LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 03 - The Uruk-Hai

[Boromir88]

I wonder if Tolkien met to create these parallels, or not, but I've thought of the connections between this chapter, and the previous chapter. Previous chapter, Aragorn and Eomer beging to form this long lasting friendship, and a long lasting friendship between their respected kingdoms, Gondor and Rohan. In the Uruk-hai chapter we get to see how good the two bad guys work together, Sauron and Saruman. Sauron's Northerners vs. Sarumans Uruk-hai, and it doesn't work out as well. I think this stresses the fact that the "evil" forces aren't united, the orc frays that break out between the Northerners and Isengarders, show that they don't trust one another, and are plotting to undermine eachother while trying to fight the "good" side. The "good" side unites in the previous chapter, and now Gondor has a willing ally in Rohan, and vice-versa.

We also get a sense that Eru is watching this struggle from above.

No doubt he meant to kill his captives, rather than allow them to escape or to be rescued; but it was his undoing. The sword rang faintly, and glinted a little in the light of the fire away to his left. An arrow came whistling out of the gloom: it aimed with skill, or guided by fate, and pierced his right hand.

So ended the raid, and no news of it came ever back either to Mordor or to Isengard; but the smoke of the burning rose high to heaven and was seen by many watchful eyes.

Estelyn already talked about Pippin's important, and we might as well just change the name of this chapter from Uruk-hai, to Pippin.

"I wish Gandalf would have never persuaded Elrond to let us come," he thought. "What good have I been? Just a nuisance: a passenger, a piece of luggage. And now I have been stolen and am just a piece of luggage for the orcs.

But then we see Pippin's cunning and thinking mind in the chapter. He cuts his bonds and reties this, only so they are looser and he can squirm out of them. He runs away from the path and leaves Aragorn his brooch. He is the one who outsmarts the most intellegent orc of the party, Grishnakh. Go Pippin!

[davem]

This chapter struck me on my first reading as a kind of ‘linking chapter’, simply a way of accounting for Merry & Pippin’s necessary appearance in Fangorn, but obviously there’s much more than that going on. This is the first (only?) time in the whole legendarium where we see Orcs as more than simple ‘monsters’. We see, for instance, that they aren’t simply stupid thugs (well, not all them).

Forgive this long quote from Brian Rosebury’s Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon:

With the Orcs, whose speech is intended to suggest a closed militaristic culture of hatred & cruelty, Tolkien draws on a number of models. Indeed, there are at least three different dialogue-types for Orcs, corresponding to differences of rank and of tribe.. (None of them, incidentally, is ‘working-class’, except in the minds of critics who - themselves, it seems, unconsciously equating ‘degraded language’ with ‘working-class’ language - have convinced themselves that the Orcs’ malign utterances betray Tolkien’s disdain for ‘mere working people’.) The comparatively cerebral Grishnakh, for example, talks like a melodrama villain, or a public school bully.

The Uruk-hai, Grishnakh’s rivals, are an arrogant warrior horde, not without a certain esprit de corps, and are given to yelling war cries. (‘Bring out your King! We are the fighting Uruk-hai! We will fetch him from his hole, if he does not come. Bring out your skulking king!’) Lastly, the dialogue between individual Orcs at moments of animosity (which is most of the time) is brutal & squalid in a rather underpowered way.

If Tolkien is reduced here to stylised snarls, & bowdlerised suggestions of excremental vituperation, one recognises his difficulty: more overt obscenity & violence would not so much have offended twentieth-century sensibilities as have evoked, incongruously, the world of the twentieth-century crime novel. Most readers, engrossed in the narrative, will absorb this functional, & sufficiently expressive, dialogue without being unduly detained by its artificiality or derivativeness.

We see they are clever, cunning, articulate (in a letter to the producer of a BBC radio adaptation Tolkien points out that they don’t ‘drop their aitches) & even bi-lingual:

One of the Orcs sitting near laughed and said something to a companion in their abominable tongue. 'Rest while you can, little fool!" he said then to Pippin, in the Common Speech, which he made almost as hideous as his own language. ...

To Pippin's surprise he found that much of the talk was intelligible; many of the Orcs were using ordinary language. Apparently the members of two or three quite different tribes were present, and they could not understand one another's orc-speech.

This mention of ‘tribes’ of Orcs would seem to imply differnces in Orcish culture - even to the extent of having devloped seperate languages which are so different they cannot be understood by Orcs of other tribes. In short, these creatures are not simple stupid savages, but inteligent creatures. So, Tolkien is clearly wanting to disabuse us of any idea that they ‘don’t know any better’. They are vicious & cruel & take pleasure in the fear & suffering they inflict, & they know full well what they’re doing.

This shows how wrong critics like the ones mentioned by Rosebury are: ‘critics who have convinced themselves that the Orcs’ malign utterances betray Tolkien’s disdain for ‘mere working people’’ (ie John Carey in the Listener). These orcs are not members of the uneducated ‘working class’; they are educated thugs.

Why is it necessary for Tolkien to make this so clear - possibly because we are about to witness the wholesale slaughter of these creatures by our ‘heroes’, but more likely because Tolkien wants us to understand the real nature of ‘Evil’ - that Evil is not something that arises from ignorance, from not really knowing what you’re doing. Evil beings in Middle earth areaware of what they’re doing, & its that very awareness, that deliberate infliction of suffering on others in full consciousness, that makes it necessary for our ‘heroes’ to stand against them - its a moral necessity to oppose that evil.

This chapter brings that home - there can be no sympathy for the ‘bad guys’ from now on. This isn’t a battle between two groups, both of whom are ‘morally ‘equal’ but on opposite sides’. The ‘Evil’ side is not ‘Evil’ simply because its the side our ‘heroes’ are fighting - its not an ‘abusive’ label they’ve applied to their enemy. The Evil side is Evil, & there is a moral imperative in operation.

[HerenIstarion]

Evil beings in Middle earth areaware of what they’re doing, & its that very awareness, that deliberate infliction of suffering on others in full consciousness, that makes it necessary for our ‘heroes’ to stand against them

True. And yet afterwards Tolkien painstakingly tried to reconcile things - to make orks automata, souless animals. And another yet, I suppose that consciousness in the case is not an indicator - Robot (minus 3 laws) may be conscious, yet may be capable of cruelty without remorse. What I'm driving at is, that, in fact, agreeing with what davem points at, I propose to state that there is more to orkish intelligence - they are model also of what mere Intelligence, driven by fear and not backed up by will+obedience (obedience=love here) may end up in.

With a proviso - some orks are not only intelligent, but have free will as well. I suppose that almost all named orks in the story fall under latter category - i.e. Grishnakh, Gorbag, Shagrat, Ugluk (the latter more so, as, allegedly, he's a 'man-ork' (or ork-man)).

And such a proviso brings a loadful of difficulties about. But about difficulties, later.

[Lalwendë]

This chapter tells us something of the nature of Hobbits. In dire circumstances, being abducted by a band of creatures straight out of a Hobbiton fireside horror story, Merry and Pippin still manage to show how brave they are. Boromir 88 has already noted how clever Hobbits can be, so I won't go over that again, but I also noticed what strength of character Hobbits can show.

Here Pippin is afraid and in pain, but he has the presence of mind instead to focus on what is going on about him and listen to what the orcs are saying:

Terrified Pippin lay still, though the pain at his wrists and ankles was growing, and the stones beneath him were boring into his back. To take his mind off himself he listened intently to all that he could hear. There were many voices round about, and though orc-speech sounded at all times full of hate and anger, it seemed plain that something like a quarrel had begun, and was getting hotter.

We also see how quickly a Hobbit can recover from a bad experience such as this, and in quite a humorous way, by eating something tasty:

He slipped the cords off his wrists, and fished out a packet. The cakes were broken, but good, still in their leaf-wrappings. The hobbits each ate two or three pieces. The taste brought back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days now far away. For a while they ate thoughtfully, sitting in the dark, heedless of the cries and sounds of battle nearby. Pippin was the first to come back to the present.

Finally, we see how they are able to stay positive after their escape; instaed of dwelling on what has happened, they talk hopefully:

They turned and walked side by side slowly along the line of the river. Behind them the light grew in the East. As they walked they compared notes, talking lightly in hobbit-fashion of the things that had happened since their capture. No listener would have guessed from their words that they had suffered cruelly, and been in dire peril; going without hope towards torment and death; or that even now, as they knew well, they had little chance of ever finding friend or safety again.

I think such passages are important to underline just how brave Hobbits are, despite being very small people amongst strong Orcs, tall Men and cunning Elves and wizards. Tolkien does not leave Merry and Pippin out of the tale, as some writers may have done, choosing instead to focus on Frodo and Sam's bravery only; Tolkien makes sure we know just how all Hobbits have this strength within them. This is also important as we have been temporarily taken away from the adventures of Frodo, Sam and the ring; it ensures that in the midst of all these grand, high-born Men, we don't forget how important Hobbits are to this tale.

[Boromir88]

I also wanted to note again Boromir's horn, we first got a description in Moria.

Then Boromir raised his horn and blew. Loud the challenge range and bellowed, like the shout of many throats, under the cavernous roof. For a moment the orcs quailed and the fiery shadow halted. Then the echoes died as suddenly as a flame blown out by a dark win, and the enemy advanced again.

Now we get Pippin's account in this chapter.

Then Boromir had come leaping through the trees. He had made them fight. He slew many of them and the rest fled. But they had not gone far on the way back when they were attacked again, by a hundred Orc at least, some of them very large, and they shot a rain of arrows: always at Boromir. Boromir had blown his great horn till the woods rang, and at first the ORcs had been dismayed and had drawn back; but when no answer but the echoes came, they had attacked more fiercely than ever.

Both times we see the strength behind this horn. It sends the orcs fleeing, it halts a Balrog. However, when the horn is done blowing the enemy comes back, and even "more fiercely." It's as if the horn is hurting more then helping. It stops them for a minute, but it also appears as if it's provoking the Enemies to strike back, even harder. Because, once the horn's done blowing they strike back, even more fierce then before.

Lastly I wanted to point out the power of the lembas. Reminds me a lot of what we discussed in the Lothlorien chapter.

The cakes were broken, but good, still in their leaf-wrappings. The hobbits each ate two or three pieces. The taste brought back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days now far away. For a while they ate thoughtfully, sitting in the dark, heedless of the cries and sounds nearby. Pippin was the first to come back to the present.

Eating the lembas the hobbits had slipped off into this dream, similar to Lorien, they weren't in "reality" anymore. They couldn't hear the battle going on, they just sat and remained in this dream, then Tolkien uses the line

Pippin was the first to come back to the present.

[Sapphire_Flame]

My resounding memory of this chapter is racing out of the theatre to read it after seeing Fellowship for the first time! I'd not finished reading Fellowship yet, and was very distressed at seeing my favourite characters being carted off by a pack of Uruk-hai. Since then, this chapter has been a favourite of mine.

I whole-heartedly agree with Lalwendë on all counts. This chapter certainly shows the inate strength and tenacity possessed by all hobbits. (And proof to all the fangirls who don't appreciate Merry and Pippin! )

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I think such passages are important to underline just how brave Hobbits are, despite being very small people amongst strong Orcs, tall Men and cunning Elves and wizards.

Brings to mind a favourite quote of mine about the courage of hobbits:

There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow.

Fog on the Barrow-Downs, Book 1, Fellowship of the Ring

The situation with the Uruk-hai may not have qualified as a "final and desperate danger", but it certainly was a difficult challenge to overcome. And Merry and Pippin overcame it admirably. It was, really, their first big challenge when they didn't have someone to come rescue them; at the Barrow-Downs, it was Frodo and Bombadil; Weathertop was Strider; and then the entire Fellowship had been with them. They really did "prove their quality", so to speak.

Abedithon le,

~ Saphy ~

[Kuruharan]

The situation with the Uruk-hai may not have qualified as a "final and desperate danger", but it certainly was a difficult challenge to overcome.

I think it was pretty final and desperate. This was the last moment that they could have had to escape. Once they reached Isengard they would have been tortured to death.

That is about as final and desperate as it gets.