It is highly unlikely that the people will ever fail to appreciate what the Rangers do for them in the future, now that they've seen what life would be like without them. So by Butterbur's own account, the people who had always been protected by the Rangers, but had never appreciated the Rangers, quickly came to realize how vital the Rangers had been to their well being, almost as soon as the Rangers left for a few months. When Sam finally tells Butterbur that the new king is none other than Strider himself, the innkeeper is more shocked than happy, as you might expect. Significantly, Butterbur is indeed happy to hear this. Gandalf comforts Butterbur by telling him that the Rangers have now returned, and a king has taken the throne, and will soon restore the rule of law. The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book VI, Chapter 7: 'Homeward Bound' It's been very disturbing, if you understand me. And there's dark shapes in the woods, dreadful things that it makes the blood run cold to think of. Wolves were howling round the fences last winter. For there's been worse than robbers about. I don't think we've rightly understood till now what they did for us. You see, we're not used to such troubles and the Rangers have all gone away, folk tell me. But now, after all the Rangers of the North left their homeland to fight in the Battles of the Pelennor Fields and the Morannon, where at least a few of them died, Butterbur sings a different tune. He clearly didn't like the Rangers at all. Recall that Butterbur had warned the hobbits, when they first came to Bree, to be wary of Strider the Ranger. Law and order have broken down completely. It isn't safe to travel the roads, or to be out after dark. A recent battle in Bree left 5 people dead. The inn is empty, supplies of pipe-weed have been cut off, everyone seems suspicious of the group, and so on.īutterbur the innkeeper tells our heroes that things have been very bad in Bree, and in the Shire, of late. To the previous answers, I would add only this: In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, in the chapter 'Homeward Bound', Gandalf and the hobbits return to The Prancing Pony, where the hobbits had first met Strider over a year earlier. That should give you an idea of how the Men of Bree viewed the Rangers.

There is only one possibility for a man that looks like that: that man is dangerous. There can't be any reason for a normal person to carry a rifle with him at all times. You only see this strange loner sitting by himself. Now how would you feel about that man? You aren't aware that he's been killing wild beasts and gangsters (or zombies) trying to invade your merry town. Talking to no one, the man silently observes everyone in the room as he slowly smokes a cigarette, each puff lighting up his keen gray eyes. He stealthily walks over to a dark secluded corner and sits down.

Across his chest is a sling attached to an AR-15 hanging at his side. A ball cap is pulled down over his eyes, casting a dark shadow upon his face. His worn boots and slightly torn M65 jacket are covered in dirt. In walks a tall man with long scraggly hair and a beard. Imagine that you and some friends are sitting in a bar, located in some small town. travelers with a religious bent, were not the sort of things your friends would have called you. * In the medieval recreation group I belong to, newcomers often invent traveling personas, and are surprised to find out that names that mean 'traveler' were generally uncomplimentary. Naturally, it doesn't help that the Rangers go out of their way to stay foreign, unknown, and mysterious. If you grew up in a big enough city, maybe you'd be OK with it, but even then, I'm willing to bet you'd be secretly uncomfortable having to pass him just to get inside your front door. To our modern romanticized notions*, this attitude seems foreign, but think about how you'd react to a homeless person setting up camp on the sidewalk in front of your home. What's to prevent him from doing something bad, if he can just quietly slip away afterwards, and you have absolutely no way to track him down? To a farmer or small-town dweller, that rootless anonymity is dangerous, because it means the ranger is not controllable by the usual community-pressure methods. Simply put, it's because they're rangers: travelers, people with no home, unknown family, and no community ties.

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