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Old 11-29-2003, 10:28 PM   #32
Westerly Wizard
Haunting Spirit
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 72
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Sting

However, in light of Treebeard's speculation that the Uruk-hai are a mix of orcs and men, the passage from Morgoth's Ring is doubly indicting of Saruman.

The southerner at Bree does not have orc-blood in him. In FotR he looks "more than half-like a goblin" and in UT Tolkien writes that because he was a wild-man from Dunland it made people speculate that he might have had orc-blood. Neither of these seems to actually mean that the squint-eyed southerner is anything more than a barbaric man. The only real evidence would be Merry's relating of him to the half-orcs at Isengard, but even then, he states that the man in Bree was not so apparently orc-like. Aragorn also does not mention the Southerner being a half-orc, just a spy of Saruman when he responds.

Finally, the half-orcs Merry mentions at Bree would hardly fit into the description of "Men-orcs, large and cunning." They are described to be almost men, but with orc-like faces. They seem to fit much better into the description of "Orc-men, treacherous and vile."

This leaves the Uruk-hai as the only things that could really fit (and they do so very perfectly) into the description of "Men-orcs, large and cunning."
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