[King of the North]

I too really noticed that PJ portrayed Rohan's soldiers as much better fighters than Gondorian warriors. At Helm's Deep Rohan's soldiers put forth their best effort and fought their hardest. The Uruk-Hai only triumphed by shear weight of numbers. It is common for people to fight their hardest when they are in their homeland defending their very existence, a great example in our own world was Berlin 1945.

But if that is the case then it did not apply to Gondor's soldiers. In both Osgiliath and Minas Tirith Gondorian soldiers get totally wamped on by orcs. There are two explanations for why this is. 1st being that Rohan was fighting Uruk-Hai and even though they are incredibly strong, I believe PJ intended for the new orcs in RotK to be even stronger. Therefore both Rohan's and Gondor's armies could be equal in fighting ability, but their foes' skills different. The 2nd possible explanation does not have anything to do with fighting abilities. Throughout FotR and TTT the orcs and uruk-hai get totally pwnzored. Perhaps PJ got tired of the consistent annihilation of the bad guys in the previous two movies and wanted the good guys to die for once. The first time I saw RotK I was kinda glad to see the good guys get wasted for a change. Also, that helped increase the suspense in the last chapter of the sage for those non-readers who had doubts about whether or not Gondor was going to win the war. Even the seemingly invicible Rohan cavalry gets butchered up a bit by the Mumakil. Whenever Rohan charges a field it must use hax or something cuz they are unstoppable. All in all, there is a lot more good guy death in RotK and since Gondor takes the brunt of the action and Rohan does not, Gondor might look like a worse fighting force.