Are orcs actually evil?

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

If you think that Tolkien's characters are black and white, then you are greatly mistaken. There isn't one that is either. You list three examples of what Tolkien doesn't have, but I can provide examples of such characters (off the top of my head), because he does have them:

flawed heroes=Thorin, Turin
selfish manipulative damsel=Lobelia S-B. I haven't read UT yet, so I'm not sure if Erendis fits under this category
sympathetic villains with believable motivations=Maedhros, Maglor, Caranthir (they aren't exactly villains, but they are during the kinslaying, and they all show their good side at one point or another). Gollum, who battles with his good-Smeagol side.

Look carefully, and you'll see lots of shades of gray in Tolkien's works.

And personally, I prefer "old 1950's stuff", as you put it, to modern fiction.

I've played a number of role playing games that feature a 'corruption' game mechanic, includeing Call of Cuthulu, Dark Heresy and Ambarquenta. A character starts out pure. Contact with evil or performing evil actions corrupts a character. If one accumulates enough corruption points, one starts having to roll dice in order to do the right thing. The rules start forcing characters to act selfishly or violently. It is broadly much harder to get rid of corruption points than acquire them. If one gets enough corruption points, the character is taken over by the game master as a non player villian.

I am not a huge fan of corruption point game mechanics, but when one looks at Boromir, Saruman and Wormtongue, I can understand how the author of Ambarquenta included it in a Tolkien game. There is a distinct differentiation between good and evil. Many characters are one or the other. Yet, a lot of the most interesting bits of the story center on those who have gone to some degree astray.

That being said, in a conversation about Tolkien's orks, at least before the destruction of the Ring, they are pretty much pure black. After the destruction of the Ring, we don't know. We don't see them after the destruction of the Ring.