[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by alatar

Uglúk worthy? I never read that into that part of the story. Eomer, to me, fights him on the ground due to some other reason - terrain, horse wounded or could be wounded, etc. Eomer singles out Uglúk because he is the biggest orc in the bunch, surrounded by the almost biggest body guards.

If it were only for the terrain, it would not make sense in the way it is mentioned. Why would Tolkien say it the way he says?

Originally Posted by TT; Chapter 3: The Uruk-hai

So it was that they did not see the last stand, when Uglúk was overtaken and brought to bay at the very edge of Fangorn. There he was slain at last by Éomer, the Third Marshal of the Mark, who dismounted and fought him sword to sword. And over the wide fields the keen-eyed Riders hunted down the few Orcs that had escaped and still had strength to fly.

A) there was no need to dismount because of the terrain; B) no wounded horse or anything - first, Éomer's house is mentioned in the books by name and he is not mentioned to be wounded; second, Tolkien could slip in an input sentence to say that he was wounded or why Éomer dismounted - C) the fact Tolkien does not mention why Éomer dismounted can mean only one thing: that he explains it in the sentence. Follow my thoughts, please. If Tolkien did not care to explain to us why Éomer dismounted, why even mention that he dismounted? He could have ended the sentence by the words "Third Marshal of the Mark". Now, he does not say why Éomer dismounted - at least not explicitely. Yet what follows in the sentence after the information that Éomer dismounted? And fought him sword to sword. We could easily replace the "and" with "to": meaning of purpose, Éomer dismounted to fight Uglúk sword to sword. So this tells us why Éomer dismounted. Yet the "and" gives it sort of a different level - Tolkien did not say "to", therefore making the other sentence just a bonus information to the previously mentioned fact (he dismounted), but making it connected in the way that both the parts of the sentence have the same level. Uglúk was slain by Éomer. And what else do we learn about this? Éomer dismounted and fought him sword to sword. Both these actions are connected by the same origin, or purpose: the reason why he dismounted was the same to the one why he fought him sword to sword, yet we don't learn any third reason, it is still hidden inside these few words. And the words sword to sword imply only one thing: equality. Whatever the case, Éomer saw Uglúk as someone who has the same level as himself. And that's not, in my opinion, only about taking down enemy leader: or at least not in Éomer's case. He must have realised that who stands in front of him is not only a nasty Orc, a nameless face in the crowd, but someone who theoretically could switch place with him, the Third Marshal of the Mark, as the text itself says and therefore, emphasises. The message is clear, even shocking: Uglúk can be compared to Éomer. And if I go to the extreme, recently there appeared the thread about Anti-Dwarves: if you want me to be shocking and provocative, I could say that Uglúk is Anti-Éomer - and Éomer is Anti-Uglúk. Hm, looking at this I might even make a little study of this.
But for now, enough of the language analysis

Originally Posted by alatar

And more about the orcs: In RotK, when Sauron falls, it is noted that the orcs, trolls and other evil creatures become suddenly leaderless and so try to escape by whatever means. The men, long in Sauron's evil service, hold together and ask for no quarter. So there's clearly a distinction between men and orcs.

This was mentioned before and many times and discussed on many threads, you must remember that they were under the command of Sauron and more or less had no free will (warning: I mean because they were enslaved and usurped now, not that they will be beings without free will). At few sentences before, we read this:

Originally Posted by RotK; Chapter 4: Field of Cormallen

and even at that moment all the hosts of Mordor trembled, doubt clutched their hearts, their laughter failed, their hands shook and their limbs were loosed. The Power that drove them on and filled them with hate and fury was wavering, its will was removed from them; and now looking in the eyes of their enemies they saw a deadly light and were afraid.

The difference is in that the Men, Easterlings and Southrons, as they are named in the part you mentioned, had their own leaders, their own cause why they joined Sauron. They were only allies. The Orcs were slaves, and they obeyed their leaders who obeyed their superiors who obeyed Sauron, and Sauron was dead, the Nazgul gone, the leaders could hardly do anything more.

Anyway, this is not the point of this thread and I have to say, unfortunately, that not even the ant-thing is and I want to preventively step in before any debate could start. This thread focuses on individual Orcs known to us and counts with their free will. So however the ideas may be interesting, this thread was not built for that and for the clarity of topic I suggest either reviving an older thread for such debates or start a new one - I must say yesterday I also thought about starting a new thread about Orcs as society, so if anyone wants to discuss this, go ahead. But this one is about individual examples that can eventually be applied on others, so let's stay on topic, please.