I think the idea that the Rangers were the elite warriors of the northern Dúnedain makes the most sense. My guess is that the Rangers numbered 100-200. The overall population likely numbered in the low thousands, mostly living in small, carefully hidden villages.
Weapons and armour tend to be expensive in terms of resources available. In many ancient and medieval societies, the soldiers/warriors were from the middle and upper classes. For instance, infantry with more than skirmish weapons would usually be farmers (or their sons) with a large enough holding to employ workers from outside their family. The word "yeoman" springs to mind. A heavy cavalryman would likely be the largest landowner in at least one village (think about the words "knight" and "squire").
I think around 10.000 makes the most sense. Being a Ranger was probably an elite position and quite a few of them would be used to defend their home region all the time.
I feel like quite a few rangers who remained behind would have been protecting their homes and families. Surely sone of the Gray Company had wives and children at home.
Yeah, also add in that since they were likely spread out across a wide area and it's entirely plausible there could be thousands of them but that those in the grey company were all who could be gathered in time.
@Stlaind Argorn was the chieftain of the Dunedain and therefore the highest ranking "officer" of the Rangers. If he needed a force of his Rangers and only 30 showed up, I don't think there could be thousands of them. When Theoden goes to war he musters around a third of the entire army of Rohan in a matter of days. If we were to say the Rangers numbered e.g. 10 thousand, that would mean only 0.3% of Aragorn's men answered his call. Even if we account for the lower level of organization, distances and stuff 0.3% is way way too low. And if there is a literal army of Rangers running around that sort of diminishes their accomplishments. I prefer the idea that there were only a few hundred Rangers but they were skilled enough that they could keep the land safe despite their small numbers
@@exantiuse497 I think it is important to notice that the Grey Company travelled on horseback. I think that Northern Dunedain didn't have enough good riding horses and good riders to send more (especially considering that some horsemen might be needed as scouts, messengers and so on). Although I agree that there were only several hundred of Rangers (professional warriors), but there easily could be several thousand Northern Dunedain (including farmers, craftsmen, women, children and elderly).
There could have been around 5,000 to 10,000 northern dunedain, and the rangers could have been the elite of their soldiers, just like the sas or delta force
Honestly, I think the Rangers of the North A.K.A Northern Dunedain are pretty underrated (besides the exception that is Aragorn II, A.K.A King Elessar). They helped to defend and protect the realms that were vulnerable to Orcish and Trollic incursions like that of the Hobbit town Pre-Scouring of the Shire and were able to do so withOUT a seemingly necessary standing army that would be required to destroy large hordes of Orcs as well, for an entire millenium no less! Let's not also forget the fact they helped preserve the dignity and blood of Arnor and Númenor up until the Arnor-Gondor restoration under Aragorn/Elessar.
I think there had to be some fair amount. When Saruman asks Grima who the man was that accompanied Gandalf at Edoras, referring to Aragorn, Grima correctly deduced, "One of the Dunedain Rangers I thought him; his cloth was poor". For Grima to recognize Aragorn's dress suggests he has seem a fair number of Northern Rangers over time.
Your quoting the movie. Peter Jackson's team gave more dialogue and scenes to Grima & Saruman than what is in LOTR. Grima would not have known anything about the Northern Dunedain.
We tend to picture all of Eriador being uninhabited wilderness outside of the Shire and nearby settlements like Bree, but I imagine there are plenty of towns like Bree throughout what used to be Arnor, and the Dunedain probably lived among them. By tradition the men of that lineage took upon them the duty to protect their lands, but many probably just settled down and mixed with the rest of the population, which now lived in fairly isolated communities. The destruction of the great nation left their economy and infrastructure in ruins, but while it was heavily depopulated, it's not like there were only a few thousand people left foraging to survive in the woods.
I've always taken it that the Rangers were extremely spread out across Eriador, they were essentially the military of the dunedain. Their numbers were probably still in the hundreds out of a population of a couple thousand. Halbarad had a couple days to round up men scattered all over Eriador, it would have taken weeks to gather them all, so he only took who was near by. There was also probably no real communication system between Ranger groups when they were in the field so he would have to physically find every Ranger for his expedition. I'd say 100 is too low but a 500 scattered across a landmass the size of Northern Europe would still be extremely spread out and hard to find in a short period of time.
I love the stupid bits at the end of each video. Some of them have been pure gold. I've had to clean my monitor once or twice, unwisely sipping a beverage as your video concludes.
I think that the question of how many Rangers exist is directly tied into the question of how the realm of Arnor could be re-founded and what that new kingdom would look like. A speculative video on the new re-established kingdom of Arnor might a fun topic to so. What did the kingdom look like? Did it have full control over the realm or was its control limited to the immediate area around Annuminas and Fornost? Did Aragorn incentivize Gondorians to settle in the new realm similar to the colonization of North America? What were relations with Bree-land like and did they come under the control of the new kingdom? I think all of these questions would make for a great video.
I'd love to see your take on how large Smaug was. It's something that's only vaguely hinted at in the books. We know his head is larger than 5x3 foot, but that's it.
Also it makes sense we don't come across any major Ranger settlements in the LotR books as Aragorn would not want to bring the Ring there and we're avoiding human settlements.
I wonder if we will find the earlier drafts and reasoning behind Darth Gandalf's comments at the ends of the videos in his hand written notes posthumously
Lol I've rewatched some of his older videos. In the first few, he didn't do them He must've thought of that idea after that. Nevertheless, I gotta say they are a very good way of capturing your attention until the very end
300-1000 Rangers makes sense given the longevity and reproduction of the Dunedain. In times of relative peace there would have been more and at times of crisis like the Goblin Invasion of Golfimbul or when Trolls were numerous the numbers of Rangers would decline due to attrition. There was probably more than one village or area where they operated. The Angle is one, while Numeriador, near Sarn Ford and hills North of Fornost would have been likely spots for other Dunedain villages. Each village would have had a watch border (responsibility to a specific area). Halbarad himself states that the Grey Company "was all that could be gathered in Haste". The population in total would have been somewhere between 3,000-10,000 Pure Blooded Dunedain.
The matter of the size is also a complex area, when you look at Middle Earth, the former Kingdom of Arnor was huge so that is a lot of territory for the Dunedain of the North to protect. So that means that the Rangers likely are stretched out defending the different regions. 30 for Halbarad might just have been those within close proximity to Rivendell when he got the word as well as those he found when they went south. I would put their numbers 2,000 at most but those are likely Rangers! never mind the people that supported them, those in the camps, villages etc.
There were probably enough rangers to keep most of Eriador safe from threats on the borders of the region from places like the Misty Mountains or Angmar but not enough to keep Saruman from taking over the Shire. The Grey Company probably only had 30 rangers by the time they got to Rohan due to a number of factors. It would have been gathered in haste as you said, Eriador would still need some of its guardians and there is a good chance that some members of the company perished on route to Rohan as they had to pass through Dunland. I particularly like the way the Lord of the Rings Online handles the Rangers of the North and the Grey Company. There are only a handful of rangers outside the settlements of Esteldin and Tinnudir. When you're helping to gather the Grey company, there is one ranger in the shire that you can help decide if he should go with the company or stay to protect the Shire. After the Grey Company sets out, the company loses a number of their men, incluing the player character, to the Dunlendings and Isengard until only 30 remain.
The Grey Company's departure to help out Aragorn in the south left the door open for Saruman and his ruffians to take over the Shire. Losing 30 men was a major strain on their manpower.
I've thought a lot about this question over the years. 100 to 300 rangers at the end of the 3rd age. Maybe 1000 to 3000 Dunedain. 10 percent military is a lot for our communities, but i think it works for them. And regrading restabilishing Arnor, I think when Sauron defeated and prosperity came, their population could rebound quickly.
If you have ever played LOTRO you get a decent glimpse of what the society of the northern Dunedain could have been like, with a few hidden settlements near or in old ruins of the North. That always felt very plausible, with a diminished yet still proud folk retaining their history. My guess was similar to what others have written: 5-10k Dunedain total, with the Rangers numbering in the hundreds.
The Grey Company consisted of 30 Rangers! If they represented 1% of the Rangers, there can be 3000 Rangers in the North! But if they represented 10% of the Rangers, then there can be 300 Rangers in the North! So, we've a range of 300-3000 Rangers! So, average would be 1650 Rangers!
When looking at the rebuilding of Arnor one also has to take into account population growth in order to avoid territorial conflict. Sure, it might have been a lot of area in the 4th age, but by the 5th age?
Great video and while I largely agree with your argument as they have been discussed myself in Tolkien fan groups but I have found that the most reasonable number to be between 80-100K Dunedain with 1000 being rangers. For a few reasons I believe the rangers are so few because they represent the Elders of the Dunedain communities as unlike normal humans who age and become decrepit with in a few decades the Dunedain do not age like normal men and in fact maintain their physical prime until their death a fact we can see when we compare Theoden who makes refrence to his loss of strength due to age even after recovering from Sauramon's influence. Which is not something that Aragorn, Denethor, Imrahil or Halbarad ever indicate despite being even older than Theoden. Denethor even after having battled with the will of Sauron for years is still in good health. So likely the rangers are the Dunedain men who have acquired enough skills and knowledge to be capable of patrolling for extended periods of time over vast swathes of land with minimal support of their communities. As elder they would also have already had and raised their children to adulthood who would then replace them in their obligations to their society. So that now this Ranger could return to his village periodically where his sons and daughters would provide him with provisions, clothing, smithing and shelter while he being in good health and wise from age and experience would watch over and act as both the first line of defence and the communities early warning system to respond to larger threats. Which would mean each ranger represents a clan and make up a fractions of the overall Dunedain population while also explaining why its so hard to replace their numbers when lost. This would explain why both the Grey company was so small and why it seems only Halbarad brought his sons. Likely as close kin to Aragorn he was a leader of one of the Dunedain tribes and so he and his sons could risk leaving their families since others in their community would be obligated to care/defend their women and children. The other rangers would not have risked endangering their families by leaving them defencless and left behind their sons to defend their communities while they left to answer the call to arms. This would also explain that even if out of the 1000 rangers scattered through Angmar, Cardolan Arthedain, Rhudar, Enedwaith and Northen Dunlend why so few could be mustered in haste as likely these messages only made it to Ranger who just so happened to have returned recently to their community for resupply from patrolling. Not to mention the Rangers already lost from fighting the Nazgul who I assume probably numbered between 50-100 Rangers as if only a few dozen had been there I doubt they could have delayed them for long as they fought them back in the day likely losing a few rangers as even a minor wound would have left them crippled from their blades so to have fought them again at night and still have enough men that the Nazgul would even have even needed to spend anytime chasing them means even after both battles their had to have been a fair few of them. This would explain why even with only losing 30 or so rangers why so much of Eriador became dangerous as now the 1000 Rangers would have found their vast area of responsibility which already spread them thin would at this point become impossible to secure forcing them to condense their area of operation to better protect their own settlments. Which would open up Bree and the Shire to attacks and exploitation. I can't see the Dunedain numbering anywhere as low as 10'000 since then how do they have the capabilities to mine, smith, farm, clothe and patrol such a large area 10'000 Dunedain could not sustain 1000 Rangers and even if the Rangers were only 100 men thats would mean that by the time the grey company departed then less then 50 Rangers would have been left to protect thousands of women and children. Thats not even taking into account the horses they ride a Dunedain is over 7 feet tall those horses would have been massive warhorses how could such a small number of people be breeding and feeding these beasts. Lastly a population of less than 50'000 would be facing serious issues with inbreeding as we know from references to Halbarad, Isildur etc that the Dunedain like many medieval peoples did have a much higher fertility rate Isildur even having over a century age gap between his eldest and youngest son so clearly these people can still create children throughout their lifespan.
My take: Take the proportion you'd allocate to be the numbers of Ithilian Rengars and compare that to Gondor's population. All other factors being equal, this ratio is a format to start off from. This is a jumping off point, because to be a ranger was an occupation. Not everyone would be suited for such roles, just like it was in Gondor. The key point here is that we don't have the same knowledge for all areas. We know more about Gondor, we know nothing about east of Mordor. It would be hubris to presume that whatever is east of Mordor is barren and desolate, and the same logic applies to some degree in Northern Dunedain. Imagine an alternative Tolkien story that was only situated in northern Eriador. Tolkien told us that "Gondor had lost Osgiliath, and everything east including Minas Ithil, the forest of Ithilian, The burnt lands, and Horondor. Western gondor was sparsely populated, and the Dundain had intermingled." I specifically omitted some settlements, and painted a picture of land that was lost. We would not know for certain how large Gondor was in this alternative story, similar to the North. In support of a theoretical battle in the north, "the Gondorians sent 30 Ithilian rengars in full haste." Would such a theoretical envoy seem lack luster or sufficient for the haste and distance across a continent? They're elite and especially able to travel long distances. Away from this hypothetical scenario, and back to LOTR: How many people did Gondor take to the Council of the Ring? 1, Boromir, although Faramir would've been a decent pick. Not even a squire. How many did the north send? 30. The whole notion that we should ONLY go off of what Tolkien talked about Dunedain in the north is lacking, as he didn't attempt to give us a exhaustive picture as far as I've gathered.
DG: I enjoy the bit at the end of the videos, but then again, I don't have to come up with them. If you're starting to feel constrained by it, maybe it's time to start a new bit, or not have a constant one. Aragorn: _"One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters."_ Not exactly fitting, but close enough.
I'm thinking there was a reasonable northern population and rangers were the elite scouts and hunters. The rest of the population would have been mostly in hiding or remote settlements. Even a small force needs somewhere to obtain new equipment, training, coordination and homes to be effective. That all requires a support population, but I doubt they had the power to rebuild their kingdom till Gondor joined them with how cursed some parts seemed to be. Even without population joining them from the south having gondoran supplies would have been an enormous boon.
You don't set up "breeding programs" to humans, that is perverse. When times are prosperous people will naturally have more children and more children live to adulthood, that's how things worked in pre-modern societies. And there are no Numenorians left on Middle Earth, the Dunedain are their descendants but they aren't one and the same. There are literal physical differences between the two people, e.g. Numenorians were extremely tall (Elendil was almost 8 feet tall and ordinary Numenorians were over 7 feet) while Dunedain are taller than other men but still nowhere close to the Numenorians (Aragorn is 6'6, over a foot shorter than Elendil despite being of his lineage). Elendil went toe to toe with Sauron (with his ring), while Aragorn... wouldn't
In my imagination, men from among the northern Dunedain with the specific title of ‘Ranger’ were almost certainly landed nobles, of greater or lesser degree. In a medieval society like Tolkien’s imagined Middle Earth of the 3rd Age, guys like them very likely occupied and managed estates of land, presiding over villages and various farmsteads, which paid them rents and taxes, and equipped them with resources, in exchange for protection. Aragorn would have been the hereditary chieftain, and presumptive king in the event of a restoration of the kingdom status of Arnor. Let’s assume that - based on good management principles in time of desperate war - the Dunedain were willing to send their king no more than half of the noble warriors, leaving the remaining half to guard their lands and protectorates. That means we assume roughly 60 landed members of the noble class in what would have been Arnor. Let us now assume that each of them presides over individual fiefdoms and/or villages, numbering no less than 300, no more than 3,000. That gives us an average of 1,650 free subjects and/or serfs for each of say 55 of those nobles, the remaining 5 of whom probably served Aragorn directly and personally. Will that logic, we have an overall Dunedain population in historic Arnor of roughly 90,000 people. That seems like a lot at first glance, but remember the sheer size of this place, and the fact that - at its peak - it was likely occupied by perhaps ten times that number of citizens, across all age ranges. Yes, the northern dunedain have “dwindled”, but they are not extinct. They main a society, and a rich cultural tradition.
The ranger were most likely the elite fighting force of the dunedain. So they would not represent the standard army fielded by armor, but the equivalent to special forces.
I didn't know that they had permanent settlements. I always assumed that they were nomadic, and relied on places like Bree and Rivendell to supply them with the things they couldn't make themselves. But if they had permanent settlements, it makes sense that there would've been at least a few thousand non-ranger Dunedain to help re-establish the kingdom once Aragorn took the throne.
I think they didn't have large settlements and were semi-nomadic, moving their hamlets from one place to another after several years of hunting, fishing and farming, so that their settlements remained hidden and the area recovered.
Upper limit 10k max total Dunedain population spread across all of Eriador, more than likely about half that. Leaving them with only 300-500 hundred fighters at best, as the rest would be women, children, the elderly, and the workers required to grow food and construct buildings/defenses to keep their settlements going. If I remember correctly from the text, Halbarad says something like "this was all of our people that could be gathered in haste." Which tells me that at least more than 30, and those 30 can't be who was slain at Sarn Ford.
There were probably a few hundred Dunedain rangers, say 300, the rest of the 'Northern Dunedain' wouldn't be fighters, they'd be women, children, farmers and craftsmen, the old and retired wounded, could be a few thousand, maybe several thousand. And as others have said, Rangers could be the elites, and they'd have Levy style defenders as well. 30 out of 300 may not seem a lot at first glance, but it's a 10th of the fighting force, and they'd probably be spread out around Eriador, and plenty would need to protect their own villages too, so the losses taken at sarn ford and the 30 that went south was probably a good chunk of the defenses for that region.
Rebuilding Arnor always seemed like a pipedream to me. Why and for who would anyone do this? We know of not a single northern dunedain village, town, settlement mentioned in the trilogy. Only 30 came to Aragorns aid and none were left to guard the shire. So a few hundred remaining is generous imo. That is barely enough for a village, let alone multiple cities or a kingdom.
no wonder Aragorn easily won Pelennor Fields upon his arrival. a battalion or even a regiment of dunedain rangers firing accurate sniper shots can definitely turn the tide
Warning, this is long! There was the deaths of the Rangers at Sarn Ford, the lack of time for Halbarad to gather numbers and the fact that with war close by the Rangers would need to put the protection of their people first now that the One Ring was far away from Eriador. Also, there weren't many settled places in, or paths into, Eriador. The Shire, Buckland, the Breeland, the Forsaken Inn, maybe some houses near it, Rivendell, protected by Elrond, and formerly Tharbad. That's it. That won't need many Rangers. Tharbad, the High Pass and the Redhorn Pass are the only paths into Eriador, and again, one is protected by Elrond. With the wanderings, there were likely only 700 to 1000 needed most of the time. There were likely 50 to 100 Rangers at Sarn Ford as we know some fled, and likely 80% of them were killed. 50 to 100 seems a fair number as not many would want to take on 100 Rangers as the men of Rohan looked like boys against the Grey Company and were terrified of 30 of them. The Rangers were Eriador's best fighters so when they learnt Sauron's servants had reached Eriador, Saruman was a traitor and the One Ring was far away and orcs were attacking the Eastern side of the Misty Mountains, they needed to be near the greater danger and protect their own. Once the war and Sauron were over, they cleared up and some likely went with Elrond and Arwen to Gondor as the personal guard for their future queen, whilst others searched the boarders before working inwards again. The Rangers likely remained for around another 50 years until Arnor was restored and well populated and patrolled by companies of soldiers, many of whom were likely former Rangers.
One last shining rebound for the men of Numenorian descent, after which (though it sort of "pains me" but having come to the conclusion of), after which that large-scale with kingdoms who build impressive cities of stone and with at least some knowledge of the past and Eru Illuvatar (basically Auinulindale), after which that society would slowly fade and who's cities of stone would slowly become abandoned with time, by the time even the last elf who have not yet faded too much left and sailed to the west, the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor would likely already have been abandoned and replaced with simpler clans or tribes, what I'm getting to is that the reunited kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor seemed kind of to be on their way out by the early 4th era, to be replaced in power by Rohan, who didn't seem very interested in the same sort of warring and "land-grabbing" as Gondor or Arnor, thus afformentioned kingdoms would by time likely be replaced by many smaller Rohans, coupled with the elves having abandoned Middle Earth, and the dwarves having "returned to the mountains"(died out basically), the time for mankind at that early 4th age would have been akin to the first couple centuries A.D. after the last vestiges of the Empire of Rome died out. As for the east? they would likely face societal collapse the first few decades or centuries after Sauron was defeated, probably becoming much more barbaric and desperate and quickly turn on itself like a snake eating it's own tail. (No not Ouroboros just the snake eating itself part for mental imagery)
Depending HOW exactly we define rangers as... if everyone was a fighter 24/7 and all farming/smithing was done by random peasants met here and there (so, extortion), they probably had up to 2000 at best. If we count "third estate" into this class, they might have even 20000.
As long as we’re guessing based on almost no info, I’d say only several dozen Rangers and a few hundred Dunedain men, women and children. If there were thousands in the population they’d have their own cities and villages. And I’m imagining most young men among the Dunedain were Rangers, if only for several years a lot of them.
I don't think the Orks raided west of the Misty Mountains, because there just is nothing close to the Mountains there. Maybe the Dunlendings, but if Saruman told Sauron that they were on their side, that would be a waste. Raiding deep into Eriador would take a long time, the Orks would be gone for months and would achieve nothing. Eastwards there are much more lucrative goals that actually have some strategic value.
There probably were small villages there and small raids on those villages to capture slaves, livestock and food were quite possible. If there were no Orc raids, then against whom did the Rangers fought?
Most historical medieval states or societies were settled agrarians and unless they were decidedly itinerant or nomadic, could only put forth at most 1% of population towards their standing military, most likely 0.5%. At times of war or for seasonal raids - like vikings - agrarian societies could muster up to 2% under spear. Semi-nomadic people could probably put 7% of their population towards their military, full nomads could make it 16%. I'm guessing Rangers were elite warriors of a confederation of a few small villages and towns, all total their population probably numbered in several thousand, perhaps 10000 at most. If being a ranger was being akin to a mounter knight, with each ranger having around 9 other men-at-arms to support him, then Dunedain probably numbered in 40-50k.
I always took that number of thirty to be the thirty survivors of the company that the nars go chewed through when they got to the shire. That suggests that there were like, a hundred in the shire, and you gave about five other places that they operated out of so I always it took the number of rangers two b on the order of five hundred. From that I extrapolated that there could be and as many as twenty five thousand in the whole people
Tolkien surely meant for Aragorn to be one of the last of the true dundain, and his kin were few in number. The racist superiority of Aragorn is one of the most attractive qualities because he is racial superior to other white groups and therefore the role-player gets to enjoy the racist fantasy of being dunedain without being actually real world racist. Tolkien tries to dispell this over and over by pointing out the gift was waning, was lost, that pride has destroyed it, and now the natural weakening of the blood and low population would lead to its extermination from world, which is consistent with the idea that dwarves, elves, hobbits would eventually be hunted by increasingly powerful, populace, and ignorant men. He even has a civil war in Gondor between the "good" mixed blood, and "evil" pure blood. But in LOTR he focuses very heavily on Aragorn's pure blood. Kind of weird but cool. Not sure if it was some royal larping for the brit.
Middle Earth is meant to be our world. The Lord of the Rings is supposedly meant to be part of a found manuscript called the Red Book of Westmarch written by the Hobbits which Tolkien translated into English. As such it's meant to be ambiguous and unreliable and also on some level mythical. But let's have fun with your premise. Let's assume the Dunedain are long lived. So long lived people don't tend to procreate early and don't have the same biological imperative to procreate. So there can't have been that many to begin with. However, unless they weren’t sapiens and were Neanderthals, Denisovans or even Homo erectus then let's assume they were they lived in communities of 100 to 150. There must have been several communities or else intermingled with non Dunedain people with the long-lived genes being dominant amongst mixed offspring. Otherwise, genetic illness would have killed them off not long after the Northern Kingdom fell. With so few people it might have been a big risk to allow the best of the Dunedain to become Rangers so maybe we have a Night's Watch situation where it was second sons, volunteers or criminals filled their ranks. Eriador and surrounding areas would also have needed sufficient farmland or big game to sustain sizeable numbers of Dunedain. In order for there to be downs there would need to large grazers otherwise after a population collapse they would have reverted to woodland in the timescales Tolkien suggests. It might simply be because hobbits and Big folk generally kept away from each other the maps or human history is unreliable. Maybe non Dunedain humans weren’t important enough for their histories to be recorded. Perhaps the Rangers living a nomadic lifestyle held with oral traditions rather than written language and may not have accurately recorded history or geography. Or perhaps a dark age meant those records were lost prior to the events of the Lord of the Rings. Personally, I think there must have been a fair few Rangers for Gondor to accept Aragorn as King or he was installed there by Rohan or the Elves. Great video, did make me think. ❤
Population growth in Eriador makes no sense whatsoever. Even for the slowly reproducing Dunedain. Arthedain fell around 1975 Third Age.War of the Ring was in 3318/3319 Third Age. Over a thousand years and Dunedain or other middle men weren't able to repopulate and rebuilt is preposterous. With one very harsh winter in all that time. The Dunedain and Middle Men would have to be incredible lazy, incompetent, depressed and/or stupid to Not recover with so much peace time at hand. Just imagine what happens in our History in 1200 years. There should at the very least plenty of Middle Men.
There aren't that many regular men in Eriador either. The people from Bree, the Hobbits and the Dunlendings (but they would pose a loyalty problem). Arnor would certainly need settlers from Gondor, which imo doesn't make much sense, since Gondor has a lot of depopulated land that would be more important to resettle first.
@@timmerk7363 There definitely were other Men in Eriador as well - around Tharbad, on the sea-coasts, in the woods of Minhiriat and so on. They just mostly lived in small villages and were pretty secretive, so we do not know alot about them.
@@АнтонОрлов-я1ъ Sure, but secretive people are pretty useless when you want to resettle a Kingdom, unless you can convince them to join you and leave their homes. To even get a very modest capital you need a few thousand people for the city itself and several times that in terms of farmers in the vicinity. Maybe some of the periphery could supply a capital via river, then the distance might be okay. But at some point you need people to actually settle the center of the Kingdom. The issue is, that Middle Earth just has an abundance of land, so there is not that much incentive for most people to go far away to settle.
@@timmerk7363 I think that after Aragorn became the king of the Reunited Kingdom and returned from Gondor to Eriador with a retinue of knights, courtiers, healers, merchants and craftsmen, it was quite easy to convince (some) of the local secretive population to join. The Rangers were just another secretive people who couldn't offer much to the other Men of Eriador (at best times they could offer some help and protection), while as the King Aragorn could offer almost complete safety, positions in the King's Council, better equipment, good medicine, new trade goods and so on. Also, there were a lot of Hobbits in Shire as well as in Breeland and in other smaller communities scattered around Eriador. I am not sure that many Hobbits would decide to live in the capital itself but they could easily provide tons of food to the capital.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I think the idea that the Rangers were the elite warriors of the northern Dúnedain makes the most sense. My guess is that the Rangers numbered 100-200. The overall population likely numbered in the low thousands, mostly living in small, carefully hidden villages.
Weapons and armour tend to be expensive in terms of resources available. In many ancient and medieval societies, the soldiers/warriors were from the middle and upper classes. For instance, infantry with more than skirmish weapons would usually be farmers (or their sons) with a large enough holding to employ workers from outside their family. The word "yeoman" springs to mind. A heavy cavalryman would likely be the largest landowner in at least one village (think about the words "knight" and "squire").
I think around 10.000 makes the most sense. Being a Ranger was probably an elite position and quite a few of them would be used to defend their home region all the time.
10,000 Northern Dunedain Rangers? I was thinking 500 max…
@@JoeDirte157i believe he means 10,000 northern dunedein (ik i spelt that wrong) and then yeah likely 500 rangers max
@@JoeDirte157 10000 Dunedain over all. 500 rangers would make sense.
@@JoeDirte157yeah this. Maybe a population of 10,000 Dunedain but only a few hundred of these would be Rangers.
err ... the Rangers ARE the Northern Dúnedain. Ranger in Tolkien's world are not like a class in D&D you can choose.
I feel like quite a few rangers who remained behind would have been protecting their homes and families. Surely sone of the Gray Company had wives and children at home.
Yeah, also add in that since they were likely spread out across a wide area and it's entirely plausible there could be thousands of them but that those in the grey company were all who could be gathered in time.
@Stlaind Argorn was the chieftain of the Dunedain and therefore the highest ranking "officer" of the Rangers. If he needed a force of his Rangers and only 30 showed up, I don't think there could be thousands of them.
When Theoden goes to war he musters around a third of the entire army of Rohan in a matter of days. If we were to say the Rangers numbered e.g. 10 thousand, that would mean only 0.3% of Aragorn's men answered his call. Even if we account for the lower level of organization, distances and stuff 0.3% is way way too low. And if there is a literal army of Rangers running around that sort of diminishes their accomplishments. I prefer the idea that there were only a few hundred Rangers but they were skilled enough that they could keep the land safe despite their small numbers
@@exantiuse497 I think it is important to notice that the Grey Company travelled on horseback. I think that Northern Dunedain didn't have enough good riding horses and good riders to send more (especially considering that some horsemen might be needed as scouts, messengers and so on).
Although I agree that there were only several hundred of Rangers (professional warriors), but there easily could be several thousand Northern Dunedain (including farmers, craftsmen, women, children and elderly).
There could have been around 5,000 to 10,000 northern dunedain, and the rangers could have been the elite of their soldiers, just like the sas or delta force
Honestly, I think the Rangers of the North A.K.A Northern Dunedain are pretty underrated (besides the exception that is Aragorn II, A.K.A King Elessar). They helped to defend and protect the realms that were vulnerable to Orcish and Trollic incursions like that of the Hobbit town Pre-Scouring of the Shire and were able to do so withOUT a seemingly necessary standing army that would be required to destroy large hordes of Orcs as well, for an entire millenium no less! Let's not also forget the fact they helped preserve the dignity and blood of Arnor and Númenor up until the Arnor-Gondor restoration under Aragorn/Elessar.
Yeah I was very pleased when I finally read the books and they played a bigger role and got more mentions than in the movies
Think about border patrol near the troll fells. Ain't that where arathorn died? (Lotr trolls not hobbit ones)
@@lukesayers5850 Yea, pretty tough enemies and respect to the Rangers for being able to smoke so many during their occupation for 1000 years.
I love the name Darth Gandalf, and the more self-aware and stupid the end bit, the better
@@chables74 agreed. The question isn't WHY Darth Gandalf, it's WHY NOT Darth Gandalf?
Commenting to satisfy the algorithm gos because I love this channel
I think there had to be some fair amount. When Saruman asks Grima who the man was that accompanied Gandalf at Edoras, referring to Aragorn, Grima correctly deduced, "One of the Dunedain Rangers I thought him; his cloth was poor". For Grima to recognize Aragorn's dress suggests he has seem a fair number of Northern Rangers over time.
Your quoting the movie. Peter Jackson's team gave more dialogue and scenes to Grima & Saruman than what is in LOTR. Grima would not have known anything about the Northern Dunedain.
@@romandacil3984 And I doubt Saruman would have sent Grima to the Shire since his work in Edoras was too important.
We tend to picture all of Eriador being uninhabited wilderness outside of the Shire and nearby settlements like Bree, but I imagine there are plenty of towns like Bree throughout what used to be Arnor, and the Dunedain probably lived among them. By tradition the men of that lineage took upon them the duty to protect their lands, but many probably just settled down and mixed with the rest of the population, which now lived in fairly isolated communities. The destruction of the great nation left their economy and infrastructure in ruins, but while it was heavily depopulated, it's not like there were only a few thousand people left foraging to survive in the woods.
Great timing, Darth Gandalf. I was looking for something of yours that I hadn't watched. 😊❤❤❤😊
I've always taken it that the Rangers were extremely spread out across Eriador, they were essentially the military of the dunedain. Their numbers were probably still in the hundreds out of a population of a couple thousand. Halbarad had a couple days to round up men scattered all over Eriador, it would have taken weeks to gather them all, so he only took who was near by. There was also probably no real communication system between Ranger groups when they were in the field so he would have to physically find every Ranger for his expedition. I'd say 100 is too low but a 500 scattered across a landmass the size of Northern Europe would still be extremely spread out and hard to find in a short period of time.
I love the bit at the end of every video!
The Dunedain Rangers are like the Jedi of Middle Earth skilled fighters few in numbers living secretly in exile
I love the stupid bits at the end of each video. Some of them have been pure gold. I've had to clean my monitor once or twice, unwisely sipping a beverage as your video concludes.
I think that the question of how many Rangers exist is directly tied into the question of how the realm of Arnor could be re-founded and what that new kingdom would look like. A speculative video on the new re-established kingdom of Arnor might a fun topic to so.
What did the kingdom look like? Did it have full control over the realm or was its control limited to the immediate area around Annuminas and Fornost? Did Aragorn incentivize Gondorians to settle in the new realm similar to the colonization of North America? What were relations with Bree-land like and did they come under the control of the new kingdom?
I think all of these questions would make for a great video.
Thank you! This is a topic I've been wondering about a lot lately, especially when re-reading the books this year.
Great video (even if I disagree with its conclusions)! I love having debates like this and would enjoy seeing more of them!
I'd love to see your take on how large Smaug was. It's something that's only vaguely hinted at in the books. We know his head is larger than 5x3 foot, but that's it.
The ranger logistics and supply chain would be an interesting exploration concept
Also it makes sense we don't come across any major Ranger settlements in the LotR books as Aragorn would not want to bring the Ring there and we're avoiding human settlements.
I wonder if we will find the earlier drafts and reasoning behind Darth Gandalf's comments at the ends of the videos in his hand written notes posthumously
Lol
I've rewatched some of his older videos. In the first few, he didn't do them
He must've thought of that idea after that.
Nevertheless, I gotta say they are a very good way of capturing your attention until the very end
Another one right here that loves your video endings.
The "stupid bit at the end" is why I watch the video from start to finish.
As always. Very nice Theories!
300-1000 Rangers makes sense given the longevity and reproduction of the Dunedain. In times of relative peace there would have been more and at times of crisis like the Goblin Invasion of Golfimbul or when Trolls were numerous the numbers of Rangers would decline due to attrition. There was probably more than one village or area where they operated. The Angle is one, while Numeriador, near Sarn Ford and hills North of Fornost would have been likely spots for other Dunedain villages. Each village would have had a watch border (responsibility to a specific area). Halbarad himself states that the Grey Company "was all that could be gathered in Haste". The population in total would have been somewhere between 3,000-10,000 Pure Blooded Dunedain.
The matter of the size is also a complex area, when you look at Middle Earth, the former Kingdom of Arnor was huge so that is a lot of territory for the Dunedain of the North to protect. So that means that the Rangers likely are stretched out defending the different regions. 30 for Halbarad might just have been those within close proximity to Rivendell when he got the word as well as those he found when they went south. I would put their numbers 2,000 at most but those are likely Rangers! never mind the people that supported them, those in the camps, villages etc.
There were probably enough rangers to keep most of Eriador safe from threats on the borders of the region from places like the Misty Mountains or Angmar but not enough to keep Saruman from taking over the Shire. The Grey Company probably only had 30 rangers by the time they got to Rohan due to a number of factors. It would have been gathered in haste as you said, Eriador would still need some of its guardians and there is a good chance that some members of the company perished on route to Rohan as they had to pass through Dunland.
I particularly like the way the Lord of the Rings Online handles the Rangers of the North and the Grey Company. There are only a handful of rangers outside the settlements of Esteldin and Tinnudir. When you're helping to gather the Grey company, there is one ranger in the shire that you can help decide if he should go with the company or stay to protect the Shire. After the Grey Company sets out, the company loses a number of their men, incluing the player character, to the Dunlendings and Isengard until only 30 remain.
Thanks for the video watching at work. I love how lord of rings online made ranger villages in the angle
The Grey Company's departure to help out Aragorn in the south left the door open for Saruman and his ruffians to take over the Shire. Losing 30 men was a major strain on their manpower.
Unless others went south as well.
Good guessing. Also, beautiful art.
I've thought a lot about this question over the years.
100 to 300 rangers at the end of the 3rd age. Maybe 1000 to 3000 Dunedain. 10 percent military is a lot for our communities, but i think it works for them.
And regrading restabilishing Arnor, I think when Sauron defeated and prosperity came, their population could rebound quickly.
Arnorians be bangin' though. In good times. 😂
There were no Rangers at the end of the 1st age...
@maximus3160 lol yeah changed it
Thanks
If you have ever played LOTRO you get a decent glimpse of what the society of the northern Dunedain could have been like, with a few hidden settlements near or in old ruins of the North. That always felt very plausible, with a diminished yet still proud folk retaining their history. My guess was similar to what others have written: 5-10k Dunedain total, with the Rangers numbering in the hundreds.
8:40 Poor Darth. Really starting to crack here 😄
The Grey Company consisted of 30 Rangers! If they represented 1% of the Rangers, there can be 3000 Rangers in the North! But if they represented 10% of the Rangers, then there can be 300 Rangers in the North! So, we've a range of 300-3000 Rangers! So, average would be 1650 Rangers!
Don't query one of the finest endings ever. Extremely good!! Your next challenge is to outdo your potential undone?
Ah, the existential questions at the end
When looking at the rebuilding of Arnor one also has to take into account population growth in order to avoid territorial conflict. Sure, it might have been a lot of area in the 4th age, but by the 5th age?
I had always figured the total population was maybe around 10,000. But rangers, I always figured a couple hundred at most.
This is a cool video. Thanks
Top video again.🎉🎉🎉🎉
A nice distinction between Dunedain and Rangers
Because we love it, man! That's why!
Great video and while I largely agree with your argument as they have been discussed myself in Tolkien fan groups but I have found that the most reasonable number to be between 80-100K Dunedain with 1000 being rangers.
For a few reasons I believe the rangers are so few because they represent the Elders of the Dunedain communities as unlike normal humans who age and become decrepit with in a few decades the Dunedain do not age like normal men and in fact maintain their physical prime until their death a fact we can see when we compare Theoden who makes refrence to his loss of strength due to age even after recovering from Sauramon's influence. Which is not something that Aragorn, Denethor, Imrahil or Halbarad ever indicate despite being even older than Theoden. Denethor even after having battled with the will of Sauron for years is still in good health. So likely the rangers are the Dunedain men who have acquired enough skills and knowledge to be capable of patrolling for extended periods of time over vast swathes of land with minimal support of their communities. As elder they would also have already had and raised their children to adulthood who would then replace them in their obligations to their society. So that now this Ranger could return to his village periodically where his sons and daughters would provide him with provisions, clothing, smithing and shelter while he being in good health and wise from age and experience would watch over and act as both the first line of defence and the communities early warning system to respond to larger threats. Which would mean each ranger represents a clan and make up a fractions of the overall Dunedain population while also explaining why its so hard to replace their numbers when lost.
This would explain why both the Grey company was so small and why it seems only Halbarad brought his sons. Likely as close kin to Aragorn he was a leader of one of the Dunedain tribes and so he and his sons could risk leaving their families since others in their community would be obligated to care/defend their women and children. The other rangers would not have risked endangering their families by leaving them defencless and left behind their sons to defend their communities while they left to answer the call to arms. This would also explain that even if out of the 1000 rangers scattered through Angmar, Cardolan Arthedain, Rhudar, Enedwaith and Northen Dunlend why so few could be mustered in haste as likely these messages only made it to Ranger who just so happened to have returned recently to their community for resupply from patrolling. Not to mention the Rangers already lost from fighting the Nazgul who I assume probably numbered between 50-100 Rangers as if only a few dozen had been there I doubt they could have delayed them for long as they fought them back in the day likely losing a few rangers as even a minor wound would have left them crippled from their blades so to have fought them again at night and still have enough men that the Nazgul would even have even needed to spend anytime chasing them means even after both battles their had to have been a fair few of them. This would explain why even with only losing 30 or so rangers why so much of Eriador became dangerous as now the 1000 Rangers would have found their vast area of responsibility which already spread them thin would at this point become impossible to secure forcing them to condense their area of operation to better protect their own settlments. Which would open up Bree and the Shire to attacks and exploitation.
I can't see the Dunedain numbering anywhere as low as 10'000 since then how do they have the capabilities to mine, smith, farm, clothe and patrol such a large area 10'000 Dunedain could not sustain 1000 Rangers and even if the Rangers were only 100 men thats would mean that by the time the grey company departed then less then 50 Rangers would have been left to protect thousands of women and children. Thats not even taking into account the horses they ride a Dunedain is over 7 feet tall those horses would have been massive warhorses how could such a small number of people be breeding and feeding these beasts. Lastly a population of less than 50'000 would be facing serious issues with inbreeding as we know from references to Halbarad, Isildur etc that the Dunedain like many medieval peoples did have a much higher fertility rate Isildur even having over a century age gap between his eldest and youngest son so clearly these people can still create children throughout their lifespan.
They may have been fighting the hill-men of Rhudaur too. Or the remnants of Angmar. Looking at the bigger picture.
My take: Take the proportion you'd allocate to be the numbers of Ithilian Rengars and compare that to Gondor's population. All other factors being equal, this ratio is a format to start off from. This is a jumping off point, because to be a ranger was an occupation. Not everyone would be suited for such roles, just like it was in Gondor.
The key point here is that we don't have the same knowledge for all areas. We know more about Gondor, we know nothing about east of Mordor. It would be hubris to presume that whatever is east of Mordor is barren and desolate, and the same logic applies to some degree in Northern Dunedain.
Imagine an alternative Tolkien story that was only situated in northern Eriador. Tolkien told us that "Gondor had lost Osgiliath, and everything east including Minas Ithil, the forest of Ithilian, The burnt lands, and Horondor. Western gondor was sparsely populated, and the Dundain had intermingled." I specifically omitted some settlements, and painted a picture of land that was lost. We would not know for certain how large Gondor was in this alternative story, similar to the North. In support of a theoretical battle in the north, "the Gondorians sent 30 Ithilian rengars in full haste." Would such a theoretical envoy seem lack luster or sufficient for the haste and distance across a continent? They're elite and especially able to travel long distances.
Away from this hypothetical scenario, and back to LOTR: How many people did Gondor take to the Council of the Ring? 1, Boromir, although Faramir would've been a decent pick. Not even a squire. How many did the north send? 30.
The whole notion that we should ONLY go off of what Tolkien talked about Dunedain in the north is lacking, as he didn't attempt to give us a exhaustive picture as far as I've gathered.
Numenoreans had the gift of foresight.
If there were many more than the thirty in the 'grey company', then they must have been busy elsewhere.
I think 400-600 is a reasonable number, what we really need to know are the size of the groups that they operated in
DG: I enjoy the bit at the end of the videos, but then again, I don't have to come up with them. If you're starting to feel constrained by it, maybe it's time to start a new bit, or not have a constant one. Aragorn: _"One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters."_ Not exactly fitting, but close enough.
I would say 2 - 5 thousand total, including women and children, with actual warriors not being more than few hundred..
Please talk about the forgotten valar.
I'm thinking there was a reasonable northern population and rangers were the elite scouts and hunters. The rest of the population would have been mostly in hiding or remote settlements. Even a small force needs somewhere to obtain new equipment, training, coordination and homes to be effective. That all requires a support population, but I doubt they had the power to rebuild their kingdom till Gondor joined them with how cursed some parts seemed to be. Even without population joining them from the south having gondoran supplies would have been an enormous boon.
Aragorn needed to setup an incentivized breeding program to revitalize the numenorians
You don't set up "breeding programs" to humans, that is perverse. When times are prosperous people will naturally have more children and more children live to adulthood, that's how things worked in pre-modern societies.
And there are no Numenorians left on Middle Earth, the Dunedain are their descendants but they aren't one and the same. There are literal physical differences between the two people, e.g. Numenorians were extremely tall (Elendil was almost 8 feet tall and ordinary Numenorians were over 7 feet) while Dunedain are taller than other men but still nowhere close to the Numenorians (Aragorn is 6'6, over a foot shorter than Elendil despite being of his lineage). Elendil went toe to toe with Sauron (with his ring), while Aragorn... wouldn't
@@exantiuse497 The man was obviously making a joke.
Darth Gandalf The White has come, a the turn of the tide.
Around a thousand, whereas the total number of the surviving Dunedain in the North would be around 6000-8000.
In my imagination, men from among the northern Dunedain with the specific title of ‘Ranger’ were almost certainly landed nobles, of greater or lesser degree. In a medieval society like Tolkien’s imagined Middle Earth of the 3rd Age, guys like them very likely occupied and managed estates of land, presiding over villages and various farmsteads, which paid them rents and taxes, and equipped them with resources, in exchange for protection. Aragorn would have been the hereditary chieftain, and presumptive king in the event of a restoration of the kingdom status of Arnor. Let’s assume that - based on good management principles in time of desperate war - the Dunedain were willing to send their king no more than half of the noble warriors, leaving the remaining half to guard their lands and protectorates. That means we assume roughly 60 landed members of the noble class in what would have been Arnor. Let us now assume that each of them presides over individual fiefdoms and/or villages, numbering no less than 300, no more than 3,000. That gives us an average of 1,650 free subjects and/or serfs for each of say 55 of those nobles, the remaining 5 of whom probably served Aragorn directly and personally. Will that logic, we have an overall Dunedain population in historic Arnor of roughly 90,000 people. That seems like a lot at first glance, but remember the sheer size of this place, and the fact that - at its peak - it was likely occupied by perhaps ten times that number of citizens, across all age ranges. Yes, the northern dunedain have “dwindled”, but they are not extinct. They main a society, and a rich cultural tradition.
In Tolkien's writings, I think no more than 50 Rangers of the North. Though, that number went down when the Wraiths came to Eriador.
Also, few thousands, I always though. Women and children included.
The ranger were most likely the elite fighting force of the dunedain. So they would not represent the standard army fielded by armor, but the equivalent to special forces.
I didn't know that they had permanent settlements. I always assumed that they were nomadic, and relied on places like Bree and Rivendell to supply them with the things they couldn't make themselves. But if they had permanent settlements, it makes sense that there would've been at least a few thousand non-ranger Dunedain to help re-establish the kingdom once Aragorn took the throne.
I think they didn't have large settlements and were semi-nomadic, moving their hamlets from one place to another after several years of hunting, fishing and farming, so that their settlements remained hidden and the area recovered.
Upper limit 10k max total Dunedain population spread across all of Eriador, more than likely about half that. Leaving them with only 300-500 hundred fighters at best, as the rest would be women, children, the elderly, and the workers required to grow food and construct buildings/defenses to keep their settlements going. If I remember correctly from the text, Halbarad says something like "this was all of our people that could be gathered in haste." Which tells me that at least more than 30, and those 30 can't be who was slain at Sarn Ford.
There were probably a few hundred Dunedain rangers, say 300, the rest of the 'Northern Dunedain' wouldn't be fighters, they'd be women, children, farmers and craftsmen, the old and retired wounded, could be a few thousand, maybe several thousand. And as others have said, Rangers could be the elites, and they'd have Levy style defenders as well.
30 out of 300 may not seem a lot at first glance, but it's a 10th of the fighting force, and they'd probably be spread out around Eriador, and plenty would need to protect their own villages too, so the losses taken at sarn ford and the 30 that went south was probably a good chunk of the defenses for that region.
Ereeah-dor xD Dumbledore is proud
Rebuilding Arnor always seemed like a pipedream to me. Why and for who would anyone do this? We know of not a single northern dunedain village, town, settlement mentioned in the trilogy. Only 30 came to Aragorns aid and none were left to guard the shire. So a few hundred remaining is generous imo. That is barely enough for a village, let alone multiple cities or a kingdom.
no wonder Aragorn easily won Pelennor Fields upon his arrival. a battalion or even a regiment of dunedain rangers firing accurate sniper shots can definitely turn the tide
Warning, this is long!
There was the deaths of the Rangers at Sarn Ford, the lack of time for Halbarad to gather numbers and the fact that with war close by the Rangers would need to put the protection of their people first now that the One Ring was far away from Eriador.
Also, there weren't many settled places in, or paths into, Eriador.
The Shire, Buckland, the Breeland, the Forsaken Inn, maybe some houses near it, Rivendell, protected by Elrond, and formerly Tharbad.
That's it. That won't need many Rangers.
Tharbad, the High Pass and the Redhorn Pass are the only paths into Eriador, and again, one is protected by Elrond.
With the wanderings, there were likely only 700 to 1000 needed most of the time.
There were likely 50 to 100 Rangers at Sarn Ford as we know some fled, and likely 80% of them were killed.
50 to 100 seems a fair number as not many would want to take on 100 Rangers as the men of Rohan looked like boys against the Grey Company and were terrified of 30 of them.
The Rangers were Eriador's best fighters so when they learnt Sauron's servants had reached Eriador, Saruman was a traitor and the One Ring was far away and orcs were attacking the Eastern side of the Misty Mountains, they needed to be near the greater danger and protect their own.
Once the war and Sauron were over, they cleared up and some likely went with Elrond and Arwen to Gondor as the personal guard for their future queen, whilst others searched the boarders before working inwards again.
The Rangers likely remained for around another 50 years until Arnor was restored and well populated and patrolled by companies of soldiers, many of whom were likely former Rangers.
Hi Darth!
I stay for the ending of every video. Just saying
One last shining rebound for the men of Numenorian descent, after which (though it sort of "pains me" but having come to the conclusion of), after which that large-scale with kingdoms who build impressive cities of stone and with at least some knowledge of the past and Eru Illuvatar (basically Auinulindale), after which that society would slowly fade and who's cities of stone would slowly become abandoned with time, by the time even the last elf who have not yet faded too much left and sailed to the west, the kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor would likely already have been abandoned and replaced with simpler clans or tribes, what I'm getting to is that the reunited kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor seemed kind of to be on their way out by the early 4th era, to be replaced in power by Rohan, who didn't seem very interested in the same sort of warring and "land-grabbing" as Gondor or Arnor, thus afformentioned kingdoms would by time likely be replaced by many smaller Rohans, coupled with the elves having abandoned Middle Earth, and the dwarves having "returned to the mountains"(died out basically), the time for mankind at that early 4th age would have been akin to the first couple centuries A.D. after the last vestiges of the Empire of Rome died out. As for the east? they would likely face societal collapse the first few decades or centuries after Sauron was defeated, probably becoming much more barbaric and desperate and quickly turn on itself like a snake eating it's own tail. (No not Ouroboros just the snake eating itself part for mental imagery)
How many Dwarves do you think there were in the realms of Durin's Folk by the end of the Third Age/War of the Ring?
Depending HOW exactly we define rangers as... if everyone was a fighter 24/7 and all farming/smithing was done by random peasants met here and there (so, extortion), they probably had up to 2000 at best. If we count "third estate" into this class, they might have even 20000.
As long as we’re guessing based on almost no info, I’d say only several dozen Rangers and a few hundred Dunedain men, women and children. If there were thousands in the population they’d have their own cities and villages. And I’m imagining most young men among the Dunedain were Rangers, if only for several years a lot of them.
I don't think the Orks raided west of the Misty Mountains, because there just is nothing close to the Mountains there. Maybe the Dunlendings, but if Saruman told Sauron that they were on their side, that would be a waste.
Raiding deep into Eriador would take a long time, the Orks would be gone for months and would achieve nothing. Eastwards there are much more lucrative goals that actually have some strategic value.
There probably were small villages there and small raids on those villages to capture slaves, livestock and food were quite possible. If there were no Orc raids, then against whom did the Rangers fought?
Wolvs
@@hermanmelville3368 “But where the warg howls, there also the orc prowls.”
Most historical medieval states or societies were settled agrarians and unless they were decidedly itinerant or nomadic, could only put forth at most 1% of population towards their standing military, most likely 0.5%. At times of war or for seasonal raids - like vikings - agrarian societies could muster up to 2% under spear. Semi-nomadic people could probably put 7% of their population towards their military, full nomads could make it 16%. I'm guessing Rangers were elite warriors of a confederation of a few small villages and towns, all total their population probably numbered in several thousand, perhaps 10000 at most. If being a ranger was being akin to a mounter knight, with each ranger having around 9 other men-at-arms to support him, then Dunedain probably numbered in 40-50k.
There MUST have been a lot of southern dunedain immigrants to Arnor, from Gondor and Dol Amroth, to effect the re-foundation of the northern kingdom.
I always took that number of thirty to be the thirty survivors of the company that the nars go chewed through when they got to the shire. That suggests that there were like, a hundred in the shire, and you gave about five other places that they operated out of so I always it took the number of rangers two b on the order of five hundred. From that I extrapolated that there could be and as many as twenty five thousand in the whole people
why dont you remake your vid. with toaster quality?
But everyone from Texas is a ranger, right?
7, there were 7
Why did you call yourself Darth Gandalf? Idk.
Why these extra bits in each video end? Because you do it your way. (Gives them even more personality)
There was, an amount of rangers in the North, why do you keep asking and how did you get in here??
Maximum 100
Middle Earth has weirdly low populations.
Anyway I would say a few hundred combatants and thousands of other society members and their families.😊
Tolkien surely meant for Aragorn to be one of the last of the true dundain, and his kin were few in number. The racist superiority of Aragorn is one of the most attractive qualities because he is racial superior to other white groups and therefore the role-player gets to enjoy the racist fantasy of being dunedain without being actually real world racist. Tolkien tries to dispell this over and over by pointing out the gift was waning, was lost, that pride has destroyed it, and now the natural weakening of the blood and low population would lead to its extermination from world, which is consistent with the idea that dwarves, elves, hobbits would eventually be hunted by increasingly powerful, populace, and ignorant men. He even has a civil war in Gondor between the "good" mixed blood, and "evil" pure blood. But in LOTR he focuses very heavily on Aragorn's pure blood. Kind of weird but cool. Not sure if it was some royal larping for the brit.
Middle Earth is meant to be our world. The Lord of the Rings is supposedly meant to be part of a found manuscript called the Red Book of Westmarch written by the Hobbits which Tolkien translated into English. As such it's meant to be ambiguous and unreliable and also on some level mythical. But let's have fun with your premise. Let's assume the Dunedain are long lived. So long lived people don't tend to procreate early and don't have the same biological imperative to procreate. So there can't have been that many to begin with. However, unless they weren’t sapiens and were Neanderthals, Denisovans or even Homo erectus then let's assume they were they lived in communities of 100 to 150. There must have been several communities or else intermingled with non Dunedain people with the long-lived genes being dominant amongst mixed offspring. Otherwise, genetic illness would have killed them off not long after the Northern Kingdom fell. With so few people it might have been a big risk to allow the best of the Dunedain to become Rangers so maybe we have a Night's Watch situation where it was second sons, volunteers or criminals filled their ranks. Eriador and surrounding areas would also have needed sufficient farmland or big game to sustain sizeable numbers of Dunedain. In order for there to be downs there would need to large grazers otherwise after a population collapse they would have reverted to woodland in the timescales Tolkien suggests. It might simply be because hobbits and Big folk generally kept away from each other the maps or human history is unreliable. Maybe non Dunedain humans weren’t important enough for their histories to be recorded. Perhaps the Rangers living a nomadic lifestyle held with oral traditions rather than written language and may not have accurately recorded history or geography. Or perhaps a dark age meant those records were lost prior to the events of the Lord of the Rings. Personally, I think there must have been a fair few Rangers for Gondor to accept Aragorn as King or he was installed there by Rohan or the Elves.
Great video, did make me think. ❤
Population growth in Eriador makes no sense whatsoever. Even for the slowly reproducing Dunedain. Arthedain fell around 1975 Third Age.War of the Ring was in 3318/3319 Third Age. Over a thousand years and Dunedain or other middle men weren't able to repopulate and rebuilt is preposterous. With one very harsh winter in all that time.
The Dunedain and Middle Men would have to be incredible lazy, incompetent, depressed and/or stupid to Not recover with so much peace time at hand. Just imagine what happens in our History in 1200 years. There should at the very least plenty of Middle Men.
First
You don't have to refound Arnor on Dunedain! Regular men are good enough if you honor the Valar. Racist Numenoreans as usual.
There aren't that many regular men in Eriador either. The people from Bree, the Hobbits and the Dunlendings (but they would pose a loyalty problem). Arnor would certainly need settlers from Gondor, which imo doesn't make much sense, since Gondor has a lot of depopulated land that would be more important to resettle first.
@@timmerk7363 There definitely were other Men in Eriador as well - around Tharbad, on the sea-coasts, in the woods of Minhiriat and so on. They just mostly lived in small villages and were pretty secretive, so we do not know alot about them.
@@АнтонОрлов-я1ъ Sure, but secretive people are pretty useless when you want to resettle a Kingdom, unless you can convince them to join you and leave their homes.
To even get a very modest capital you need a few thousand people for the city itself and several times that in terms of farmers in the vicinity. Maybe some of the periphery could supply a capital via river, then the distance might be okay.
But at some point you need people to actually settle the center of the Kingdom. The issue is, that Middle Earth just has an abundance of land, so there is not that much incentive for most people to go far away to settle.
@@timmerk7363 I think that after Aragorn became the king of the Reunited Kingdom and returned from Gondor to Eriador with a retinue of knights, courtiers, healers, merchants and craftsmen, it was quite easy to convince (some) of the local secretive population to join. The Rangers were just another secretive people who couldn't offer much to the other Men of Eriador (at best times they could offer some help and protection), while as the King Aragorn could offer almost complete safety, positions in the King's Council, better equipment, good medicine, new trade goods and so on.
Also, there were a lot of Hobbits in Shire as well as in Breeland and in other smaller communities scattered around Eriador. I am not sure that many Hobbits would decide to live in the capital itself but they could easily provide tons of food to the capital.
When populations become too small, doesn't inbreeding become a problem?
"There were a rational number of rangers". So could've been 95.674432? Because that's a rational number.