If Denethor hadn't committed suicide

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Precisely. Aragorn's forays into Rhûn and the Harad come to mind. In those places, anyone pegged as a 'Westerner' would probably have been killed.

Yes... but would Aragorn necessarily have been pegged as a Westerner? Black Númenoreans settled the coasts of Middle-earth everywhere but the northwest. True, they do not seem to have had kingdoms in the sense of Gondor or Arnor--Umbar is the closest thing we have--but they seem to have been prominent in the service of Sauron from Herumor and Fuinil in the days of the Last Alliance down through the Mouth during the War of the Ring. To me it seems possible that Aragorn, if looking scruffy and unkingly, may well have appeared a stranger, but not necessarily a Westerner. And where wasn't he a stranger--he was a stranger in Rohan, Gondor, and Bree? That this'd be his modus operandi in Rhûn and Harad is not a surprise...