Orcs... were elves?

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

First off, it was pretty dark when Frodo and Sam were spotted, and as Sam noted, the light of the torches carried by the column had already passed them by. They had the black cloaks on, which would have hidden a great deal, and the "beaklike nose-guard would have had some concealing effect as well.
Also, the "OS" appears to have only really seen the shields carried by the hobbits:

okay my main point was really only that, if the average orc was as some had suggested only slightly shorter than a man, than the whole trick would have been impossible. The hobbits could not have MOVED in orchish clothing so oversized. Frodo of course has basically a full orc kit (since most to all of his own clothes were in the bundle the Cirith Ungol Orc had manged to get out of the tower and were currently headed to Barad-dur) but even sam would have had trouble since the cloak would drag on the ground so badly he'd be constantly tripping. An no matter how dark it was the OS would have presumably noticed that the orcs he was looking at were several feet too short for warrior orcs. (and if one belives in the "battle orcs are bigger than snaga theory" he'd likey be suspicios of two snaga who were out playing with the big boys (even if the orc legions took snaga with them, as camp retainers, they probably wouldn't be permitted to go out in full armor, that would be a privalage reserved for "true" orcs)

That was probably the most common way an individual orc was categorized in such a regimented, militaristic society, and thus the first place the "OS" looked.

Speaking of the "OS", his position as the "motivator" doesn't speak for his having any exceptional intelligence or command ability. All he was doing was getting a group of orcs from Point A to Point B inside Mordor, not ordering them in battle. [/QUOTE]

but if the shield was they way they were reconized it still means that the OS would have had to recognize the shield as being one he had seen before so at bare minimum Frodo and sam would have had to be roughly the same build as the orcs whose shields they were using (unless a shield (or its individual emblems)marks a tribe, not an individual).
As for command ability, at minimum the OS would have had to have some ability. If Orc society was so fractious that desertion was such a real problem (and the fact that this is his first thought when he sees frodo and sam rather than two orcs who are too weak to cut it and in need of being converted into corpses/battle rations (orcs are cannibalistic right?) mean he needs the ability to be able to confidently coerce wayward orcs back into line, and enough respect from the rank and file they don't turn en masse and fragg him. (unless whoever formed the patrol simply picked his biggest, nastiest, most brutal orc as OS on the grounds that he had enough power to keep everyone else in line.) and it's a pretty big bunch of orcs, the OS couln't survive the march if he had to watch his back around all of them.