Fantasy

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But are the blood & gore to be assumed? Does Tolkien really intend us to see the shattered, hacked up bodies,

No more than he expects us to see reeking scat emerging from Strider's fundament.

the adrenalin driven attrocities commited by the 'good' guys... Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? If I assume that some Gondorian troops tortured & mutilated Easterling prisoners, or that their commanders arranged for 'cowards' to be executed at dawn,

Is 'all human life' (good & bad) to be found in Middle-earth? No, actually, I don't believe so. The Thrid Age was I think palpably different from whatever Age this is, and not just because the fantasy creatures are gone.

I sometimes liken Tolkien's idea of the progress of moral evil to an ink-drop in a glass of water: at first a distinct black globule, which starts to send out streamers and tendrils until it is all dissolved- but the water is now grey. We live in the Grey Age. The War of the Ring occurred when the ink-drop and its tendrils were still coherent- Sauron and his minions- but much of the water (Elves and many Men) was still largely clear or only slightly dingy. So, no, the Men of Gondor would not commit atrocities, just as, we are told, they do not lie, "not even [to] an Orc."

I'm not sure what really would have been gained had Tolkien written some grimly relativistic work wherein both sides were all right bastards. His thesis was that the Good exists and is worth defending, which remains true today as it did in the Forties- even though we know that the Allies didn't "set out with all unspotted soldiers." After all, his theory of Recovery is a process of viewing the world through a different prism.