The Truth of the Uruk-hai

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Galin

Treebeard being a character in the tale indeed wonders here -- he questions what is going on but he doesn't know what Saruman has really done. He has guessed right in that Saruman has bred Orcs and Men, though the result need not be the Uruk-hai however.

and

Originally Posted by Galin

I disagree it is clear however. Some (or many) may think so, but Treebeard has no way of knowing what Saruman has done, and what he is wondering about can easily be 'half-orcs' instead of Uruk-hai or 'Orc-folk'. Or if he saw any of the Uruk-hai, he would not know why they did not seem to mind the Sun.

Treebeard had personal experience with seeing Orcs of Isengard coming into the forest and cutting, burning, we all know the stuff, burarum. And because of what he says, as I quoted earlier: "...[Saruman] has been doing something to [the Orcs]; something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men..."; it's clear that Treebeard must have seen at least some of the Uruk-hai. And if he did, then this implies that nothing like that has ever existed before in Middle-Earth, not even in Mordor, so these Uruk-hai are Saruman's speciality. The only thing you could argue about is whether the "Orcs" that Treebeard saw were not the "goblin-faces", but I'd presume that for someone like Treebeard with his long lists and ages of knowledge, he'd speak more clearly of "wicked Men" and not "man-like Orcs", had he seen these "goblin-faces". Therefore I think what he was referring to were the Uruk-hai like Uglúk was.