|
At the same time orcs are inhabitants of Faerie, they are not human & so we can't attribute human moral values to them. They are what they are. I think Tolkien made a major mistake when he attempted to 'explain' their nature. In TH & LotR they simply behave like we'd expect Orcs to behave.
Obviously there is a difference between the Orcs of LotR & the Sil & the Goblins of TH - & the Father Christmas Letters come to that. In the latter two works we are dealing with Faerie creatures, wicked by nature because that's what Goblins are like in Faerie.
Of course, we have to keep in mind that both TH & FCL we're written for Tolkien's children at a very difficult time - the world was a very unstable place, & during the latter years in which the FCL were being written WWII was in full swing & there are constant references to the war (Tolkien as Father Christmas mentions on a couple of occasions that there are some children who have no homes or much food, so that is why the Tolkien children cannot expect to get all the presents they have asked him for, & tells of how Goblin attacks have destroyed or depleted the toys his Elves had made - or stolen them, & that's why the children will not get what they asked for (apparently the Tolkien boys had a great liking for Hornby train sets, but these were favourites of the Goblins too!)).
Anyway, all this to say that Tolkien's children's stories, & the beings they depict, are simple & straightforward, & deep moral questions & ethical dilemmas are out of place in them. There are good people & bad people, & those two works in particular are in part attempts to give a 'mythological' mirror of the real world his children were having to live in.
As to the Orcs in LotR & The Sil, these are still basically malicious & cruel creatures out of Faerie, but they also take on an aspect of the demons of Christianity. Demons are fallen angels, but once fallen they are irredemable (it seems all the Good' in them was left in Heaven when they fell).
This was clearly Tolkien's problem. As Middle-earth moved further & further away from its Faerie origins, its inhabitants became effectively more 'human' in a moral sense (or an immoral one). Tolkien has to account for the Orcs. They can either be 'robots' with no capacity for moral choices, or they can be sentient beings who simply, & always, choose evil.
I'm not sure that Tolkien made a wise decision when he set out to 'explain' the Orcs - simply, they can't be explained. Goblins (& Elves & Dwarves - & Men too, for that matter) were around long before Tolkien (& are still around after him). Some things just are - they have a nature that cannot be explained, & that applies particularly to the inhabitants of Faerie.
No individual human being is an Orc, but at the same time 'Orcishness' is an aspect of the Human which has always been there & probably always will be. Hence the 'Long Defeat' - one battle to be fought after another forever (or for as long as Humans are around). Because there's an Orc in all of us - but then again there's also an Elf (& a Hobbit) in all of us as well, & that's why we keep on fighting, because we know deep down that 'they cannot conquer forever'.
|