Welcome to the Downs,
Archaic Elf! Enjoy being dead, and all that. Reading your post, it seems you belong here.
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Originally Posted by Archaic Elf
I sort of think of the rangers as a police force. They may have been like sentries living in small communities (like Turin and his band of outlaws) in the woods. They had to be capable of hunting and living off the land for an extended period of time.
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Or rather like what Túrin's original band had developped into at the time of Dor Cúarthol. But yes, that's more or less how I'd imagine them - with a couple of safe havens like Bar-en-Danwedh to retreat to and meet at (I think Tolkien mentions somewhere that they had a settlement or 'fastness' of sorts in the Angle, but there may have been more than one).
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Originally Posted by Archaic Elf
Maybe the people in and around Eriador paid taxes to help fund the rangers?
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Meaning who? The likes of Barliman Butterbur (see
Eönwë's post above)? Judging from his example, most of them didn't realize or appreciate what the Rangers were actually doing until the watch was weakened when the Rangers were busy elsewhere - let alone pay money for it.
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Originally Posted by Archaic Elf
A good question (and an unanswerable question at that) would be how many rangers fell in their battle with the Nazgul at the border of the Shire? This is one action sequence that would have been cool to see in the Fellowship of the Ring. I imagine the rangers suffered some significant loss in the battle.
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Yeah, that would be nice to see. Someone should suggest it to all those fan movie makers out there.