Be a ruler of a city and kingdom. Not a king, but a ruler in absence of king

>How the fuck did they know Aragorn is king?
He had a benevolent tax policy.

Elrond´s support probably helps.

Can you describe it to me?

To be fair european royalty is so inbred they probably are all related to Charlemagne is about ten different ways.

Aragorn's command of the Army of the Dead is proof enough. Only a direct descendant could have forced the oathbreakers to obey and then release them of their oath.

>tfw Ukrainian boyar by lineage
>no way to prove it because bolsheviks burned down your estate, records of your lineage and two of your grand-uncles
literally worse than nazis

>ukrainian boyar

no such thing.

All of the nobility of the area that is called "Ukraine" was either polonized or russified or eradicated before "ukrainian" identity as something separate from general rusyn/ruthenian entity even developed.

That's exactly what russkies want you to believe.

Has less to do with inbreeding, and more with the fact that Charlemagne fucked around. A lot. He had like three wives and had literally bucketloads of mistresses.

All European nobles are related to each other, and to some extent to Asian and African dynasties as well. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who has no connections to the rest. That's just what happens when you have a limited pool to choose from, for hundreds of years. It's basically like a single intermarrying village, just spread out over a continent.

Tolkein has a fun thing where these things are 'obvious' for narrative reasons. He's the king because he's the king, and if he bothered to turn on his swag everyone would see him for what he is.

It's the same reason all orks are ugly, Mordor is a shithole, and Gollum is an evil little gnome - Tolkein's Middle Earth is a land where who you are on the inside shows up on the outside, and base truths are immediately evident.

God damn beat me to it

They were usually careful about inbreeding to avoid a Charles II.
I doubt the average noble was much more inbred than the average peasant was.

Yes, but that's inconvenient to people who like to make shitposts.

Two heirlooms. The Signet of the King, the Beryl eyed serpent ring. Even Saruman recognized that as a sign of the ruling lineage despite his dismissal of it..

>They were usually careful about inbreeding to avoid a Charles II.
To be fair, even the talented Charles V had the famous Habsburg Chin, and as late as the 20th century the Habsburg house had a member who was incapable of ruling due to suffering from 20 epilepsy attacks a day.

1. His ring and sword.

2. Only a direct descendant of Isildur could free the Men of the White Mountains from their oath.

3. Lineage and status can be evident in a person's general bearing in Tolkien's works. Aragorn LOOKS like a king.

This was on purpose. Tolkien was trying to mimic Nordic sagas.

You're thinking about it the wrong way. It isn't that kings and royals and nobles are something extra special, it's that everyone else is shit.

Imagine a world where there are no schools, no education, only your parents and maybe an apprenticeship somewhere at best. Most people are illiterate, malnutritioned, and have barely any idea how to get their hands on a sword, a horse, and some armor. Besides that they most likely have never travelled anywhere and haven't met anyone interesting.

The difference between the upper nobility and the peasantry is so vast that it's almost impossible for one to pretend to be the other.

>How could he prove he is part of famous noble line from another kingdom?
Well you could go round finding old tomes of records, carry heirlooms of that bloodline that are known across the land. But really the key thing is to have the correct Heraldry and look and act like you're a noble. As long as you pull that off, the King and his underlings won't have much reason to suspect you're bullshitting and go digging through the archives.

try reading the last ringbearer by yeskov. It is a book that extrapolates that concepts.

The fact that Aragorn has magic healing powers thanks to his distant descent from Melian the Maia (another being of the same order of Sauron and the Balrog) in a setting largely without them is also very relevant. People started taking Aragorn seriously when he went about healing people who'd been struck down by the Nazgul.

>How the fuck did they know Aragorn is king?

Heirlooms, references, and actions. Of course you'd already know that if you ever bothered to read the book.

Aragorn shows up with a sword and ring which are known to belong to Elendil's line. The sword is especially important as it's shards were held by the Elves and they wouldn't fix it let alone turn it over to some schmuck.

Aragorn's references are also impeccable. Gandalf vouches for him, he has a pair of Elves in his retinue who vouch for him, and most of the rest of his retinue are Rangers/Dunedain who are known to be remnants of the kingdom of Arnor.

Finally, Aragorn performs actions that only the king can do. He holds the Dead to their broken oath clearing southern Gondar of invaders in a 3 day campaign and capturing the Corsair fleet (He doesn't bring the Dead to Minas Tirith, that's movie shit).

He also heals people which no one else can help driving away the Shadow and neutralizing poison through the use of King's Foil, something only kings can do.

Simple minded fucks like the OP often wonder why Tolkien "padded" the story with MASH: Minas Tirith. What they can't understand is that the acts of healing Aragorn performs convinces more people his is the king than any heirlooms or references.

>Denethor
it's fun as the there were only 3 witnesses of the Denethor "burning himslef up". Gandalf, a halfling fiend of Aragorn and an easily corruptable guard.

And, you know, the large number of servants Denethor commanded to bring the stuff to burn himself alive, whom Beregond engages in a fairly long fight with the lot of them and they're cursing him out for not letting them pass.

>Greek pretenders

t. The Pope

they were told he wanted to burn Faramir.

Maybe I'm projecting since I read it a decade ago.

Medieval society wasn't quite as static as you might think. Take Owen Tudor for example. A low born page who raised his family's fortune through a combination of military service and good marriages to the point where his grandson could become king of England

I have always thought that Gondor wa somewhat similar to feudal Japan. For them King is like emperor who is more of a religious figure, with someone else ruling the kingdom and its peoples. The exception is that instead of being a figurehead, king is just "missing"

>A low born page

>Historians consider the descendants of Ednyfed Fychan, including Owen Tudor, the most powerful family in 13th to 14th-century Wales.

lol nope

I wasn't sure if he had the ring with him or Arwen did, so I left it out.

I stand corrected. I stick by my point social mobility did exist in that society.

>Medieval society wasn't quite as static as you might think
Are we using England as example again?

I came up with a setting about this exact situation once, in which the king went missing and a steward was left in his place. Eventually the kingdom evolved into a republic ruled by a high council, with the rank of Steward being an elected position, with set term times and limited powers. Of course, the republic still called itself a kingdom, on the grounds that the arrangement was only ever meant to be temporary, until the rightful king returned.

The big conflict would revolve around a guy showing up centuries after the disappearance of the king, claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne. Many of the nobility would support him, either because they believe his claim and feel it's only right that he rule the country, or because they would stand to gain from supporting him. On the other hand, many of the nobility would reject his claim and wish to continue with the high council system, either because they feel there is no need for a king any more, or because they would stand to lose if the status quo was disturbed.

The Byzantine Empire was literally the Roman Empire.

It's kind of buried in the movies, but in the books, Aragorn is a Numenorian, and so is just inherently more awesome and better than normal humans at pretty much everything. Beyond being one of the best fighters in the world, he's like 75 years old and doesn't look a day over 40, can run for days without sleep or food, and can pretty much heal people just by touching them and sprinkling some herbs on them. His magic healing hands are mentioned specifically as a major reason why people identify him as an heir to Isildur.

It makes a bit more sense in the book.

The Dunedain are an exiled tribe of numenoreans. Presumably their lineage is well documented and known/trusted in Gondor. It seems to me that they even know Aragorn's name, but for whatever reason, the heirs of Isildur just haven't sought out the throne.

Gandalf intentionally tries to keep Aragorn's identity hidden from Denethor to avoid a power struggle while the war is still going on.

Aragorn also goes into the paths of the dead and rallies an army of ghosts who will only answer to the true king, does all this etc.

Even without clear lineage, Aragorn and Gandalf rescued the city while Denethor pissed his pants and tried to kill his own son. If he wasn't king, he'd probably have a shot at being dictator just on his own merits.

With Denethor dead, and Faramir KO'd, Prince Imrahil is the biggest lord in Gondor, and he acknowledges Aragorn's claim. Ditto Eomer of the Rohirrim.

Gandalf is a well known personality, generally trusted in every kingdom. I'd argue his stature is almost like a pope or cardinal.

>PC had a good horse, nice armour but not much else to his name.

That's how you recognize people before photography: A fancy customized armor with the right elaborated sigil and decoration.

>Gandalf is a well known personality, generally trusted in every kingdom

Though to be fair, quite a lot of that trust is begrudging, since Gandalf always seems to be the bearer of bad news.

There were pretenders to the throne in real world history.

It came down to personal relationships, and how it advantaged various factions to acknowledge a claim. Even if they all knew it was bullshit, a few powerful people might go along with it to get a piece of the pie.

On the other hand, a real claimant might be quietly assassinated, and a cousin or uncle put on the throne instead.

In a real hereditary monarchy, you probably have dozens of people with some claim to the throne. A direct line from father to son rarely lasts more than a few generations.

In the unlikely case that the decision is left to a bureaucrat who is actually impartial--I would guess they'd investigate the character's lineage (with magic or high technology, if possible) and hand them the crown if it checked out.

In the meantime, put the guy in an opulent fortified palace, and lock the doors. If his story doesn't check out, you have him executed as a pretender to the throne and have pieces of him sent to every corner of the kingdom as a warning.

Absolutely. Popes had power struggles back in the day too. But nobody in middle earth would characterize Gandalf as some random con man in a robe who just showed up with a crazy story. He's apparently immortal, and has been a mover and shaker in the West for generations.

>How could he prove he is part of famous noble line from another kingdom?
All the immortals vouch for him.He has the relics of the royal line.He can do the kingsfoil mumbo jumbo.He is the boss the group usually led by the descendants of the last king.And he has the loyalty of the oathbreakers who pledged themselves to Isildur.

And,even if he didn't have these,he could just say "I'm Thorongil !" and everyone would bend the knee.
>Gandalf always seems to be the bearer of bad news
Reliable bad news.Nobody had any reason to doubt him in thousands of years.

That was the 19th, and that emperor was followed by Franz Joseph.

wise men know that kind of things by the aura.

You: "too forced, noone can know that"

I can see you're not wise enough

So the king's aura is a lot like the emperor's clothes.

Aragorn healed some people with numenoran magic and athelas, like the true king supposedly would do

>Boyar lineage
>Not eliminated by Peter I

Your family was lucky to survive as long as it did, comrade. You should be grateful of your liberation from the imperialist elites and your protection from the fascists during the Great Patriotic War. Wanting inherited wealth and status is the mark of an enemy of the people. You don't want to commit treason, do you?

I am related to Charlemagne and chances are, so are you.
The chance of a person of Western-European descent not being related to Charlemagne is incredibly small

then why did it speak Greek, not control Rome and have to begrudgingly accept some German guy getting crowned.

You Orthocucks will never learn, will you

>How the fuck did they know Aragorn is king?

Legendary wizards and Elves from history vouch for his lineage, he is Chieftain of the Dúnedain, he has the Sword of Elendil, and an actual ghost that was there when the Kingdom was founded acknowledged his legitimacy.

Plus he's an objectively better leader than Denethor in every capacity.

> could he prove he is part of famous noble line from another kingdom?

Are there any ancient Elf Kings to vouch for his entire lineage? Any blood-bound ghost curses he can lift? Does he have The Sword? If not, lawyer up.