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Something just occurred to me. I've been thinking about a couple of films - Braveheart & Zulu.
If we compare the way the 'enemy' is depicted in each film we see something very different. In Braveheart the enemy (the English) are two dimensional pantomine villains, & we never get the sense that they are real complex human beings. They are little better than Orcs. They exist in order to be killed & there is never any sense that they have feelings or that there is any tragedy in their deaths.
In Zulu on the other hand we encounter the Zulus before the British soldiers. We see the Zulus at a celebration & see them as human beings with a culture. Even during the battle of Rourke's Drift we never forget that they are people, & in one of the final scenes they are shown, as one of the Boer officers states 'saluting fellow braves'. The piled bodies of the Zulu warriors are viewed with horror by the British officers & one tells the other that he couldn't go through such a horror more than once.
The terrible nature of the slaughter is brought home in Zulu because we have seen that the Zulu warriors are human beings right from the start of the movie, whereas in Braveheart the slaughter of the English is seen as morally unquestionable, & killing the enemy is killing 'sub-humans'. Interestingly, I read that Gibson's Wallace was not shown killing the deer he is about to shoot because that might seem 'cruel' to an audience - because the deer was beautiful & 'innocent'.
Now, Tolkien's work seems to take a 'Braveheartian' approach to the enemy, rather than a 'Zulu-ian' one. And to me Zulu comes across as a more powerful & moving piece of work that Braveheart precisely because the British are shown killing human beings & being 'forced' to acknowledge the horror of what they have done - even though it was necessary for their own survival. The British acknowledge the horror of their act, & the Zulus salute them as 'fellow braves'. There is an acknowledgement of a shared humanity - even though they have been killing each other, each side seeking to wipe out the other. Braveheart ends with jubilation in slaughter inflicted, Zulu in horror at the same thing. The British troops feel tired & sick & are just glad its over.
Which brings up another question. History is not simply written by the winners, but in the main by the 'establishment', & one wonders whether the ordinary 'grunts' on the battlefield did feel a 'respect' for the enemy warriors (even perhaps for the Orcs) - one can't help thinking back to the football match across No-man's land in WWI between British & German troops - not that one could imagine such a thing happening in M-e. But could there have been instances of Gondorian Rangers giving a nodding respect to the 'reckless courage' of the foes they faced - they were the enemy, but they put up an awesome fight.
Or would that 'break the rules' in making the servants of the enemy in some degree 'respectable'? So, it seems that one aspect of war does not enter into Tolkien's work at any point - respect for 'fellow braves'. But Tolkien himself must have felt that - he does state, after all, that there were good & bad on both sides in WWI.
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