If Denethor hadn't committed suicide

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Yes... but would Aragorn necessarily have been pegged as a Westerner? Black Númenoreans settled the coasts of Middle-earth everywhere but the northwest. True, they do not seem to have had kingdoms in the sense of Gondor or Arnor--Umbar is the closest thing we have--but they seem to have been prominent in the service of Sauron from Herumor and Fuinil in the days of the Last Alliance down through the Mouth during the War of the Ring. To me it seems possible that Aragorn, if looking scruffy and unkingly, may well have appeared a stranger, but not necessarily a Westerner. And where wasn't he a stranger--he was a stranger in Rohan, Gondor, and Bree? That this'd be his modus operandi in Rhûn and Harad is not a surprise...

Though there's nothing concrete to suggest this, whatever Black Númenóreans remained by the time of the War of the Ring were, it seems to me, likely to reside in Mordor. The Mouth did, and had done so for most of his life, it seems.
I think the Easterlings had a different physical appearance from the Men of the West, and certainly the Haradrim did. They were much more dark-skinned and swarthy.
At any rate, there would probably have been cultural and regional norms regarding appearance that Aragorn would have had to have observed so as not to stand out.