Episode 6 (Spoilers)

[Eldy]

Cross-post with your latest [fake edit: with your last two posts, now].

To me it is pretty clear, particularly if you disregard the "Orcs as beasts" comment in MT that we both don't like, that the Orcs were Elves, Men and/or Maiar that Morgoth has twisted to his evil purpose. The question is whether they are completely unredeemably evil -- as I have argued in the past -- or more victims of Morgoth's evil but still redeemable souls. I am moving towards the latter belief.

I think Tolkien, at least in Myths Transformed, very much wanted to view Orcs as irredeemable beings with no real souls, to borrow your description. However, if one acknowledges Orcs as sentient, there's really no way out of the corner he wrote himself into. Tolkien did not think Eru would provide fëar for a race of slave soldiers bound in service to the Devil (HoMe X, p. 410), but once the notion that evil could not create became part of the legendarium, Eru must have been involved in the creation of any sentient beings. "It is not possible to contemplate [Melkor's] absolute perversion of a whole people, or group of peoples, and his making that state hereditable. This latter must (if a fact) be an act of Eru." However, "Eru would not sanction the work of Melkor so as to allow the independence of the Orcs ... unless Orcs were ultimately remediable, or could be amended and 'saved' " (p. 409; emphasis in the original).

This dilemma clearly bothered Tolkien, but it only presents problems if you're invested in the concept of Eru being omnibenevolent, like the Christian God he's based on. I'm not, and in fact I think one can easily point to a number of cases of Eru acting in decidedly non-benevolent ways, so unlike Tolkien, I have no motivation to try to absolve Him of responsibility for the plight of Orcs. The other big objection, as mentioned upthread by Smaug's voice, is that the Orcs being redeemable would cast the Eldar, Edain, and their allies in a bad light, since they tended to treat Orcs as vermin to be exterminated. But Orcs are merely the most horrifying example of the Eldar and the Edain mistreating other sentient beings, not the sole instance: the aforementioned Petty-dwarves and the coastal peoples of the Minhiriath also demand attention.* So on this point, too, I don't think Orkish personhood breaks any essential concepts of the legendarium. I'm actually more bothered by the concept of beings capable of the autonomy displayed by Orcs in LOTR who are constitutionally incapable of making good choices.


* Ditto Tolkien's comment that the Eldar sometimes tortured Orcs and massacred ones who surrendered and asked for mercy, although this was contrary to Eldarin moral teachings (HoMe X, p. 419).

[elengil]

Wading back in with another observation made (not by me)

Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age, there is a sentence about the War of the Last Alliance:

All living things were divided in that day, and some of every kind, even of beasts and birds, were found in either host, save the Elves only. They alone were undivided and followed Gil-galad.

All living things except Elves. This means there were Orcs fighting for the good side!

[Eldy]

I love it!

One of my favorite tidbits in NoMe is the Eastern Orcs who achieved independence during Melkor's captivity in Aman, never fell back under his sway for the rest of the First Age, and remained independent of Sauron in the Second, "despising" and "laughing" at him for playing buddy-buddy with the Elves in Eregion and then doing a 180 and trying to recruit armies of Orcs for his war with the Elves (p. 370). I should try to find out if anyone's written fic about that.

[Smaug's voice]

At the end of the day, Tolkien depicted Orcs as having individual wills and preferences, and the fact that they are violent and sadistic no more implies that they are inherently evil than the existence of violent and sadistic humans implies the same about us. It should be noted that we only ever see Orkish soldiers at war, most of them serving Dark Lords who routinely brutalize them, and fighting enemies who think nothing of slaughtering Orcs like animals. It shouldn't be a surprise that armies in such an environment do horrible things! While Tolkien's character's never considered the possibility of Orkish redemption, Tolkien did not write his characters as omniscient or always right about the world they lived in (see also: the Sindarin genocide of the Petty-dwarves). If we set aside our preconceptions, I don't think there's anything in the firsthand depictions of Orcs in LOTR to suggest that it would be impossible for an Orc child, if raised away from negative influences, to grow up to be a decent person.

Thank you for the thoughtful response.
I think the point of contention is that in all of Tolkien's legendarium including his own notes and letters, unlike Men or Elves there's not a single mention of an Orc having a positive, benevolent attribute let alone having a positive Orc character. Yes Tolkien never probably went out of his way to call Orcs to be completely, irredeemably evil but for someone who put so much detail and time into adding the most minute details to mythmaking it feels like a stretch to equate the evil of Orcs with that of Men because as we know time and again Tolkien wrote so much of the corruption of Men and of the few families in the Elder Days who fought against it. Orcish culture in general seems to be written in such a way that makes it impossible for good Orcs, if any, to survive.


Also, I think "clear individuals with their own personalities and preferences" is something that *could* be applied to Dragons as well - Smaug and Glaurung are both very different personalities and have little vices and characteristics that are far from mindless beasts bending to the will of their masters and indicate personhood. Does it imply that there's a chance that they're not irredeemably evil either?

[Eldy]

Thank you for a thoughtful reply in turn!

Much of what you say I don't necessarily disagree with, I just approach the topic from a different angle. Tolkien did not write about good Orcs, and in some parts of Myths Transformed he tried (and failed) to construct arguments for why good Orcs couldn't be a thing, but I think the possibility of Orkish redemption is nonetheless a logically inevitable consequence of the stories he wrote. I tend to approach the legendarium from a, for lack of a better term, "heretical" viewpoint, so I'm happy to take ideas like this and run with them, but I certainly don't claim Tolkien himself would have done so.

Also, I think "clear individuals with their own personalities and preferences" is something that *could* be applied to Dragons as well - Smaug and Glaurung are both very different personalities and have little vices and characteristics that are far from mindless beasts bending to the will of their masters and indicate personhood. Does it imply that there's a chance that they're not irredeemably evil either?

Of course. Why would it not?

[elengil]

One aspect of Tolkien's writing I've truly come to appreciate later is that it is never stated to be some kind of true accounting of events or history - it's a translation of a translation of a copy of a translation of a copy of a translation of a history written within the context of the story itself - that makes it not only not objective truth, it means it is written with very much a POV bias.

Why are all Orcs written as evil? Because it was the Elves and Men writing the histories. If the Orcs had written them, maybe it would be Elves and Men who were irredeemably evil, waging ceaseless war on them.

I really think this is very much an overlooked feature of Tolkien's intent - it was never meant to be a true account, it was meant to be a history as recorded by Pengolodh.

Consider this passage at the end of the Silmarillion:

Of the march of the host of the Valar to the north of Middle-earth little is said in any tale; for among them went none of those Elves who had dwelt and suffered in the Hither Lands, and who made the histories of those days that still are known; and tidings of these things they only learned long afterwards from their kinsfolk in Aman.

"Look, the person writing this book didn't go, and this is the best they could do."

There is little doubt that the narrative is written with bias, there is only a question of exactly how that bias shaped the narrative. Even the Silm does not give a definitive source of Orcs, only a "the wise say" account, or "it is said" statements. None of which are being declared as true, only what is believed. I think that leaves both Tolkien himself as well as the reader with a bit of wiggle room in terms of the truth of it.

[Inanna]

I’ve never thought of the dragons as evil. Huh.

[Smaug's voice]

I think the possibility of Orkish redemption is nonetheless a logically inevitable consequence of the stories he wrote. I tend to approach the legendarium from a, for lack of a better term, "heretical" viewpoint.

You just made me consider a new and unorthodox way to approach these texts. Not sure I fully ride along but it's certainly a fresh way to see things!

Of course. Why would it not?

I'm all in fighting for Dragons' Voices



@elengil - That is true, and I had almost forgotten before my recent reread how The Silmarillion is pretty much supposed to be told by Bilbo. I have a feeling that the idea of Orcs being a nameless, faceless horde of all encompassing evil was driven home further by PJ's films where unlike the books, the story seems to be shown from a more objective point of view.

[Alatar]

One of my favourite easter Eggs in the "Shadow of Mordor" Video Game

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thank you for a thoughtful reply in turn!

Much of what you say I don't necessarily disagree with, I just approach the topic from a different angle. Tolkien did not write about good Orcs, and in some parts of Myths Transformed he tried (and failed) to construct arguments for why good Orcs couldn't be a thing, but I think the possibility of Orkish redemption is nonetheless a logically inevitable consequence of the stories he wrote. I tend to approach the legendarium from a, for lack of a better term, "heretical" viewpoint, so I'm happy to take ideas like this and run with them, but I certainly don't claim Tolkien himself would have done so.

Also, I think "clear individuals with their own personalities and preferences" is something that *could* be applied to Dragons as well - Smaug and Glaurung are both very different personalities and have little vices and characteristics that are far from mindless beasts bending to the will of their masters and indicate personhood. Does it imply that there's a chance that they're not irredeemably evil either?

Of course. Why would it not?

Interesting article that I came across today that seems to conveniently slot here (though perhaps elengil's thread in the Red Book forum might have been as good a place to place it).

Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien's Inhuman Creatures

[Eldy]

That was an excellent read! Can't believe I haven't seen it before in the 12 years since it was published.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I had not seen it before either. I came across it because the author, Robert Tally, Jr., has a review in the latest issue of MythLore of the book Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth by Robert Stuart and in it he cites his 12 year old paper. Interestingly, I just had read another review of the same book by Dimitra Fimi at the Journal of Tolkien Research earlier today.

For the sake of completeness, here are the two reviews of the book (both of which are less than fully enthusiastic about the book, particularly Dimitra's).

Review by Tally at MythLore

Review by Fimi at JoTR

[Inanna]

Relatedly - I was explaining the main themes of RoP to my friend. She doesn’t even remember the LOTR movies and has not read any of the books. And when I described orcs as evil, she said “really? That guy (Adar) seemed okay.”