[Lalwendë]

I believe there are a few instances where Tolkien himself questions how he has portrayed the slaughter of the Orcs in his Letters, and he did a few revisions over the matter. I often feel that his inclusion of the friendly conversation between the two Orcs at Cirith Ungol was possibly an attempt by him to 'humanise' them a little, in contrast to all this bloodthirsty 'hacking and slashing' he was writing about. In regard to enemies who were Men, there is also the instance where Aragorn requests that the slain Dunlendings are buried appropriately and with respect following the Battle of Helms Deep.

So it's not all black and white.

But yes, there is immense slaughter of Orcs and no, they are not described as being particularly skilled or respected fighters/opponents (despite them clearly being more advanced in warfare, having knowledge of ballistics and rudimentary bombs - although maybe this is portrayed as a 'bad thing' by Tolkien?).

Why? One reason is that as a writer creating huge epic battles Tolkien was inevitably going to have to write about lots of death, and death involving the enemy, and he was also going to have to justify that slaughter to his readers. Tolkien was not stupid, and he knew about war. He was in a war that became widely questioned on whether it was 'moral', he wrote LotR at the time when Dresden happened, when Hiroshima & Nagasaki happened. He knew his readers would inevitably question widespread slaughter. This may explain why his Orcs are so often protrayed as one-dimensional characters, mere evil beings with a blood lust. They are almost like pantomime villains we can sit and go "Boo! Hiss!" at. In order to justify what he writes about, he has to make these Orcs seem as bad as is possible - thoroughly inhuman, even going beyond real life 'enemies' we have known in war and tyranny. That's why the Orcs are never given any 'respect' - it has to be that way or us modern readers wouldn't accept it.

Another reason is that Tolkien is writing about the heat of war. And this is not modern war. In modern war, under the Geneva convention, an army simply cannot do unspeakable things to the dead, the wounded, the captured (well, they do, but the media and the UN will have them over hot coals quite rightly). In older wars, torture and bloodthirsty slaughter was often the norm; I'm thinking here of the mythical zeal and fervour of renowned armies such as those of Boudicca or the viking raiders, for whom death would only be a reward (which brings to mind the attitude of the Rohirrim in battle) and who were able to enter into states of frenzy during battle. But even in modern times, armies don't sit there thinking of the enemy forces as being all cuddly! A certain amount of 'whipping up' is carried out, some propaganda, some team spirit about winning over this enemy. Maybe this is an inevitability as we are reading about one side only in this war of Tolkien's? We only see the enemy as they see them? Note that the instance where we hear the Orcs chatting in a friendly way is overheard by Frodo and Sam, well out of the heat of war; they have no reason to be whipped into an Orc-hating frenzy.