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Old 10-03-2017, 01:48 PM   #5
Kuruharan
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: A Remote Dwarven Hold
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Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Kuruharan is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
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I think part of the reason why banditry is so limited is the low population of Middle-earth.

Outcasts and other undesirables who were driven out of their societies (the usual ultimate source of gangs of bandits), assuming that enough of them banded together, could easily start up their own people in the wilds of Eriador rather than being a bandit gang per se.

In a way it is almost a "frontier" effect.

I think Rohan might have had a similar situation in that Rohirric outlaws could go to Dunland or somewhere in the wilds to the north.

Gondor is the only place in the West that I think had more ideal conditions for "banditry" being a more settled society, although even Gondor had sparsely populated hinterlands.

I agree with Zigur that the presence of more dangerous and malicious types of evil had a bit of a deterrent effect on the more ordinary kind.
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