Orcs... were elves?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Now we don't know around which time in history the Hobbits branched off from the Big People, but I'm inclined to think that they weren't originally that much shorter than the average Man (maybe only a foot or so?) and only 'dwindled' to halfling size over time, possibly adapting to their semi-subterranean lifestyle. So Sauron needn't necessarily have made the mental connection between the hypothetical Proto-Hobbits used in Orc-breeding far back in prehistory and the contemporary midgets of the late Third Age.

Sauron needn't have been actively involved in the Orc-making project to have at least known where they came from. Since he made so much use of them himself, I'd expect him to know at least their basic history.

The First Age:
Sauron: "Hey Boss, what the Utumno are those things running around here? Is that the new servant race you've been talking about?"

Morgoth: "Yep. I captured a few _______ and tortured 'em for a while, and...here are they are."

Sauron: "Cool! Have you seen my Hummel figurines?"

Flash forward a few thousand years:

Sauron: "Hmm. This Gollum creature who had my Ring...I know I've seen something like him before. Let's see. He's not an Elf. Not a Man, and no Dwarf. He's not 15 feet tall, so I guess an Ent is out of the question. What's left? Ah! Those little Periannath worms 'ol Melkor used to make the Orcs!

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Sauron: "Cool! Have you seen my Hummel figurines?"

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Were-Elves.

Transformed into hideous beasts by the forces of darkness!

[morwen edhelwen]

ha ha.. basically I guess if you're going with the older ideas... elves corrupted by torture ):.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

Were-Elves.

Transformed into hideous beasts by the forces of darkness!

Meaning they turn back into Elves by Day? (Capitalisation intentional, of course.)

[Morthoron]

Orcs were Elves who eschewed proper daily hair care. The conditioners and shampoos of the Elves were protein-rich, suffused with vitamins and had the essential oils and amino acids necessary for lustrous elvish coifs. As with all great civilization, once hair care was abandoned, Orkishness followed.

[Formendacil]

As far as an overall decrease in height over the millennia between the War of Wrath and the War of the Rings goes--a period of seven thousand years, and close to as long as the Hobbits had to diverge significantly from their initial Mannish stock--is it not possible that the Orks became shorter as a result of evolution? After all, they survived the end of the First Age chiefly in dark hiding places, that is to say caves and such, and these remained their chief dwellings into the early First Age and beyond--Mordor and Isengard notwithstanding.

After all, if the Orkish breeding stock after 1 S.A. was to be found only in those Orks that made it off Beleriand and into the mountains somewhere (and presumably the Blue Mountains were a bad bet, given all those Elves, Dwarves, and Edain swarming about), wouldn't it make sense that almost all of the ancestors of the much-later Third Age Orks would have been, typically, the smallest specimens of Ork: those most suited to an underground life? What's more, barring the realm of Sauron in Mordor (which was not a constant for every century, and which still had to deal with daylight), smaller Orks would have been optimal for surviving in conditions such as those seen under the Great Goblin.

[Galin]

It's possible that some Orcs diminished simply due to 'unchecked' breeding, smaller surviving orcs breeding or something.

Concerning Hobbits, for myself I imagine they 'awoke' as Hobbits, not that they became smaller through time to become 'halflings' in the first place. Is there anything that doesn't allow my opinion here concerning Hobbits? I don't recall anything at the moment, at least.