Replies

I guess I felt a bit of empathy for the cave troll, so it worked for me. His reactions to pain were so animated... We could see when he had been hurt... and the idea that he was a chained "bad dog" of the orcs was not lost on me. His aggression was random... he took out several orcs in the battle.

Contrast that with Lurtz... who I could have felt compassion for when Saruman was whispering and poisoning his mind... Lurtz had this kind of animal (almost sexual) quality about him.... but in the end, a brutishness that made me cheer his death without remorse at all... Why do you suppose that is? - Isn't he is just as "innocent"? -just as much a brutish but brainwashed pawn in someone else's war?

Or am I just in my cups?

No, I don't think you're "in your cups" - what a great expression! I think it has to do with having the mental capacity to make a choice. Seems like part of human nature for us to not feel the same remorse for someone manipulated who still consents of his own free will and someone who is manipulated and used and doesn't seem to have the comprehension to ever even contribute a free choice to the malicious ends he is used for. Thus the difference between Lurtz and the cave troll. Lurtz participates in the evil willingly, in a way that the cave troll doesn't, and the whisperings of Saruman from his "birth" are not felt - by me at least - as an acceptable excuse. My wife made the same comment, too, about Lurtz having a kind of raw evil sexual kind of power and energy. The scene where he screams with the other uruk as he grabs his head is all about unbridled passion. Like throwing a whole night's worth of firewood on the blaze all at once and kindling a bonfire. Interesting, to think about the contrast between the raw energy of his minions and the cool, calculating, dispassionate maliciousness of Saruman.