A Question of Loyalty

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by JeffF.

I don't know why there is still a question of their origin. The books are canon ahd the Silmarillion plainly states that Morgoth used Avari, not as one of many theories but clearly. Tolkien's notes published in the HoME series are just story notes, interesting and revealing but NOT canon. Story notes change constantly and until integrated into a finished story and published are merely evolutions of the story line.

To be fair, the idea of Orcs coming from captured Quendi is presented as the best guess of the 'wise of Eressëa', but that doesn't mean they were necessarily correct. That does seem the most likely scenario to me, though.