Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-50.72.49.241-20130930130812/@comment-26893431-20170513113925

Sports72Xtrm wrote: Ok but in a traditional Nordic duel, evidence points that it's a duel to the death. If it was a non-lethal duel, lethal weapons wouldn't be allowed. A fist fight or wooden swords would be used to promote safety. This is not the case in traditional Nord Duels. Daynas Valen's Notes details that Sigdis Gauldurson challenged Geirmund in a duel meaning to kill him. If Ulfric challenged Torygg to a duel, he would know his weapon of choice had lethal capabilities and wouldn't be able to use such a sword to kill him. And in Kjoric the White's case, strike down definition most likely means "to kill". "evidence points", no they don't. All the duels between people who fought for either the titel of King or Jarl were non-lethal. Only with Ulfric's duel -- which happened centuries after the duels were seen as "normal", centuries after it started getting called "the old way".

Neither Gauldurson nor Geirmund was fighting for the position of Jarl or King, now were they? And no, it doesn't "most likely mean that", I just gave you the French version of the book -- since it makes an appearance in TES, and the English version gives 2 outcomes, one of which is backed by the French version, we can safely say that the one the French edition backs is the canon one. Aka, it would mean "to defeat".