Elves Rangers and Ninja

[Ernildir]

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2011/05 ... more-44163

I just read this article... I don't know how much truth there is to it, but I found it enjoyable, and thought y'all might as well.

[Faolan]

Interesting article and website, I will have to explore it further.

I studied with Stephen K. Hayes back in the mid 80's when I lived in Dayton, OH before he went mainstream with his Quest schools, he's mentioned on this authors website. Alot of my 'sneaky ranger' skills come from that training and Tom Brown, Jr's. Scout books.

Be interesting to see how Ninja skills could be incorporated into rangering.

Faolan

[Mirimaran]

I personally don't connect Rangers, in the way that Tolkien portrays them, with ninjas, who seemed to find employment as assassins. I could see the use of stealth and improvisation, but the Rangers were the lone symbol of authority in the lost land of Arnor, enforcing the laws of the realm when all others had long forgotten that one had existed at all.

[Faolan]

I don't see the Rangers as assassins either Mirimaran, but as guerrilla fighters, information gatherers and protectors of their families and their way of life. In that they do compare with ninja's. The history I know of the old ninja family's was that they were mostly persecuted by the government and learned the skills they needed to survive, as time progressed they put those skills to use and hired themselves out to the samurai warlords. Hollywood has done alot to portray them as dark evil assassins though.

Faolan

[Jonathan B.]

Ninja if they existed were no more than ronin.They wouldn't have run around in black pajamas they'd have been whatever was needed to get close to their target. Think CIA or undercover cops. There certainly weren't entire clans of them.

[Eledhwen]

I am with you, Mirimaran. The Ninja - Ranger overlap is not there for me. The stealthy aspects are common to a range of endeavors but the assassin for hire model would not really fit a Dunedain, in my own opinion.

I admit to be occasionally baffled by the fascination so many people have for Ninja and Samurai; the mystique around them is very powerful I guess, for a lot of folk.

Eledhwen

[Faolan]

Hmm, So the Togakure and Iga clans didn't exist? The knowledge that An-shu Hayes brought back from Japan would contradict that. 33 generations of grand-masters is a long history to ignore. Don't get me wrong, I'm not really much of a fan of his anymore since he went mainstream, I'm just going from what I was taught back in the 80's while I was training with him and my own research.

I completely agree that the Dunedain were not "assassins for hire" not as a group anyway, and not as Tolkien portrayed them. But I also include other writings in my portrayals, as do others of this forum. How many people here discuss the Ranger's Apprentice weapons and mind-set? That's not Middle Earth and there are not clans/families of them either, they are a separate function of a kingdom's standing army that have a set patrol area they protect and at times perform covert operations singly or in small teams. I myself read S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series and enjoy the Dunedain Ranger portrayed there. As well as some of the writing on the Henneth Annun fan-fiction website.

I collect and train with sword and shield, bow and spear and daggers. If as several of us here have discussed what we would do if society as we know it were to end tomorrow, could I and family survive? Possibly! Could I go up against someone wielding a firearm? Unlikely in a stand-up fight, but if I have the skills that will allow me to infiltrate a location and remove opposition discretely and expediently then I will use them. . . .to protect those that I have sworn to protect and care for.

We are all here attempting to portray an ideal of one man's "vision", a man who had lived through 2 World War's and saw the horror of that outcome. He was attempting to create a viable mythology for England. Tolkien was a trained linguist, he built his stories around languages and other cultures mythologies and the grand epic heroes, good triumphing over evil.

There is nothing to say that individual Dunedain would not have become swords-for-hire for other kingdoms. Look at what Aragorn did after he was told of his true heritage. He went and roamed Middle Earth for how decades and offered his services to both the Rohirrim and Gondor. While in the service of Gondor he led a raid against Umbar, burning their ships and killing their Captain, all the while hiding his true identity. He did it to not only expand his knowledge of his own history but to learn what it was to be a leader, because he had doubts of his abilities and of fears of being Isildur's Heir.

Hollywood is notorious for doing their own interpretations of ninja's, a historically accurate movie about them would probably be pretty boring. History is also written by the victors, ninja's portrayed as evil is just the prevailing governments spin.

Just as a completely accurate version of Lord of the Rings would not only be boring/confusing for most people it would be EXTREMELY long.

To me being a Dunedain means incorporating real world skills as well as using old world gear.

It's all a matter of opinion and how we choose to interpret our Ranger persona's.

~~steps down from soap-box now~~


Faolan

[appalachianranger]

You know, I've got to say that I see the connections between ninjas and rangers, though I'm not sure I would call Shinobi our world's Dunedain.
I agree that ninjas were ronin, often misplaced samurai would had to adapt their skills to a rapidly- changing world. And then of course the life of a samurai was meant to be in the service of a master. Once that system was gone, the only way for the samurai to continue existing in modern times was to become merceneries.
Now this for me is where the two paths diverge.
The Dunedain went into exile and wandered the forests in small bands, living their lifestyle in secret away from prying eyes. Instead of hiring themselves out, they lived off the land wherever they could.
Ninjas, on the other hand, tried to exist in the urbanizing world of the Bakamatsu and Meiji Era and thus were less able to remain secret. Not only that, but their status as mercenaries earned them an unpleasant reputation (not unlike that attached to the Easterlings, Haradrim, and Corsairs of Umbar!) which birthed their current reputation for deviance.

That having been said, some Dunedain skills of stealth and trickery come right out of the proverbial ninja handbook. And of course, this is understandable! Just as stealth helps to evade a Sharpes cartridge in the gut, so does it help one ranger to defeat five orcs!

And that is my stance on the debate.