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Old 10-14-2005, 05:03 PM   #4
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.
Boots

While I agree that Elessar's empire is more polite fiction than reality, in its defense I have seen people offer the theory that there would have been something of a baby boom in Gondor in the years after the War of the Ring. This would provide more warm bodies to fill the army, have a civilization, and perhaps create enough people to have some sort of migrations to the north.

Also, the Reunited Kingdom was fairly secure from outside attack. At that point in time there were not any people in a position to challenge it. The elves were leaving and didn't care any more. The dwarves were dwindling, withdrawing into their mountains, and didn't care anymore. The orcs no longer existed as rational creatures. The Easterlings and Haradrim had had their fighting strength pretty severely mauled by the War. There was always the possibility of a new vigorous people coming out of the East, but we know that did not happen in Elessar's lifetime (at least not to a significant extent).

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that exercising authority in all the widely scattered areas would be the biggest short-term (and from what we know I think we can define "short-term" as Elessar's lifetime) problem, particularly in places like Umbar where there would have been greater capacity to resist.

On the whole, I agree that the Reunited Kingdom was not all it was cracked up to be. I expect that Eldarion had some pretty severe problems to cope with during his reign. It is a pity we are given the barest glimpse of them.
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