Quote:
Originally Posted by mormegil
I just revisited this old thread and I think two questions need to be answered in order to come to a satisfactory conclusion.
1. Do orcs have a will of their own?
2. Is there an ultimate morality?
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I would think the answer to the first question depends a great deal on whether the One Ring and Sauron have been destroyed. In the battle before the Black Gate just before the ring was destroyed, the orcs and many other similar species were intensely determined to kill. When Frodo put on the ring and Sauron bent his will on getting the Nazgul to Mount Doom ASAP, Sauron's other servants were as marionettes with their strings cut.
One might propose that Morgoth created them as marionettes, as being subject to his will. Sauron later used them in the same way. Thus, a policy by any of the free peoples to kill on sight in self defense could be considered quite reasonable during the First, Second and Third ages. With the destruction of the Ring, you almost have to sit down and ask the first question all over again.
And if you ask the first question again, one might have to take a good hard look at the second question.
One might also want to consider the difference between Tolkien's time and our own. In World War II and before, it was quite traditional to demonize the enemy. The hun, the nazi or the nips were presented in government propaganda and Hollywood film as subhuman beings, killers and lacking morals. In short, ordinary people in western countries saw fellow human beings as if they were orcs. Fiction commonly portrayed characters as wearing black hats or white, as pure heroes or vile villains.
In following the pattern where pure heroes save innocent damsels from vile evil, Tolkien was following the fiction convention of his day. Modern fiction might often have more complex and shaded characters, with flawed heroes, selfish manipulative damsels and sympathetic villains with believable motivations. In many ways modern fiction might be more realistic and complex than the old 1950s stuff. One might have to be careful, when asking the two questions above, how appropriate it is to judge fiction written in one era by the standards of a significantly later era.
Years ago, when I was running a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, I created a term 'sentient vermin.' It was acknowledged that there were some species and races that were self aware and had free will that none the less might be killed on sight without penalty under law.
I would suggest that Orcs under the sway of Morgoth and Sauron effectively lacked free will and might reasonably be treated as sentient vermin. During the Fourth Age Aragorn was able to negotiate borders with them and peacefully coexist. While not a lot was written about the Fourth Age, it would seem improper to treat them as sentient vermin after the destruction of the Ring.