[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

I seem to remember something like this was suggested in Myths Transformed, or at least that's how I see the Great Goblin.

That's rather complicated. "Boldog" is the name of an orc in the "Lays of Beleriand". At this point it is pretty clearly a personal name.

Later, though, in "Morgoth's Ring", the Maia--Orc concept appears: first in some notes on Orc origin ("Myths Transformed" VIII) in which Tolkien is more-or-less "thinking aloud", trying out different possibilities to see if they work. At this point, at least as a sole origin, he seems to reject it, but then Maia-Orcs show up again in two more texts (IX and X), now as special, "greater" Orcs (rather than being their main source). In X, we find the following:

Those whose business it was to direct the Orcs often took Orkish shapes, though they were greater and more terrible. Thus it was that the histories speak of Great Ones or Orc-Captains who were not slain, and who reappeared in battle through years far longer than the span of the lives of Men. [footnote] Boldog, for instance, is a name that occurs many times in the course of the War. But it is possible that Boldog was not a personal name, and either a title, or else the name of a kind of creature: the Orc-formed Maiar, only less formidable than the Balrogs.

Which neatly illustrates the whole canonicity problem. Can we really take that tentative "it is possible... or else..." and say, "yes, yes, there was a kind of creature in Middle-earth called a 'Boldog'"?

Originally Posted by Aganzir

This is either something I've cobbled together from a fairly canonical source (as in HoME, as opposed to Wikipedia) or something Lommy or some other Downer has said to me, but I've got this notion that Melkor could, in a way, bring things to life by giving up some of his own essence and weakening himself (which Ilúvatar didn't do). On the one hand I think orcs are mere beasts, on the other, I see them as some kind of Incarnates. I can't imagine them as having fëar given to them by Ilúvatar, though.

What does become fairly consistent in Tolkien's later writing is that he sees Orcs as corruptions of beings that already existed, and mostly he favours these beings having been rational creatures, i.e. Elves and/or Men– but yes, the problem of their fëar bugged him no end.

By the way, Troelsfo:

Originally Posted by Troelsfo

Not according to the laws as described later, according to which the Orcs should always be spared if they surrendered:
Quote:
But even before this wickedness of Morgoth was suspected the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not ‘made’ by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil. They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost.

But the next line is: "This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded". And there is a footnote to the effect that Orcs rarely surrendered anyway.

This is all really a quibble, as there is other evidence Tolkien had not yet come up with the "corrupted Eruhíni" idea at the stage under discussion. I'm just saying, as a matter of principle, that I don't think you can argue from "the laws as described later" without noting that it also says those laws weren't necessarily followed.

And I do agree with your basic, original point: it is just not possible to reconcile all Tolkien's various writings on Orcs without creating "some hybrid that is far from anything Tolkien ever imagined".