Orcseys - always Evil?

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

Originally Posted by davem

I think a lot of adults actually do ponder that - or at least how the Witch got to be such a bad Witch. They also prefer to rewrite the original stories so that the Witch gets either rehabilitated or runs off & is never heard of again.

That's probably true, although it's interesting that they bother to imagine an alternative ending to a story that they found flawed. Anyway, the Grimm brothers didn't take a chapter to thoroughly explain the motives behind the Witch's actions, so I think that while we are in the story reading it, it's not important to know what made the Witch like that - just like it seems irrelevant for the storyline of LotR to know why orcs were naturally evil. As I said, one can either accept the given facts or try to make the story fit his own conception of things better, which leads to those ponderings about the mankind. I agree that observing a story from too many different angles can really ruin its atmosphere, though.

Now, what does this offer as an answer to the question if Orcs could be brought up to be more humane..? That it's up to the reader?