How come you never hear of orc children in the books? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

**lindil** · 04-09-2003, 08:11 AM

Tolkien wrestled with the ORcs from Elves idea ad tried to discard it entirely [see Morgoth's Ring - section 5 Myths Transofrmed].

He had however problems with all of his replacement ideas:

1- orcs were really clever animals imbued with a certain power o Morgoth and or Sauron. Bereft of their controlling will they just replayed mechanical actions - I hate, I will kill etc...

2 - orcs as degenerate Men. This was I think for JRRT the optimum solution BUT it hinged on his abandoning the flat earth [pre-numenorean] world and having a pre-exisisting Sun - so Men would awaken early - before Mekor was captured the first time and then released.

He went back and forth on these ideas - nothing definitive.

As far as I understand it[I have been researching this for an entry on the Avari] the only canonical thing you can say about orc origins is that 'within the legendarium' some elves and men believed Elves [specifically captured Avari in some accounts] to be the origin of orcs. This however as I said before was severla times accounted as a myth, though no satisfactory resolution was ever perfectly decided.

If I have any details wrong hopefully some of the real scholars round these parts will fix it up.

04-09-2003, 08:11 AM	#17
lindil Seeker of the Straight Path Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: a hidden fastness in Big Valley nor cal Posts: 1,680	Tolkien wrestled with the ORcs from Elves idea ad tried to discard it entirely [see Morgoth's Ring - section 5 Myths Transofrmed]. He had however problems with all of his replacement ideas: 1- orcs were really clever animals imbued with a certain power o Morgoth and or Sauron. Bereft of their controlling will they just replayed mechanical actions - I hate, I will kill etc... 2 - orcs as degenerate Men. This was I think for JRRT the optimum solution BUT it hinged on his abandoning the flat earth [pre-numenorean] world and having a pre-exisisting Sun - so Men would awaken early - before Mekor was captured the first time and then released. He went back and forth on these ideas - nothing definitive. As far as I understand it[I have been researching this for an entry on the Avari] the only canonical thing you can say about orc origins is that 'within the legendarium' some elves and men believed Elves [specifically captured Avari in some accounts] to be the origin of orcs. This however as I said before was severla times accounted as a myth, though no satisfactory resolution was ever perfectly decided. If I have any details wrong hopefully some of the real scholars round these parts will fix it up. __________________ The dwindling Men of the West would often sit up late into the night exchanging lore & wisdom such as they still possessed that they should not fall back into the mean estate of those who never knew or indeed rebelled against the Light.