[Bill Ferny]

Legalos,

Tolkien also said that orcs were corrupted elves. Maybe its my training in philosophy and history, or maybe its my staunch anti-fundamentalism, but I do not take any statement as definitive at face value, nor do I accept any fact as a fact until it is thoroughly analyzed. A more engaging discussion would be an analysis of why Tolkien changed his mind. That’s what I mean by leaving the discussion open. Perhaps my example of Saint Augustine should read “the fact that he changed his mind latter in life, doesn’t make his former arguments any less valid.” I think Tolkien’s former arguments are valid points for discussion, just as I think the term “gnome” as used by Tolkien is a valid point for discussion.

WW,

Good points to bare in mind. I’m sorry, my reply was flippant. I liked Palan’s post because it was an argument that transcends dependence on origin. It probably in the end supports Tolkien’s later notion that orcs did not come from corrupted elves; if orcs were polar opposites of elves they could not have their origin from elves (and thus orcs would, of course, be mortal). However, an antithesis need not be a polar opposite. An antithesis can merely be something in opposition to; in this case orcs could be corrupted elves (and thus orcs could, of course, be immortal for the reason you state in your post). Maybe the solution lies somewhere in the middle.

The emphasis in Tolkien, especially in his late letters was that orcs did not come from Iluvatar, as Palan notes. At least I surmise as much from the fact that Tolkien changed his mind about the corruption of elves theme. It seems then, that he is building an opposite type antithesis. Based on this assumption (and I admit its a very speculative assumption) it seems logical to conclude that orcs were not immortal, because immortality would never have been granted to them by Iluvatar in the first place.