# Politics in ME



## Hisoka Morrow (Jul 23, 2020)

Just discuss anything about politics for each nations of ME^^
These're the examples
Were Numenorain ME's provincial inhabitants the strongholds for the Faithfuls in the Numenorin Congress(If they're allowed to have citizenship)?
Or have Nemenorain Empire gotten into civil wars due to political strife?
Did Gondor allow ME natives to have citizenship?
Did the Gondor or Numenorain Congress have the authority of veto?

Yeah, just provide anything you know or you infer about ME's politics^^All constructive comment are welcome to post^^


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jul 23, 2020)

I'm not sure the concept of "citizenship" would have even occurred to anyone in ME -- or Numenor either, for that matter, any more than it did in most of the history of our world.

What we call politics plays almost no role in romance, but you might find this thread of some interest:









Tolkien's Political Views


I think anyone who reads Tolkien recognizes his perspective on industrialism and other societal trends that he saw emerging in his lifetime, but someone recently shared with me a 1943 letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to Christopher where J.R.R. Tolkien describes himself as leaning "more and more to...




www.thetolkienforum.com





And I imagine there are older threads here that address your questions. Worth seeking out.


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## Olorgando (Jul 23, 2020)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> ...
> Yeah, just provide anything you know or you infer about ME's politics.


About the only thing that vaguely resembles our present-day politics is the election of the Mayor of Michel Delving for a term of seven years (which Sam then managed to hog for 49 years, being elected seven times). Mostly a ceremonial post, involving presiding at feasts. And being responsible for the postal service and the Shirriffs for internal service, though they seem to mostly to have had to deal with wayward livestock - and perhaps the Bounders for external, e.g. boundary patrol services, but I'm not sure about that.


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## Ealdwyn (Jul 23, 2020)

I've never given this any great consideration, but ME appears to operate along the lines of a feudal system. With the Shire as the exception, there's a pretty clear system of kings/lords/knights and (one presumes) peasants, although we don't see much of the lower orders as the main characters are generally high-ranking.


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## Olorgando (Jul 23, 2020)

Ealdwyn said:


> I've never given this any great consideration, but ME appears to operate along the lines of a feudal system. With the Shire as the exception, ...


Come to think of it, Bree, Lake-Town and Dale do not quite fit the feudal mold.
Bree did not seem to have *any* kind of formalized government, not even a mayor.
Lake-Town had its Master, who seems to have been elected in some fashion (while Dale lay desolate after Smaug's attack and before his demise). Calling the ruler of Dale a king seems to be a bit of a stretch. And how the Beornings were organized is entirely unclear.


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## Ealdwyn (Jul 23, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Come to think of it, Bree, Lake-Town and Dale do not quite fit the feudal mold.


Well, yes. But there are many things in the Hobbit that don't quite fit with the rest of ME. The Hobbit is (to me, anyway), a bit of an anomaly in the legendarium.


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## Olorgando (Jul 23, 2020)

Ealdwyn said:


> Well, yes. But there are many things in the Hobbit that don't quite fit with the rest of ME. The Hobbit is (to me, anyway), a bit of an anomaly in the legendarium.


No question. But consider that The Hobbit also changed quite a bit in its tone as it went along. By the time Thorin's company reaches Lake-Town, Bilbo has become a full-fledged member, taking initiative unthinkable up to Rivendell. Some early parts of the published LoTR are more "Hobbitish" than some late parts of The Hobbit proper. And Bree is definitely a LoTR invention, being markedly absent from the Hobbit. It is where LoTR really starts getting serious, as the attack by the Ring-wraiths in Bree (oddly hesitant, as many have remarked), and way from Bree to Rivendell are more serious matters than the whole "Goblin business" in TH (before the climactic battle, anyway).


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## Ealdwyn (Jul 23, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Some early parts of the published LoTR are more "Hobbitish" than some late parts of The Hobbit proper. And Bree is definitely a LoTR invention,


Yes, the whole sequence up to Bree does not feel _that_ serious. Even the Wraiths and the Barrow Downs aren't particularly threatening. But we are still seeing the events from the hobbits' point of view. To the hobbits, it is still an exciting adventure. It's not until Aragorn, at Bree, convinces them of the seriousness of the situation that the story takes on a more sinister tone.

The Shire and Bree feel very much of a different "age" than the rest of the story. The Shire, particularly, comes from a idealistic pre WW1 view of the English countryside. The change in tone of the story at Bree opens the hobbits' eyes to a world that is more dangerous and primitive and romantic than the 'safe', familiarity of the Shire. Bree is the gateway to that world. They come out of Bree as very different hobbits.
And that's what happens to us too, as readers. After Bree, suddenly ME isn't that safe, homely, hobbity, place anymore.


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## Halasían (Jul 23, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> About the only thing that vaguely resembles our present-day politics is the election of the Mayor of Michel Delving for a term of seven years (which Sam then managed to hog for 49 years, being elected seven times). Mostly a ceremonial post, involving presiding at feasts. And being responsible for the postal service and the Shirriffs for internal service, though they seem to mostly to have had to deal with wayward livestock - and perhaps the Bounders for external, e.g. boundary patrol services, but I'm not sure about that.


I guess The Shire didn't have term-limits.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jul 23, 2020)

AFAIK they didn't even have laws.


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## Olorgando (Jul 23, 2020)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> AFAIK they didn't even have laws.


Not entirely clear. There is this bit in "A Long-expected Party":

"Otho would have been Bilbo's heir, but for he adoption of Frodo. He read the will carefully and snorted. It was, unfortunately, very clear and correct (according to the *legal customs* of the Hobbits, which demanded among other things seven signatures of witnesses in red ink)."

Now I don't know what the hairsplitting difference between laws in our sense (often written in an abominable lawyerese) and legal customs, or even just plain customs is. But we certainly have the written form here - as with Bilbo's contract with Thorin & Co. Now as Ealdwyn and I discussed above, TH and some early parts of LoTR are an anomaly in the legendarium. The Shire as a whole is an anomaly, set in a larger world that is a world of Romance by Northrop Frye's definition. No question that the Hobbits didn't have fat law books with endless paragraphs (this is something that we in Germany may have a world-record fetish for). But a few things might have been consigned to writing, like rules for wills. Perhaps something about the election for Mayor of Michel Delving, too, but I'd guess that the whole procedure was so simple that it could easily be memorized. Literacy in the Shire is unknown, but probably rather lower than it is in the west nowadays. Think of The Gaffer's comment that Mr. Bilbo *meant no harm* in teaching Sam his letters! So perhaps literacy was not all that wide-spread among the "peasantry" - but then there was that postal service, delivered twice a day ...


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## Hisoka Morrow (Jul 23, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Not entirely clear. There is this bit in "A Long-expected Party":
> 
> "Otho would have been Bilbo's heir, but for he adoption of Frodo. He read the will carefully and snorted. It was, unfortunately, very clear and correct (according to the *legal customs* of the Hobbits, which demanded among other things seven signatures of witnesses in red ink)."
> 
> Now I don't know what the hairsplitting difference between laws in our sense (often written in an abominable lawyerese) and legal customs, or even just plain customs is. But we certainly have the written form here - as with Bilbo's contract with Thorin & Co. Now as Ealdwyn and I discussed above, TH and some early parts of LoTR are an anomaly in the legendarium. The Shire as a whole is an anomaly, set in a larger world that is a world of Romance by Northrop Frye's definition. No question that the Hobbits didn't have fat law books with endless paragraphs (this is something that we in Germany may have a world-record fetish for). But a few things might have been consigned to writing, like rules for wills. Perhaps something about the election for Mayor of Michel Delving, too, but I'd guess that the whole procedure was so simple that it could easily be memorized. Literacy in the Shire is unknown, but probably rather lower than it is in the west nowadays. Think of The Gaffer's comment that Mr. Bilbo *meant no harm* in teaching Sam his letters! So perhaps literacy was not all that wide-spread among the "peasantry" - but then there was that postal service, delivered twice a day ...


Or maybe the main reason is population that causes Shire so seemingly isolated and lacking contact with their outside world. After all, we all know that the demand of military expansion and population growth are twin brothers, and military growth is almost the most direct way to get stimulation from different and xeno cultures.
Obviously as not a main leading power like Gondor or Rivendell of ME at all, Shire seldom got a chance or demand for cultural interact. In comparison with anomaly, I think "isolated" will be a preferred word to describe Shire thus.
As for literacy, I think maybe Sam's lack of education is not due to Shire's education standard, after all, he's a labor class. 
The rarity of laws might just be due to the rarity of population, yeah, you know, the more people you rule, the more social rules you need ^^



Ealdwyn said:


> Well, yes. But there are many things in the Hobbit that don't quite fit with the rest of ME. The Hobbit is (to me, anyway), a bit of an anomaly in the legendarium.





Ealdwyn said:


> Yes, the whole sequence up to Bree does not feel _that_ serious. Even the Wraiths and the Barrow Downs aren't particularly threatening. But we are still seeing the events from the hobbits' point of view. To the hobbits, it is still an exciting adventure. It's not until Aragorn, at Bree, convinces them of the seriousness of the situation that the story takes on a more sinister tone.
> 
> The Shire and Bree feel very much of a different "age" than the rest of the story. The Shire, particularly, comes from a idealistic pre WW1 view of the English countryside. The change in tone of the story at Bree opens the hobbits' eyes to a world that is more dangerous and primitive and romantic than the 'safe', familiarity of the Shire. Bree is the gateway to that world. They come out of Bree as very different hobbits.
> And that's what happens to us too, as readers. After Bree, suddenly ME isn't that safe, homely, hobbity, place anymore.



Yeah, after all , most Hobbits live in places very far from places where superpower clash or let the superpowers covet, of course they'll be an anomaly XD. Not only Shire, but mostly those ex-Arnor territory seem so. The only superpower that has extreme activities and huge demand for Arnor's land might be Angamar for military purposes. After the Angamar war, none of the superpowers like Gondor or Lindon seemed have much demand to stretch their power like rebuilding Arnor over there, and thus all ex-Arnor land's show time is almost over.
Most of all, Arnor itself seem is already not an superpower of ME due to geographical reasons like resources, of course any regimes take it's legacy will succeed it's international role possibly. Of course it's another matter after King Aragorn's possible policy of areas development's equalization such as rebuilding Annúminas XDDD


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