The Truth of the Uruk-hai

[Galin]

But is it the Orcs, or their gear and device that has Aragorn wondering? A look at the text from The Departure of Boromir:

'And Aragorn looked on the slain, and he said: 'Here lie many that are not folk of Mordor. Some are from the North, from the Misty Mountains, if I know anything of Orcs and their kinds. And here are others strange to me. Their gear is not after the manner of Orcs at all!'

There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands. They were armed with short broad-bladed swords, not with the curved scimitars usual with Orcs; and they had bows of yew, in length and shape like the bows of Men. Upon their shields they bore a strange device: a small white hand in the centre of a black field; on the front of their iron helms was set an S-rune, wrought of some white metal.

'I have not seen these tokens before,' said Aragorn. What do they mean?'

Things I note: Aragorn immediately follows 'strange to me' with an statement about their gear -- such statement followed by an exclamation point too!

The word strange is repeated with respect to the device. And, as what is 'usual' with Orcs is the curved scimitars, thus, 'unusual' are the blades they have. And Aragorn follows the whole description revealing he has not seen these tokens before.

Granted the description begins with the Orcs themselves, and some seem to interpret the whole description that follows as being 'unusual' -- that's one way to read it, I'll admit, but not the only way I think. Indeed these Orcs are of great-er stature (than the Northerners), but arguably, so were the Uruks in Moria and the huge chieftain encountered there. I don't think that being swart and slant-eyed was that unexpected; and if indeed 'thick legs and large hands' were unusual, I'm not sure why this would necessarily point to mannish blood.

Of course they used gear that Men might use, possibly 'suggesting' something, but that doesn't necessarily make them half-breeds really. They could easily be bigger Orcs who have gotten hold of these weapons.

In any case, I must side with gear and tokens rather. This, in my opinion, is what is strange to Aragorn here, the experienced Ranger noting their gear (!) before the actual description comes into play.