Were all orcs evil?

[Sassafras]

As I have discussed before, one of the key concepts discussed in the commentary and notes that follow the Athrabeth is the idea that "the separation of fëa and hröa is 'unnatural', and proceeds not from the original design but from the 'Marring of Arda', which is due to the operations of Melkor." It is from this concept that I derive my answer to the dilemma.

So you are suggesting that Melkor had the power to extract the fëa of both Elves and Men in order to re-make them as Orcs? Surely only Eru has the power to do that? He (Melkor) can corrupt, yes, and distort but I do not believe he has the divine power to essentially destroy the souls of the Two Children.

It solves the dilemma all right ... but I'm not sure I can accept it.

The fëa is indestructible, a unique indentity which cannot be disintergrated or absorbed into any other identity.

All of these (millions!) of separated fëa go ... where? The Halls of
Mandos? Outside of the circles of the world?
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More later when the Yankees/Sox game is over. It's a tie game. W00t!

[Athrabeth]

But then we come up against the problem that our heroes kill orcs without mercy. Mercy is granted after the destruction of the Ring to humans who fought for Sauron, but not to any orcs (if any survived Sauron's fall, which is another problem; beings with independent souls shouldn't die, magically, just because the boss dies).

To me, it doesn't seem that the orcs "die magically" after Barad-dûr falls.....although their fate does appear to be "sealed" (rather horribly):

As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron ran hither and thither mindless; and some slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope.

In this passage, it sure sounds like they have no wills of their own and "nothing to animate them once Melkor's proxy was destroyed" as Voronwë wrote. But that just doesn't seem to fit with the conversation between old Gorbag and Shagrat:

'What d'you say? - if we get a chance, you and me'll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there's good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.'

<snip>

'As I said, the Big Bosses, ay,' his voice sank almost to a whisper, 'ay, even the Biggest can make mistakes.'




Sounds like these two rotters have wills of their own.

What a muddle.

So you are suggesting that Melkor had the power to extract the fëa of both Elves and Men in order to re-make them as Orcs? Surely only Eru has the power to do that? He (Melkor) can corrupt, yes, and distort but I do not believe he has the divine power to essentially destroy the souls of the Two Children.

It solves the dilemma all right ... but I'm not sure I can accept it.

Me neither.

[Primula Baggins]

I see that I read Voronwë's post differently.

I didn't see it as every Orc being the actual former body of a Man or Elf; they are described as looking very different, for one thing.

I saw it as Melkor obtaining some disused bodies and somehow giving them a soulless animation, which allowed him to (ewww, ewww) breed them, producing soulless offspring. He could have had millions of Orcs in time, from only a few original . . . subjects.

Ewww.

[axordil]

The underlying problem here is that good stories and good theology don't always mix.

I can see a point in the machinations of Melkor when Eru simply stopped imbuing what was coming out of the tank, so to speak, with souls. The genesis of the orcish race isn't so much an issue for me as their portrayal, which I still strongly believe demonstrates conscious thought. The orcs at the Black Gate and others under Sauron's direct sway may have lost their will when he was dissipated, but what of the semi-autonomous ones in Moria? Or the northern Misty Mountains? They had existed and even thrived when Sauron was at his previous nadir, at the start of the Third Age.

I think JRRT just screwed up and desparately sought a way of backfilling when he figured it out. Like other storytellers since Homer, it happens. I don't hold the screwup against him, but the backfilling irks me.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, Prim has it right. Well almost, anyway. I am saying that Melkor got his hands on some life Elves (and maybe later Men) and managed to separate their bodies from their souls and animated those few with his own malicious will. Then from that original stock, he was able to breed the millions of Orcs that followed. As Prim said, Ewww.

So you are suggesting that Melkor had the power to extract the fëa of both Elves and Men in order to re-make them as Orcs? Surely only Eru has the power to do that? He (Melkor) can corrupt, yes, and distort but I do not believe he has the divine power to essentially destroy the souls of the Two Children.

I'm not suggesting it, Tolkien is saying it. That is a direct quote from the commentary to the Athrabeth that I quoted in which Tolkien states explicitly that Melkor causes the unnatural "separation of fëa and hröa" which was not part of the original design. As I stated in the Athrabeth thread (which statement no one responded to) "this demonstrates just how powerful Melkor was, suggesting as it does that Melkor truly did have the ability to alter Eru's original design."

Sass and Ath, that is what Tolkien said. If you don't like it, take it up with him, not with me.

Edited to add:

As for Shagrat and Gorbag's conversation, Tolkien wrote:

Their 'talking' was really reeling off 'records' set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical words -- he knew about them.

[axordil]

Then Tolkien was wrong.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well, that clears that up.

[Athrabeth]

I saw it as Melkor obtaining some disused bodies and somehow giving them a soulless animation, which allowed him to (ewww, ewww) breed them, producing soulless offspring. He could have had millions of Orcs in time, from only a few original . . . subjects.

Yes, Prim has it right. Well almost, anyway. I am saying that Melkor got his hands on some life Elves (and maybe later Men) and managed to separate their bodies from their souls and animated those few with his own malicious will.

Okay.......I like Prim's repulsive theory more than Voronwë's grotesquely repulsive theory.

Ewwwwww!!!!!

As for Shagrat and Gorbag's conversation, Tolkien wrote:

Their 'talking' was really reeling off 'records' set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical words -- he knew about them.

What ax said.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Sassafras]

I read the quote.

I still don't agree. It can be interpreted in more than one way.

If it was that easy CT would have included it in the Sil and Tolkien need not have done so much backpedaling.

To say that the reason they would go to Mandos after death and be held in prison until the End was in order to prevent Morgoth or Sauron from re-animating the corpses is one hell of a stretch IMO.

Just sayin'

Oh, and what Ax said.


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[Voronwë the Faithful]

To say that the reason they would go to Mandos after death and be held in prison until the End was in order to prevent Morgoth or Sauron from re-animating the corpses is one hell of a stretch IMO.

I do mental yoga.

[Sassafras]

[Primula Baggins]

I think we all owe superwizard a big vote of thanks for starting us down this reeeealllly disgusting chain of conversation.

And a special award to Voronwë for digging that up. Ewww.

[Alatar]

As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron ran hither and thither mindless; and some slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope.



Sometimes I feel I'm reading a different book to everyone else. This really doesn't sound to me like the orcs are literally mindless. Mindless beings who have lost their will do not commit suicide, or fly wailing to hide. Beings who have lost their purpose do that. The orcs after the fall of Sauron have lost their driving force. But they are not automatons like the Dwarves that Aulë made, standing idle when his thought was elsewhere. They feel fear, they feel despair. Those are conscious emotions.

Am I alone in thinking this?

[superwizard]

I think we all owe superwizard a big vote of thanks for starting us down this reeeealllly disgusting chain of conversation.

Why thank you I'm touched.
V unlike most others I have to say I love your theory. When I started this thread I had one purpose in mind: How to explain the cruel killing of orcs without simply disregarding them as animals or beasts. V's theory accomplishes that quite well actually.
Many of you are saying that this was an attempt to fix a mess up from Tolkien and yes I must agree but please remember people it is his creation. If he wanted to add this theory you can't tell him he can't!!!

As for Saruman breeding Men and Orcs, I don't believe it for a second, and I don't believe that anywhere does it categorically say that he did so; it is only speculation. No, those "half-Orcs" were simply Orcs that Saruman through his dark arts was able to make appear more man-like but still had no fëar of their own.

If it is not explicitly mentioned it is heavily suggested V...[/b]

[vison]

No, Alatar, you are not alone.

I have always Loathed the Orcs: as literary constructs, not as icky monstrous beings. Tolkien would have been far better off to leave the bloody things out. They make no sense. They never did.

However, I ignore it all when I'm lost in the book. I skip over the Orcs.

The Orcs are never menacing or frightening unless they are "human-like", such as Shagrat and his chum: sounding like two nasty Tommies slinking off from the Front, stealing cigarettes, and looking for some vin du pays and a couple of . . . . Orcettes.

[Cerin]

Alatar, what Melkor must have done in making the Orcs doesn't seem that far off, to me, from what Aulë did in making the Dwarves, or from what Yavanna did in making the beasts.

The difference between Aulë's making of the Dwarves and Yavanna's making of the beasts, I think, is that her beasts were in the Song, so that they had life independent of her consciously animating them, because Ilúvatar gave being to all that was in the Song.

In the case of the Dwarves, they were a reflection solely of Aulë's own mind, so they had no life independent of Aulë's thought until Eru granted it to them.

Now it seems feasible to me that Melkor could have made creatures in the same way as Aulë and Yavanna did. However, not being part of the Song, they wouldn't have independent being.

The idea of Melkor having used at the first some de-fëa'd Elves to create the first Orcs would explain why the Orcs were able to function independently of him in the same way that the beasts were able to function independently of Yavanna (yet their nature reflecting her thought); that is, they had already been given physical being as part of the Song.

So Melkor could use these already animated beings as recepticles for his thought and evil intent. He is essentially stealing life to turn to is own ends, since he can't create it of himself.

So I think I agree with your observation, that when Melkor (or Sauron) dies, the Orcs have lost their driving force. The have no more purpose of being, absent the evil intent that Melkor had filled them with (which is no longer there). I don't think it's that far from 'mindless'.

[Alatar]

I see the thinking behind it, but I find it a stretch. I think of the Orcs as mutilated and twisted elves and men whose goodness was bred out of them long ago. If we were to take the route of the "animated body", then I would argue that while Melkor might have been capable of that, Sauron would certainly not. He was only a Maia, not one of the Ainur. Besides, Orcs multiplied and bred while Melkor was chained and while Sauron was in the guise of Annatar. It seems clear that they had a will of their own and that Tolkiens attempts to justify their annihilation were simply that. Justifications.

[Elflover]

I see orcs a little differently than anyone else has mentioned. Not that I'm necessarily right, I'm probably just weird.

Orcs are described first as originally Elves, twisted and mutilated by Morgoth. Later we see the Uruk-Hai being bred from men, but the idea is the same. They have they same origins as the other "children of Eru". I cannot reconcile this with them being inherently evil or having no souls.

We ask why orcs are used as "cannon fodder". I do not believe that view is "Eru-given", but a human and Elvish perspective on a race they do not fully understand. Humans and Elves may be in the wrong for killing orcs without mercy. This is not the same as saying orcs are inherently evil. The only reason we believe that is because we read the stories as told by men, Elves, and hobbits, and assume that this is the correct perspective.

What if the stories were told by orcs? An abused race, set up for evil from the beginning, yet we see that they do have some semblance of culture. They lived in small clans in different areas, just like other races. But unlike other races, they had been bred to live in the dark and shun sunlike. What grows in the darkness of deep caves that they could eat and drink? Nothing, which rules out their ability to farm or grow crops like other civilisations. This, combined with Morgoth's imbedding their genes with a tendency toward violence and mistrust of others (which surely he did) created a race of savages who relied on hunting, murder and cannibalism for survival.

Even if an orc was taken out of their own environment and put in another, they probably could not adapt entirely to a life of non-violence. I believe they were genetically altered by Morgoth. Imagine being one of the first Elves kidnapped by Morgoth at the beginning. You are taken into darkness where you spend ages (literally) in pain from torture, as well as watching your beautiful shape gradually become hideous and ugly from the Dark Lord's genetic experiments. This pain, anger, and eventually hatred becomes inherent to the nature of the orc and all of its descendants.

However, that still is not saying these changes are irreversable. If it was possible for Morgoth to do this damage, couldn't it have been possible for the other Valar to repair it? But since orcs do not have contact with other Valar (and those that did mercilessly killed them off instead), their possible redemption is never realized.

[Cerin]

If we were to take the route of the "animated body", then I would argue that while Melkor might have been capable of that, Sauron would certainly not.

I think the idea there is that this was only done in the very beginning, but that after that, these creatures were able to breed. So that only Melkor would have had to be able to achieve that dastardly separation of fëa from the body, that gave rise to the first of these creatures.