Kuruharan: I remember that thread, and I completely agree with you, William the [formerly bastard] Conqueror is a singularly good example of people rather than forces. Although I think it wise not to argue exclusively for one or the other.
Naaramare:Yes, I recall the discussion in which class was bandied about. I confess I'm not entirely satisfied with it as an explanation. Consider, Sam never loses his charm. I think it has more to do with 'rustic and untutored' as such than with 'class', per se. With one you're comparing poor versus rich, an economic standard, and with the other you're comparing country/largely oral tradition/memory going back a few generations versus city/written history/memory going back centuries, perhaps millenia. The latter has no innocence left and is painfully conscious of itself, whereas the former is innocent in its unconscious daily ritual. I think of Pullman's His Dark Materials, how (i forget her name) the protagonist girl is described as still a child an unaware. That's what the hobbits are like, though even Sam is less so by the end of the book but retains enough to hold his charm, I suppose. I think also of Brother Mine and the painful self-consciousness of the urban protagonist in her modern life, which is a little off-topic but serves as an illustration (sorry to the rest of you: Brother Mine is Naaramare's own fantasy work-in-process - check out her signature).
Squatter: But of course, the Romans. They did, after all, forcibly remove the Druids from southern England.
And we States Americans are far more 'mutty' than you Brits! So we're only trying to smear your reputation in our own dirt. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] I don't know how much that goes for Canadian Americans, but I suppose there's probably about as much muttiness.
[ August 13, 2002: Message edited by: littlemanpoet ]
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