Split Personality?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sir Kohran

I cannot see how it is logically possible for a single man, who had been fighting all day and was armed with a borrowed orc axe and was completely alone and surrounded by opposing forces, to kill seventy enemies (and apparently more additional orcs). Heck, that's almost as many as Legolas and Gimli together killed during the entire battle at the Hornburg.

Hurin was the greatest (human) hero of the First Age - which surely makes it entirely possible that he could kill 70 trolls - in fact, the killing of 70 trolls would be exactly the kind of thing that would beget, & confirm, such a reputation. Anyway, He killed 70 trolls because Tolkien says he did. Or do you have evidence to the contrary?

And there are other cases, too - six thousand Rohirrim, six or seven thousand men of Gondor and several thousand more reinforcements with Aragorn somehow manage to defeat a force of eighteen thousand Haradrim, countless thousands of orcs and trolls, and many other evil men. The victory at the Pelennor seems a miracle to say the least.

Many ancient battles were lost by superior forces to numerically inferior ones. And I think you're forgetting the morale destroying effect of the killing of Angmar. The point is the forces of Mordor went in expecting a walkover & found themselves being hit from all sides by forces they were not expecting. Add to that the death of the Witch King & consequent loss of a controlling hand, & its entirely likely that they would start to panic, become confused & go to pieces. At that point it would have become a walkover for an organised force under the command of experienced leaders like Aragorn, Eomer & Imrahil.