[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Ah, I was concerned this would come up. The formality and distance between Master/Manservant does not preclude friendship. Frodo wasn't a king, he was merely landed and of a well-to-do family. It was just unusual. How many people are buddies with their boss? Even in our informal society. It would only occur in unusual conditions.

We do 'get' rank, earned rank, but not social standing, where you're born to it. With earned rank, there's still a sense of equality, 'I could get there, too.' But not so when you're born to a certain strata of society - to a poorer Hobbit it's nearly impossible to imagine being cut from the same cloth.

If you don't know what a stratified society is like, Sam's blatant adoration of Frodo looks more like a crush. Then you could only explain it away by claims of deep friendship, which his formality (and Frodo's surprise at learning more and more about Sam) belies.

Whew! I'll have a dash of that miruvar friend, thanks.
You guys can spare yourselves the spelling bee and typing fingers with the short version (I don't think I can type my own name) - Maril [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

(Aside - *Mark, it means nothing. I was being flip and tweaking Tolkien about his linguistic jaw-crackers.*) [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]