Quote:
Originally Posted by Lalwendë
People are easily persuaded. From reading how these characters accept their fate stoically, how some even hasten it, it's easy to see how just from the correct application of education a person can be made to accept almost anything. Rather than exploring the wilder edges of such 'science' as was available to him, maybe Morgoth simply raised his Orcs to think in a certain way?
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The "Cult" of Morgoth, of Melkor as a divinity to be worshipped, was something Tolkien toyed with throughout the Silmarillion and beyond. It was ressurrected by Sauron in Numenor, and then Tolkien attempted to revive it in his aborted 4th Age tale. Considering Morgoth's "Ring" was Arda itself, perhaps he exercised his malign influence over the Orcs from the...ummm...ground up, a sort of combination of John Locke's
Tabula Rasa, Pavlovian psychology and Mendelian crossbreeding. The admixture was then heavily dosed with religious fervor (after all, religious fanaticism is the incubator for atrocity), for it certainly seemed that vain Morgoth, like any despotic demagogue, relished the worshipfulness of his subjects. The Orcs, therefore, had no chance or inclination to be anything but what they were, given both the societal pressure and mores (if Orcs could be said to have mores), and monstrous influence of divine Morgoth exerting immense pressure through his Ring (ie., Arda).
Interestingly, Sauron was not able to exert the same power over Orcs with his Ring. There is the instance of Shagrat and Gorbag speaking what amounts to heresy against their superiors, and planning their own little soiree without Sauron's control; also, the orcs of Moria had a history of crowning their own king (Azog and Bolg), which seems to be contrary to Orcs being bound directly to the Dark Lord. They even managed their own wars without the seeming direct influence of Saurons (Orcs and Dwarves, and the Battle of Five Armies). Perhaps this was due to Gundabad and Moria being further from Mordor, and the power exerted by Sauron's Ring grew less over considerable distance (unlike Morgoth, whose power corrupted the very earth).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lalwendë
As Tolkien says, there are Orcs around even today, people who have not necessarily been raised in the right way (or who have been raised in the wrong way, seeing as there may not be a 'right' way but there are certainly 'wrong' ways). Or maybe it's going too far to say Orcs were more a state of mind in Middle-earth  However, rather than thinking of Orcs as naturally 'bad to the bone', it is actually more frightening to think of them as having been raised to be blood thirsty and vicious, brought up in a culture which demanded that of them. It makes them a more satisfying enemy than mere 'McEeeevil' stereotypes, to see them as humanity's dark side. |
Well, there are 'real history' examples of this type of brutal behavior being at least attempted to be bred into a society, and what must be remembered is that in both the cases of Morgoth and Sauron we are speaking in terms of immortals who could carry out such breeding programs over millenia (unlike the abbreviated attempts of Man, which only last a relatively short time). Give Hitler a few thousand years to develop a blonde, blue-eyed master race, and the results would be horrifying.