[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Fair point. The most typical Gondorian we ever meet is Ioreth- who could just as easily be a Bree-woman.

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Bree, however, was guarded- "'Strider' I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruins, if he were not guarded ceaselessly."

Ahh, thank you. I recalled Aragorn mentioning Bree was also guarded, but didn't think or remember it was to the same extent as the Shire. Aragorn using 'ceaselessly' suggests that it was.

What's fascinated me about Bree more this time is just how much I related to it now. It feels like a normal place I would encounter in the 'real world,' so to say.

Most of that probably has to do with relating to Butterbur. Until recently, for several years I was in upper management for a restaurant and I definitely can remember my own name. I was the person the owners and my minions would say 'he'd forget his own head if it wasn't attached to his shoulders.' Not so much anymore, because I'm not in the same job. I do want to start using Butterbur's excuse "one thing drives out another." That sounds more professional than "shoot, I forgot!"

Currently after reading the Shire chapters which relates to feeling 'like home,' but it's not necessarily real. It feels 'like home' but it's not. It's more idyllic or an imagination of 'home as it should be.' Then Bree, to me, is 'home as it is.' It feels normal and more real world, which I think was necessary after 3 chapters in Bombadil's strange and abnormal world.

Originally Posted by Huey

Thinking about it, I feel like Bree actually represents not an anomaly, but the most common type of settlement in Middle-earth. Take away the Little Folk, and mix up the parochialism a little, and you could be in Westemnet, or Lebennin, or the Vale of Anduin, or even in Dunland or down in Harondor (where, unless there was a war on, you'd have a similar mixing of Gondorian and Haradrim).

Perhaps you're right that Bree isn't an anomaly. It's the other places we visit that are the anomalies. Although, I think it's still quite a different place, unlike others in Middle-earth. As it's noted:

There was trouble away in the South, and it seemed that the Men who had come up the Greenway were on the move, looking for lands where they could find some peace. The Bree-folk were sympathetic, but plainly not very ready to take a large number of strangers into their little land. One of the travellers, a squint-eyed ill-favoured fellow, was foretelling that more and more people would be coming north in the near future. 'If room isn't found for them, they'll find it for themselves. They've a right to live, same as other folk,' he said loudly. The local inhabitants did not look pleased at the prospect.~At The Sign of the Prancing Pony

Some of these 'travellers' would appear to be from Gondor, trying to get away from the war gathering. Some maybe from Dunland? It's mentioned in Appendix B, TA 2943 Saruman begins placing agents in Bree and the Southfarthing. But his intentions are to spy on what Gandalf's doing, at least with Bree his intentions don't seem to be to occupy it.

When I get to it in my reread, I'll have to try to remember what changes happened in Bree on the hobbits return journey. But it certainly doesn't undergo changes to the extent of the Shire. Also, the Nazgul showing up in Bree is to get information of the hobbits, there's apparently no interest for Sauron to occupy it?