Quote:
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Is a person's skill is based a good deal on his heritage?
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Being a Knight of Gondor, you will of course know that
yes your social standing does have a huge impact on your combat skills, at least in medieval warfare. Aragorn and all the kings of his line would have had the best training (physical and otherwise) available. The best weapons and equipment would have helped as well, as would the ability to fight on horseback.
Meanwhile poor Joe Schlubbucket the peasant might one day be called up to active duty, given a rusty old spear and a dubious hat, and shoved out into the front lines. That's the reality of medieval war and the class system in place. Just because it isn't mentioned specifically in LOTR doesn't mean it wasn't going on. How do you think so many troops were available from the southern fiefs? I doubt that places like Lossarnach or Morthond had a significant standing army.
But back to the thread, it would be damn cool to see some stories about the Rangers. Excellent fanfic fare. It seems they never really dwelt in a town (Aragorn mentions they are unused to stone houses, and they weren't very commonly seen in Bree). They must have just camped all over Eriador. Luckily. There were lots of baddies on the roads. Bilbo was attacked by trolls only 50 years or so before the War of the Ring, and that was apparently during one of the safer periods before the rebuilding of Barad-Dûr.