The Moral Universe of Middle-earth

[Voronwë the Faithful]

vison, to be honest, I believe that the Orcs can only be understood in the context of Tolkien's overall cosmology. As I said in the Orc tangent of the Bombadil thread at b77, I see the Orcs as the ultimate reflection of the Marring of Arda. They are incarnate beings that are almost entirely manifestations of the "being" of Melkor that he allowed to pass into the physical constituents of the Earth.

One way that Tolkien considered dealing with the "Orc problem" was to eliminate them having souls altogether. From the "Myths Transformed" section of Morgoth's Ring:

In summary: I think it must be assumed that 'talking is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a 'rational soul' or fëa. The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men and Elves) deliberately perverted/converted into a more close resemblance to Men. Their 'talking' was really reeling off 'records' set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical words -- he knew about them. Melkor taught them speech and as they bred they inherited this; and they had just as much independence as have, say, dogs or horse of their human masters. This talking was largely echoic (cf. parrots). In The Lord of the Rings Sauron is said to have devised a language for them.

The same sort of thing may be said of Huan and the Eagles: they were taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level but they still had no fëar.

Yes, it is true that one does not find such soulless creatures in man-like form in the real world. But it is equally true that one does not find immortal man-like creatures of great beauty and wisdom in the real world either.

[vison]

Thank you, Voronwë. But you and are twain on this subject. It doesn't really matter, you know. I love LOTR despite what I think of as a few flaws. No work is perfect! It is closer to perfect than nearly anything else I ever read, particularly something so long and involved and detailed.

If it hadn't been for those two Orcs in Mordor, who sounded like a couple of sly Tommies in World War One......

And the business of Saruman supposedly "blending the races of men and Orcs"......

Anyway. A minor detail, relatively speaking, and one I can quite easily overlook. Most of the time.

Then, of course, there is Gollum.

[Sassafras]

Tolkien's views on what Orcs were exactly changes throughout his myth. My final opinion is that the Orcs are not sentient - they are animated by the spirit of Morgoth, and their own disloyalty and infighting is simply a result of Morgoth's own chaotic and destructive nature. I can't prove that, though.

And yet, Orcs know fear.

For a moment the orc crouched, and then with a hideous yelp of fear, it turned and fled back as it had come.

Orcs know apprehension.

Gorbag, Grr! Those Nazgûl gives me the creeps. And they skin the body off you soon as look at you, and leave you all cold and dark on the other side.

The other side? Death, perhaps?

Can a non-sentient creature, a puppet, fear a future pain or death if it has no ability to reason? If they fear death then it stands to reason that they have some degree of understanding, no matter how dim or unformed, of life. They know they are alive.

The conundrum is not solved (for me) by Tolkien's later explanation that Orcs were beasts whose talking was largely echoic. Parrots is the example used ... but then it's obvious Tolkien didn't know much about parrots ...

I think I disagree with V. on his supposition that Orcs are the ultimate reflection of the Arda Marred. They would be if they had no volition.
If they truly were mindless automatons bred only for wars against the other, redeemable, peoples of Middle Earth (which includes the Easterlings and the Southrons who fight for Sauron) then they could be considered mechanized evil ... but they do think, and they do fear and they do dread the possibility of being given into the hands of the Nazgûl.

The problem is, as someone has pointed out, is that Tolkien didn't give much thought to the problem of Orcs while he was writing LOTR ... or to the problems caused by so much fate within a free will morality.
But then I don't suppose he expected people like us, and those to wrote to him questioning his books, to dissect his work page by page and line by line.

So, it lies within each of us, I suppose, to make sense of the contradictions.

When all is said and done, his mythos is rather untidy.
Wondrous fair and awe-inspiring, but untidy nontheless.

[Túrin Turambar]

vison, to be honest, I believe that the Orcs can only be understood in the context of Tolkien's overall cosmology. As I said in the Orc tangent of the Bombadil thread at b77, I see the Orcs as the ultimate reflection of the Marring of Arda. They are incarnate beings that are almost entirely manifestations of the "being" of Melkor that he allowed to pass into the physical constituents of the Earth.

I agree entirely – I see them as being a fundamental part of Morgoth’s Ring.

Can a non-sentient creature, a puppet, fear a future pain or death if it has no ability to reason? If they fear death then it stands to reason that they have some degree of understanding, no matter how dim or unformed, of life. They know they are alive.

I never said Orcs are not rational creatures, only that they are not sentient in a moral sense (ie: possessive of a soul and therefore the ability to choose to do good or evil). From Home X: “I think it must be assumed that 'talking' is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a 'rational soul' or fëa.”

By the way, I did have a look at all these Orcsy questions in the TORC Books forum.

Edit: Good Lord, where did I find the time to write that.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Good lord, Lord M, that's an impressive post.

[Sassafras]

Wonderful post. Lord M.

Must have taken ages to research and write.



not saying I agree with your conclusion, mind.

[Túrin Turambar]

Bump to bring to your attention a discussion which has broken out in the Harry Potter thread over at TORC. If you go link and the go about halfway down the page to MithLuin's post, a discussion begins on the themes of Tolkien's writings and his moral worldview, especially with regards to authority and power.

Note the difference of opinion between TheWagner, Mith and myself.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

One of the most morally ambiguous aspects of Tolkien's Middle-earth is the conduct of the wood-elves in The Hobbit. I'm thinking particularly of their appearing and disappearing in the forest, while the dwarves and Bilbo are starving. This action seems downright cruel to me. Yes, they considered the dwarves ancient foes, and interlopers, but treating them this way has always struck me as just plain wrong. Yes I know that these are the lesser elves that had never seen the light of Aman, but they are still supposed to be Good People. What point is Tolkien making here - if any - by having the wood-elves act in this manner?

Edit: Lord M, interesting discussion you linked to at TORC. I doubt that you would be surprised to learn that I am far more inclined to agree with you and Mith, than with T_W.

[axordil]

The Nandor and their ilk weren't exactly real welcoming to strangers in the Silmarillion, either, if memory serves. Was JRRT making an Essentialist argument here, that to be an elf is to be good, even if xenophobic?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Nandor and their ilk weren't exactly real welcoming to strangers in the Silmarillion, either, if memory serves.

True, but they didn't torment them in the way that the Mirkwood Elves did to the dwarves and Bilbo.

Of course, the trickster is a common motif in many mythological traditions. I wonder if Tolkien was referencing that?

[Alatar]

I've always felt (and have said so probably too frequently) that the links between The Hobbit and The Silmarillion are tenuous at best. I know that LotR was intended as a sequel to The Hobbit that veered towards the Sil, bridging between those two works, but its so obviously an "after the fact" reconciliation. Without LotR to bridge the Gap, nobody would ever believe that The Hobbit and The Silmarillion were in the same world.

The Hobbit is full of whimsy, and the elves of fairytale. Pranksters who live in the woods and carry people off to their feasting halls underground, only to re-emerge finding that time has run on without them. There's suggestions of the fluid time in both Rivendell and Lothlórien, but the Elves (with a capital E) of LotR are not the elves of The Hobbit. Yes, I know there are ways to rationalise the differences, like taking The Hobbit as written from Bilbo's perspective, but they are all fudges. In essence, the world of the Hobbit has talking purses, cockney Trolls, stone throwing giants who come out to play in the lightning, comedy goblins who sing "Down, down to Goblin Town", shape changing bears and animals who serve dinner while walking on their hind legs with serving trays, tra-la-la-lallying elves, talking thrushes and fire breathing dragons. This is the stuff of childrens fairytales.

The Silmarillion is a different beast altogether. Its an attempt to create an origin from which the fairy tales of present day might have developed. There are dragons, yes, but they are more sinister and deep. One could never imagine Glaurung leaning back to show Túrin his magnificent waistcoat of Jewels. There are Elves who live in woods, or underground, but they are proud and dangerous. Depending on how old the source is, at times it drifts more into fairy and at other times more gritty. We've all discussed the varying levels of success Tolkien had in his endeavour, and there's certainly no question that when we got it right it was awesome. Of course, there's plenty of times when he didn't quite hit the mark, but we forgive him that for the sheer breadth of his accomplishment.

The problem begins when we try to tie together things that were never meant to be. Tolkien himself struggled to provide compelling links between the works, even going so far as to rewrite an already published work.The patchwork he created is impressive as a large patchwork quilt (to use an analogy) but it doesn't bear to look too closely at the stitching.

[Sassafras]

What Alatar said.

But then, I don't much care for The Hobbit .... it (obviously) lacks the gravitas of the other works .... it's a children's fairy story ... more akin to the fantasy world of Hans Christian Anderson than the mythos of Arda.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Al (and Sass) I agree with you to a large extent. I would have agreed with you to a greater extent before I started reading The. History of The Hobbit. Rateliff shows that from the very beginning, the world of The Hobbit was very much intended to be the world of the Silmarillion. Indeed, this is made more explicit in the first drafts than in the published text. The main difference is the intended audience. The early Silmarillion texts were written, so far as I can tell, with no other audience in mind but Tolkien himself. The Hobbit, on the other hand, was explicitly written for Tolkien three sons. Despite the juvenile tone (which Tolkien later came to regret), it is remarkable how many connection there actually are to the early work on the mythology, and even more how much of the motifs of this "children's book" are taken from Tolkien's extensive knowledge of ancient mythology. I would even go so far as to say more than any of his other works on Middle-earth.

[axordil]

Certainly the behavior of the Mirkwood elves in TH is closer to that of the trooping faeries of British legend than the behavior of elves anywhere else in JRRT's work. Beorn has echoes of both the forebearers of Scandinavian bearsarks (thinking of shapechangers in Egils Saga here particularly) and Celtic skinschangers such as selkies.

It seems to me that in TH JRRT was looking at his work and ideas through the familiar lens of European folklore, a position he reversed in LOTR. That's where the discrepancy in tone lies for me, although I think it's closely tied to the level of diction chosen by him for each.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ax, I think you would enjoy The History of the Hobbit. Perhaps more than much of HoME.

[axordil]

I might. Is it available for the Kindle reader? I'm gonna try to get one of those for Xmas, since I can't make more room for books.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I would answer that if I knew what a Kindle reader was. It is a major release from Houghton Mifflin (as opposed to some small university press) so I suspect so. Rateliff focuses much more on source materials that Tolkien drew upon then Christopher Tolkien does in HoME, which is why I think you would enjoy it. Sometimes he goes a bit overboard, but mostly it is very interesting. I found the 12 pages that he manages to write about Radagast quite interesting. However, the six-page discussion about The Carrock was too much for me.

[axordil]

The Kindle

That's enough of a digression. Carry on.

[N.E. Brigand]

One of the most morally ambiguous aspects of Tolkien's Middle-earth is the conduct of the wood-elves in The Hobbit. I'm thinking particularly of their appearing and disappearing in the forest, while the dwarves and Bilbo are starving. This action seems downright cruel to me. Yes, they considered the dwarves ancient foes, and interlopers, but treating them this way has always struck me as just plain wrong. Yes I know that these are the lesser elves that had never seen the light of Aman, but they are still supposed to be Good People. What point is Tolkien making here - if any - by having the wood-elves act in this manner?

What a fascinating thread, not to mention the two that inspired it. I've only skimmed, and couldn't hope to comment intelligently at this time on the larger flow of this mighty discussion.

But on this particular point, I wonder: are the wood-elves cruel in this beahvior? Or are they "a bit above [our] likes and dislikes", in part because Elves "have other business", to pull two quotes from LotR? The elves know nothing of the dwarves' business or condition in The Hobbit when they pull their repeated disappearing acts -- all of which take place in the same evening, as I recall. They know only that intruding dwarves keep disturbing their woodland feasts.

[solicitr]

Remember that The Hobbit was a much earlier (and less thought-through) book than the LR: it's contemporary, roughly, with the Quenta Noldorinwa and the First Annals. Despite the echoes of Menegroth, I expect Tolkien thought of the Wood-elves as Avari (actually, "Ilkorin" was still a pretty undivided term), and the early Ilkorins did have a lot of the eeriness and tricksiness of European fay-folk. Indeed, when Tolkien wrtote the Lórien chapters a decade later, the Elves of Lórien were still Avari, which explains some of their aloofness (and treatment of Gimli). Even in the developed Silmarillion, the Green-elves were 'unfriends' to the incoming Edain!

(It's unclear IIRC whether T had yet decided to make Legolas a Sinda. His green and brown clothing may be an echo of 'the brown elves and the green', the proto-Laiquendi.)