
your head with a brown woollen mat'
Durante a noite, os Cavaleiros (ou alguém - como Strider indicou anteriormente, talvez Ferney ou algo semelhante) entraram e viraram a sala:
"As soon as Strider had roused them all, he led the way to their
bedrooms. When they saw them they were glad they had taken his advice:
the windows had been forced open and were swinging, and the curtains
were flapping; the beds were tossed about, and the bolsters slashed
and flung upon the floor; the brown mat was torn to pieces."
No texto, a empresa parte de Bree na manhã seguinte, sem interferência dos Cavaleiros Negros. Então, no livro, os Cavaleiros do entrar Bree e a empresa faz esconder dos Cavaleiros, e alguém desperta o quarto, mas, no texto, o ataque ao quarto não é mostrado, nem há indicação de que são os Cavaleiros Negros que executam a ação. Strider acha que qualquer ataque seria cometido por humanos em Bree, não pelos Cavaleiros.