LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 03 - The Uruk-Hai

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I must admit that I have always found the discussion about orcs and free will to be a bit of a red herring – I mean, really, there are no such things as orcs, so how can the question of free will even be relevant? They are orcs/monsters, so they are bad, just as Elves are good. These are figures from fairy-tale and ancient legend, not historical figures or even characters from a religious tract (like the Bible) being used as the basis of a new belief system. In Beowulf Grendel, Grendel’s Dam and the Dragon are the monsters, they are evil, and thus to be destroyed by good. I really see the same thing with the orcs – I don’t know if it’s ever come up in the Downs, but I don’t recall seeing anyone wonder about the free will or ‘redeemability’ of Smaug: he’s a sentient being, and one who, unlike the orcs, isn’t even a servant or slave of Sauron (nor even made/marred by him). If anything, dragons would apparently be more likely to have the possibility of redemption, but we don’t put ourselves into contortions about whether there is a chance for a good dragon. Dragons are bad, dragons need to die – and not because they have freely chosen evil after some metaphysical/moralizing struggle, but because they are monsters.

The fairy-tale monstrous quality of the orcs is evident in this chapter: they are disgusting and cruel, they are monstrous-imitations of the worse aspects of human nature, and they are – in the end – self-defeating. The orcs kill more of each other than they ever do of the Men they encounter (by my count, about a dozen orcs are killed by other orcs in this chapter, while only three men go down). Like all fairy-tale monsters they are a device: they represent in their cruelty an aspect of humanity (not human beings), and even serve, in an unconscious way, the forces of good, by bringing Merry and Pippin to Fangorn.

I think the only reason we get bogged down in the debates over the orcs is that they are so much more human-appearing than dragons. They look more like us than dragons, they speak more like us: they are more clearly, perhaps, reflections of us and thus we want to think of them in terms that we apply to ourselves. But this is where I think the red herring comes in, as Tolkien was not writing a story in which his fairy-tale creatures are meant to be seen as individuals, but as part of a whole. That is, orcs are not little versions of humans, but are part of a fabric that explores aspects of humanity.

In this chapter, a small piece of that fabric is revealed in the comparison of hobbits and orcs. The previous chapter presented Aragorn as a Man emerging from the mists of legend and stepping into history. He claimed his role as King and advanced his war against Sauron. In this chapter, we get a look at the ‘foot soldiers’ of that War. In the conflict between good and evil in Middle-earth, the primary opponents are Sauron/Saruman and Aragorn/Gandalf. But the beings who do the actual fighting and combat in this war are the orcs on one side and the lesser men, and hobbits, on the other. We’ve already been introduced to the Rohirrim, but in this chapter we see the hobbits (who will bring the Ents into the war with Saruman, and the Ring to destruction). It’s interesting that the only other time we see orcs, up close and personal, is in relation to Sam and Frodo: the orcs never appear on their own but beside and in relation to the hobbits. The point is, I don’t think that the role of the orcs in LotR is to be considered in isolation, but as foils and in relation to the hobbits.

It’s a natural pairing: just as you will never see a good orc who deserves to be allowed to live his life, you will never see an evil hobbit who deserves to be destroyed. Their cultures, their way of speaking, their attitudes toward nature and other peoples are all directly opposite to one another.

The previous chapter is the first in the book not to include a hobbit, and that is significant I think, for without their perspective, things tend to get somewhat stilted and even a bit over the top – very High and not very close to the lived reality and earthiness that we find in Hobbits. I’m not decrying this, for it is this heightened tone that allows Aragorn to move into his heroic identity, but I find this chapter and the return to hobbitishness a welcome relief. It’s already been noted how Merry and Pippin talk about hobbity things in this chapter, but one of these things is their fondness for stories. Bethberry has already quoted this bit, but I shall do so again:

"You seem to have been doing well, Master Took," said Merry. "You will get almost a chapter in old Bilbo's book, if ever I get a chance to report to him. Good work: especially guessing that hairy villain's little game, and playing up to him. But I wonder if anyone will ever pick up your trail and find that brooch. I should hate to lose mine, but I am afraid yours is gone for good."

"I shall have to brush up my toes, if I am to get level with you. Indeed Cousin Brandybuck is going in front now. This is where he comes in.”

In the previous chapter we see Aragorn stepping from legend into history, the myth made flesh. With the hobbits, we see them already anticipating their transition from lived experience to story; this is a perspective that is unique to hobbits in LotR (Sam and Frodo will develop this idea most fully in the Stairs of Cirith Ungol). It’s almost as though they realize in some way that they are fairy-tale figures in a story that will be told to young hobbits in the future: their aspirations are not Aragorn’s, to become figures of vast historical importance by stepping from legend, but to earn a small part in the story of the past. In this sense, their adventure with the orcs ‘fits’ perfectly; it’s the one adventure in the whole of LotR that is most like the adventures of Bilbo in The Hobbit. The chapter itself concludes with a brief, and odd, paragraph that seems to anticipate the hobbits’ transition to fairy-tale:

Out of the shadows the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.

I think the most significant function of this chapter is to demonstrate how hobbits are having and will continue to have an effect not so much on the events of the War (which they will have) but how they will affect the stories of the War. In addition to the epic tale of Aragorn’s Return and the Defeat of Sauron, there is the fairy-tale of two little hobbits who were kidnapped by the monstrous orcs, and borne to the edges of an enchanted wood where they met a tree and led the forest to victory over the evil wizard in his tower of stone. The story of Aragorn and Sauron is the tale that engages the heady and important themes of free-will and repentance, the relation between evil and good, providence and fate. The story of the hobbits, and of Merry and Pippin in particular, is a tale that looks at the much simpler ideas of monsters and heroes, surviving a harrowing adventure, escape and using your wits, and living to tell the story afterward. The previous chapter is part of an epic tale; this chapter is itself a little fairy-tale.