Quote:
Originally Posted by skip spence
That's where our imaginations differ then. I imagine the rangers as almost disregarded by the likes of Breelanders, as anonymous strangers traveling in ragged clothes, yet behind the scenes working hard to protect their ancestoral homeland. Perhaps they carried a light bow for hunting and a knife, much needed in the wilderness. I don't see them carrying around swords like Narsil no (it must have been a long and heavy sword, designed for fighting iron-clad enemies in open battle; does Aragorn swing it two-handedly btw?) and now, thinking about it, I don't believe JRRT envisioned Aragorn carrying the shards with him at all times. That is absurd, after all. He served in the armies of both Gondor and Rohan and presumably fought with them on several occations too. To be carrying around the shards of a useless sword in a real battle would be risking the lifes of his friends for the sentimental value of a relic. Would Aragorn do that? So I must agree with Morwen: the shards would've been locked away in uncle Elrond's safe on most of Aragorn's daring adventures.
Edit (x-posted w Gwathagor): The quote provided by Legate of Amon Lanc only really proves that Aragorn recieved the relics. It doesn't imply that he carried the them around, or that he did not.
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I also have a hard time seeing the greatest huntsman and traveler of the age lugging around a broken heirloom just because. This is a man who spent years in the wild, served in Gondor and Rohan, who ventured " far into the East and deep into the south". If you are going to spend years at a time away from home, making many a perilous journey, a broken object of no immediate use that would take up space and weigh you down is not the first object that you should pack.
I think that the handover that Legate and the Might refer to is symbolic : Aragorn has come of age, Elrond says you are now entitled to have these things. But I don't see that this automatically means that Aragorn was then required to take them along with him wherever he went. Why remove them after all from a place where they had been safe for centuries?