Orcseys - always Evil?

[davem]

The central problem is that Fear are bestowed by Eru. If Orcs were corrupted Elves they would retain their Fea, but what about Orc children? Why would Eru give them souls if the only possible destiny for them was to be evil - or could Eru create Evil souls just or Orcs?

A second possibility would be that second generation Orcs do not have Fear, merely Hroar & Sana (ie, as well as a body they have a mind but no soul). But is this actually possible?

I suppose we could speculate that in place of a Fea, a motivating 'force' if you will, an orc would be 'powered' by the will of first Morgoth, then Sauron. So, rather than the tri-partite division we see in Elves & Men: Fea-Sana-Hroa, in Orcs we would have 'Evil Will of Morgoth/Sauron'-Sana-Hroa.

This would mean that Orcs would be quite sentient & completely self aware, able to reason (& rebel) but that in a real sense they were not truly 'alive', as the 'Life-force' in them would not have its origins in Eru, but in the will of Morgoth/Sauron.

[Thinlómien]

Lalwende made some very interesting (and good points), but they didn't actually answer to the original question. If orcs shouldn't be judged the same way as humans does it have any effect on would an orc cope in a human/elf society. I would like to hear what do you have to say on this, Lalwende.

Or is the reason why an orc couldn't possibly live among humans that they are too different from humans, not that they're evil?

[Gothmog]

Silmarillion, Of Aulë and Yavanna:

Now Ilúvatar knew what was done, and in the very hour that Aulë's work was complete, and he was pleased, and began to instruct the Dwarves in the speech that he had devised for them, Ilúvatar spoke to him; and Aulë heard his voice and was silent. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to him: 'Why hast thou done this? Why dost thou attempt a thing which thou knowest is beyond thy power and thy authority? For thou hast from me as a gift thy own being only, and no more; and therefore the creatures of thy hand and mind can live only by that being, moving when thou thinkest to move them, and if thy thought be elsewhere, standing idle. Is that thy desire?'
...

Then Aulë took up a great hammer to smite the Dwarves; and he wept. But Ilúvatar had compassion upon Aulë and his desire, because of his humility; and the Dwarves shrank from the hammer and wore afraid, and they bowed down their heads and begged for mercy. And the voice of Ilúvatar said to Aulë: 'Thy offer I accepted even as it was made. Dost thou not see that these things have now a life of their own, and speak with their own voices? Else they would not have flinched from thy blow, nor from any command of thy will.'

This may seem a bit off topic, but in my opinion it sheds some light on the process of creating a creature with it's own free will. This proves that without the blessing of Eru, a created creature is nothing more than it's creator's puppet. The dwarf's had no will of their own, until Eru took pity on Aulë and the dwarfs. It wasn't until then that the dwarfes shrank away from the coming blow. What Eru gave the dwarfs was the soul, the Fea, right? And even if it's not Fea, it's obvious that the creations of anyone save Illuvatar himself are doomed to a life without their own will or thoughts.

If that's the case, how can we then say that the orcs, except those that are the first generation of twisted elves, lack Fea? The proof lies in Hookbill's quote. If they didn't have a soul and were controlled by Sauron, then I doubt that they would be able to talk about getting away from him! Besides, after Sauron is defeated, there still existed living, moving and thinking orcs. If they indeed lived without Fea, they would stand dumbstruck as soon as Sauron was destroyed. Or when he lost his power and wondered around as a shadow for that matter.

This raises new questions. Why would Eru give these wretched creatures, the mockery of his own children, the benefit of a soul? And the question that is important for this thread: why would Eru grant such a gift to something destinied for evil deeds without a possibility to redeem themselves? That doesn't make sense. Therefor I still think that Orcs could become more or less "good", with the right upbringing and in the right environment.

[narfforc]

Remembering that after all, these are stories from the mind of a man, we must accept the flaws. Tolkien uses many myths as blue-prints for his own sub-creation,
so we see there is no point in Utopia without corruption, but then where the main criticism of Tolkien comes in, is his lack of Hell without redemption. There are lots of good gone bad elements, but where are the bad redeemed. The only two instances in LotR are:

Boromir is corrupted by the Ring (briefly)/ He redeems himself by trying to save Merry and Pippin

Smeagol (good?) corrupted by the Ring and kills Deagol/ He almost turns ,until the nasty words of Sam(un)wise Gamgee on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, and the fleeting moment has gone.

So why are there no bad turning good, Why doesn't Saruman come down (pride),
why doesn't Grima repent (fear/hate maybe self-loathing) Ted Sandyman becomes a collaberater, what happens to him. The whole point of the story is Good battling Evil, you cannot allow your evil to turn good, for evil will always defeat itself , and in Lotr, Good allows Evil to do this.

[davem]

Originally Posted by narfforc

Tolkien uses many myths as blue-prints for his own sub-creation,
so we see there is no point in Utopia without corruption, but then where the main criticism of Tolkien comes in, is his lack of Hell without redemption. There are lots of good gone bad elements, but where are the bad redeemed.

Of course, many Christians don't believe that Hell is an actual place of eternal torment, but simply a ceasing to be - non-existence.

This seems to be the case with both Sauron & Saruman, whose Fea seem to arise asshadows only to be blown away to nothing by a wind from the West (though its not clear whether this wind comes from Manwe or Eru.

The whole idea of worldly Utopia seems absent from Tolkien's creation. It is apparently an impossibility - at least as far as the possibility of any of the sentient races bringing it about is concerned. There is only the battle against Evil, which cannot ever be won. Evil can only be held at bay, or at best temporarily defeated so as to gain a respite.

In that sense both Sauron & Saruman are Utopians. They believe they can attain absolute victory & their own version of the 'Thousand Year Reich'. What's interesting is that those who desire to achieve a Utopia within M-e are seduced into Evil. Sauron & Saruman are the great idealists, the ones who want to bring about (what they consider to be) paradise on earth. But they seek to do this by rejecting Eru & replacing Him.

Those on the side of Good, however, are the ones who have rejected all possibility of achieving an absolute victory & eternal peace. The 'good guys' have accepted that life in the world is summed up by the concept of 'many defeats & many fruitless victories', of the 'long defeat'.

It is the affirmation of life in the face of death, even though death, in the end, will triumph, because what the 'Utopians' like Sauron, Saruman (& others, like Smeagol & even Ted Sandyman) want is actually stagnation, an unchanging state of affairs where their rule will be absolute. Life is change, for the bad as well as the good. As Gandalf says:

'Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

Or in other words, 'all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us'. It is that act of 'surrender' that is required of good folk in M-e, that acceptance that while death is inevitable, & peace can never be won permanently, the fight is necessary.

In this context I think Ted Sandyman is an interesting case. He too seeks order over chaos. Walking (& talking) trees are not simply fantastic as far as he is concerned, but more importantly are dangerous. They have to be mocked out of existence, replaced by sensible, logical things. Trees are a source of fruit, raw materials, or fuel - or that is what he demands they should be. The new Shire, under Sharkey, is a place of extreme logic, where if Ted himself is not to be in charge then someone who thinks like him will be. After all, your Utopia doesn't have to be aesthetically pleasing, it merely has to be a 'safe', unchanging, unthreatening place.

What the 'Utopians' fear is chaos - actually, what they fear, what they see as their enemy, is life itself. Sauron chooses a dead, blasted heath peopled by creatures no better than worker ants as his Utopia, Saruman chooses a world of 'metal & wheels'. Both desire life replaced by absolute control, by death in fact.

From this point of view Orcs are zombies, the living dead, as are the Nazgul & the Balrog. They are anti-life. As are all 'Utopians'. No-one is going to turn the world into Paradise. The good folk of Middle-earth are the ones who have realised that they can't build a 'Republic of Heaven' - all they can do is struggle to prevent 'Utopians' building a 'Republic of Hell'. And in that battle one must be prepared, if necessary, to make the ultimate sacrifice.

'I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.'

That's something Sauron, Saruman, Smeagol, Ted Sandyman, Wormtongue, the Nazgul, & all the rest of the Enemy could never say...

[Lalwendë]

They would at least 'be' real physical realities in the physical world, however evil they might prove, even 'mocking' the Children of God. They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making - necessary to their actual existence - even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God's and ultimately good.)

Originally Posted by Thinlomien

Lalwende made some very interesting (and good points), but they didn't actually answer to the original question. If orcs shouldn't be judged the same way as humans does it have any effect on would an orc cope in a human/elf society. I would like to hear what do you have to say on this, Lalwende.

Or is the reason why an orc couldn't possibly live among humans that they are too different from humans, not that they're evil?

I think, looking at what Tolkien said in the quote above, an Orc was indeed by nature 'evil', but Tolkien would not go as far as saying that an Orc could never be 'redeemed'. So, taking this as a starting point, presumably an Orc could live with other races and conform to their moral code? The interesting question is whether anyone would be willing to try, and would they be willing to try with an adult Orc?

One thing that Tolkien does make clear, unlike the question of whether Orcs are by nature evil, is that in many ways, their behaviour is determined by their masters/master. It seems that Sauron utilises the familiar bad management practice of 'divide and conquer', pitting one type of Orc against the other type. He also tries to get loyalty by promising things, and by instilling fear - the Nazgul seem to have a certain notoriety even amongst Orcs!

I wonder if this is due to the time Sauron has spent effectively 'in hiding'? He has not been there to act as master to the Orcs at all times, and taking the 'Goblins' of the Hobbit as an example, they could indicate how Orcs organised themselves during times that they were independent of Sauron.

But whether they could have 'souls' or 'spirits' seems a different question; and since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible 'delegation', I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them. That God would 'tolerate' that, seems no worse theology than the toleration of the calculated dehumanizing of Men by tyrants that goes on today.

Here Tolkien seems to be suggesting that as the Orcs had their origins in Eru, as beings which were corrupted into 'Orcitude' (), they also had souls/Fear. As beings which reproduced, I would say that their offspring too must have had souls. We do not know, after all, what an Orc child may have been like. It may have been born in the original nature of the race to which its parents once belonged, it may not have, we cannot say. It is possible that this could have happened, however uncomfortable it may seem to us, as creation of a new race was not permitted, only the corruption of an existing one. If this speculative idea was indeed a possibility, then this might only serve to underline the evil of Morgoth and Sauron.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Gothmog

This raises new questions. Why would Eru give these wretched creatures, the mockery of his own children, the benefit of a soul? And the question that is important for this thread: why would Eru grant such a gift to something destinied for evil deeds without a possibility to redeem themselves? That doesn't make sense. Therefor I still think that Orcs could become more or less "good", with the right upbringing and in the right environment.

Why didn't the First Age elves, prompted maybe by the Powers, kidnap all of the orcs that they came upon and send them across the Sea to Valinor? If Frodo, ages later, can find healing on those distant shores after his ordeal with the One Ring, why not the first few generations of orcs? Could they not be turned back, somewhat if not wholly, and the world be the better for it? Why not set up a place in the West like Ellis Island (New York Harbor) where the orcs deboat, get restored as much as possible, then are reboated and released back into the wilds of Middle Earth? Could this be the beginning of a new race - not elf nor orc, but something in between?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

alatar's proposition seems a little bit too "mechanic" to me. First, I don't like it, the idea just seems awful to me. And furthermore, I believe that it wouldn't work much. But that's not what I wanted to speak of, since I just got a different idea. It would create a response to certain kind of questions, but only under certain circumstances. Not everyone has to agree with me. But here is the idea I got after reading the last sentence I quote from Gothmog - please read it:

Originally Posted by Gothmog

This raises new questions. Why would Eru give these wretched creatures, the mockery of his own children, the benefit of a soul? And the question that is important for this thread: why would Eru grant such a gift to something destinied for evil deeds without a possibility to redeem themselves? That doesn't make sense.

I would like to show here that it would make perfect sense. I would like to presume here that Orcs, if they have free will, could be redeemed. Now, Eru is the only one who could give them one. Follow, please, my thoughts:

Presumption (and a prerequisite): Eru is using all things, even bad things, and brings them to ultimately good ends in new and unexpected ways. This is absolutely logical, and what more, it is shown even before (Ainulindalë, water, snow, all the stuff).

Consequence: It makes perfect sense that the Orcs are redeemed. Created by Morgoth in the mockery of Elves and/or Men, they are, against all odds, given Fëar (!) and thus, also free will. What more, there may start to appear some individuals or groups among them who reject evil and ultimately, are redeemed. It is a slow process and it involves falls and setbacks, but since it is brought into motion by Eru himself, it never ceases. What does that mean: Once Eru gave the Orcs Fëar, it means he espoused himself with the Orcs. He says: "Yes, you are my Children as much as Men or Elves." From that point, he is expected to act on behalf of his Children - including the Orcs. He obviously does. The destruction of the Ring and fall of Sauron is probably even larger victory for the Orcs than it is for the Men. It means the end of slavery. One can only guess how it went in the further Ages. But given what I mentioned above - the redemptive way Eru works with all things - gives the possibility to think of more Orc individuals or groups who may start a new way of living, and not just lives of raids and robbery.

It is a theory. And it is based on observation - but this time not concerning Orcs, but concerning Eru. Maybe it would not work like that. But given the way he acts (and we don't see him acting very often, but when we do, we can get some basic glimpse of certain way of acting), I would expect him to do this.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

alatar's proposition seems a little bit too "mechanic" to me.

Does not the mechanism exist? Corrupted beings go West and get cured.

First, I don't like it, the idea just seems awful to me.

Why not, and why awful?

What was the fate of gutless traitors like Maeglin and Celegorm and what of the Kinslayers? Where be their eternal fate? Why must the orcs, cursed from birth, be unworthy of some hope?

Note that I agree with davem's earlier post in that only adults are concerned that the orcs are well-fed and have the offer of salvation; my proposal is one of logic.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I doubt there is a solution. Originally the young Tolkien just needed hordes of cannon-fodder who could be slaughtered without compunction. Under the old dispensation, they were 'made' by Melko, so what the hell.

As Tolkien applied deeper and deeper thought to Evil's sterility, and the problem of salvation, and on and on and on, he made an intractable conundrum for himself.

If Tolkien couldn't solve it, how could we?

[davem]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hickli

I doubt there is a solution. Originally the young Tolkien just needed hordes of cannon-fodder who could be slaughtered without compunction. Under the old dispensation, they were 'made' by Melko, so what the hell.

As Tolkien applied deeper and deeper thought to Evil's sterility, and the problem of salvation, and on and on and on, he made an intractable conundrum for himself.

If Tolkien couldn't solve it, how could we?

Yes, unfortunately Tolkien increasingly felt a need to 'explain' aspects of his creation - hence the dead end of 'Myths Transformed'. Its as if he became dissatisfied with 'magic', with Faery itself in a way - which in its essence is beyond logic & cannot be explained - or only 'explained' badly & unconvincingly.

Orcs are best seen & thought of as bad guys & 'cannon-fodder', & any 'explanation' of them offered by Tolkien taken & filed away, because we don't need it. In the 'great works' like LotR, CoH & much of the Sil itself (even in TH) we don't need to know where Orcs originated - in fact the various theories Tolkien came up with just get in the way.

Sadly, too much of Tolkien's later writing on M-e was little better than a dead end with only a certain curiosity value. If only he had spent his creative energies in completing CoH, Beren & Luthien & The Fall of Gondolin, rather than dissipating them in the confused, dissonant mish-mash of stuff like the Athrabeth, Laws & Customs & 'Myths Transformed'.....

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by alatar

Does not the mechanism exist? Corrupted beings go West and get cured.

Let me explain. What I meant was (and that was also the "awful" part), that you made it sound like a mechanic process, sort of a "reconditioning camp". Now that would be really awful. For the Elves, they went where they longed, to see the light of the Trees and everything, to finally rest after the long years in the fading world. For Frodo and all these folks who could not enter Valinor directly, it was also a rest. But for the Orcs, it would become something very nasty. I mean - of course not if they chose it themselves, like Frodo or others. If an Orc - in Middle-Earth - changed his mind, became "good" and everything, then as a sort of "reward" he could be allowed to go to Eressëa. Wonderful thing. But you made it sound to me like a bunch of Elves arriving with large ships and "Come on, all Orcs, pick the green armbands, yes, line up here, please, and to the ship. Yes, sir, over there. Large Orcs to the large ships, small Orcs to the smaller ships. No, sir, this ship is full. Eighty passengers maximum. Proceed to the next one, please..."

Originally Posted by alatar

What was the fate of gutless traitors like Maeglin and Celegorm and what of the Kinslayers? Where be their eternal fate? Why must the orcs, cursed from birth, be unworthy of some hope?

And to this question, my response was NO, given the logic they would have it: the Orcs are saved, but not because of any re-educational program, but by the grace of Eru himself, to use that term. I said that all in my previous post - from giving Fëar to the Orcs to the possibility of ultimate personal redemption of every single one of them. I said it was a theory and I said not everyone has to agree with it, and the logic I was using is explained above. If there is anything that is not clear, anyone is free to ask, of course.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Let me explain. What I meant was (and that was also the "awful" part), that you made it sound like a mechanic process, sort of a "reconditioning camp". Now that would be really awful. For the Elves, they went where they longed, to see the light of the Trees and everything, to finally rest after the long years in the fading world.

But what of the ones that were taken by Melkor and changed? It is these poor souls that I was hoping to recondition. Or is it that they had, willingly, started down Melkor's road, and by the time that they figured out that it wasn't a good thing, found that they were caught? How long, starting from a few of Feanor's sons, would it take to get something like an orc? And just how far from the original captive does one have to be to be no longer welcomed on those Western Shores?

This is assuming that Melkor made orcs from elves, as it seems later that he was only interested in making his elvish captive slaves.

I mean - of course not if they chose it themselves, like Frodo or others. If an Orc - in Middle-Earth - changed his mind, became "good" and everything, then as a sort of "reward" he could be allowed to go to Eressëa. Wonderful thing. But you made it sound to me like a bunch of Elves arriving with large ships and "Come on, all Orcs, pick the green armbands, yes, line up here, please, and to the ship. Yes, sir, over there. Large Orcs to the large ships, small Orcs to the smaller ships. No, sir, this ship is full. Eighty passengers maximum. Proceed to the next one, please..."

I wouldn't sort by size, as with Osse running about, I'd hate to lose a whole subspecies of orc, and end up, in the end, having only revived the pygmy orcs for all my troubles.

But if the orcs were given a chance between going on the ship for rehabilitation or death (either by the hands of the Elves or the orcs' masters), what then would they choose? Maybe I watched too many TV dramas where a group rescues a person from a cult by whatever means possible for the person's own good, assuming that the person no longer possesses the means by which to make a real choice.

And your last bit made sense - it must have been early for me.