One of my absolute favorite quotes from Tolkien is this one from The Two Towers, where Tolkien gives his opinion on men fighting against men.
"It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would rather have stayed there in peace."
This is a line written by a veteran of the great war, the first world war, where you can so obviously tell that this is something he must have thought many a time in in the war, when he and his countrymen were fighting against the "Evil Huns" that Great Britain portrayed the German Empire.
But the fact is, that unlike World War Two, there was no big, evil against good in this conflict, at least not on the western front. It was a war between a bunch of very similar empires sending off an entire generation of young men to die for their imperial ambitions.
As Tolkien himself said "We Were All Orcs In The Great War", talking about how each of the sides invovled dehumanized each other to the point where their soldiers were encouraged to think of the other as pretty much non human scum, despite the fact that all the men involved had so many similarities, so many shared roots, and above everything else, a shared humanity.
It's one of the reasons why Tolkien in his own writing refuses to write the human wars as completely good or evil.
The men of Haradrim and Khand serves Sauron yes, but they are brave and valient men unlike the orcs, and as Tolkien himself put it, Aragorn's conflicts later in life with their post-Sauron leadership was a conflict between men, not a fight between the forces of good and evil the way war of the ring was.
They were not fundamentally different than say, the Rohirrim, or the men from Bree, or Erebor or even Gondor. Just men who had the misfortune of having to march to battle under Threat of force, or led astray by lies.
Similar story with the Rohirrim's conflict with the Dunlendings.
Tolkien made a point that whichever side had wronged one the most, and though the characters for obvious reasons side with the Rohirrim, the Dunlendings who invaded alongside Saruman's forces were not evil men who deserved to be cut down or crippled at the end, but men led astray with lies and threats, and an appeal to a greater cause, just like he was once upon a time to defend the empire he was born into.
Instead he emphasized the the virtue of Mercy when dealing with surrendering troops, as the Rohirrim ultimately spares the surrendering Dunlending army, and in the end let's them return home alive and disarmed.
Human sides of Tolkien's work are rarely portrayed as completely good, or completely evil when in confrontation with each other, only when put against Sauron.
Even Numenor, at it's worst stage of colonialism was not completely evil before the coming of Sauron, and on the other side of the coin, when you look at their history, it is very, very clear why Harad hates them to this day(In the days of old they were captured as slaves, and later used as human sacrifice).
The previous war between Dunland and Rohan was caused when Helm Hammerhand responded to an insult from the Dunlending leader who came as an envoy in his own home, and struck him so hard in the gut he died from it, breaking all the laws of guest and host to do so.
Their original conflict was caused by 3 sides, as the Dunlendings had moved into an area(Modern rohan) that belonged to Gondor against the Gondorians wishes, who then decided to give that land to the Rohirrim instead, failing to mention that someone currently lived there(Illegally or not), which in turn made the Rohirrim regard them as little more than brigands and thieves, occupying what they saw as Gondors(Now their land) lands.
It was an incredibly cynical power move from Gondor's steward, where he used his newfound allies to get rid of what he saw as a direct thorn in his sides, playing on the Rohirrim's trust in him and his people as the obvious "Good guys" they had just aided in war, to pit them against an entire people they had no history or quarrel with, and in turn have the Horselords drive them west out out into Eriador.
Which in turn caused a massive hate in the Dunlendings against the Rohirrim as foreign invaders, and a disdain to form in the Rohirrim against the Dunlendings as thieves and brigands.
When as two towers showed, they were both composed of human beings, worthy of mercy and compassion.
Just like all humans are.
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