I think I'll stick to Gondor even if Lommy's and Aganzir's lively descriptions of the northern values and lifestyles make me waver a bit... It's a hard choice indeed.
I do affiliate with Matthew's description of:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by MatthewM
Warriors with artistic ideals and love for lore and history...right up my alley.
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and that's also what the knights of the Middle-age were supposed to be and what the janissaries of the east probably were to a larger extent. But those are just warrior ideals and as such rarely met.
And after all they just make a part of the parcel.
I'm more drawn in with the hassle and buzz of the street; meeting different cultures, flavors, scents, habits, dialects, dressing, courtship-rules, gestures, tastes, music, dances etc. in the air of general benevolence, curiosity and freedom from prejudice.
Surely there would have been the poor and the rich as well as those claiming to be the originals vs. the newcomers etc. I know I'm painting it with more rosy colours I may have license to but still I think the big Gondorian cities were the only places in the Middle-Earth where this caleidoscopic meeting of the various cultures of the ME was possible.
And all of that under the banner of the free people. Not under the banner of a family, a village, a race, a nationality, a home country... but under the banner of freedom and justice... and the Right.
Not bad indeed as far as daydreams or utopias go.
