Orcseys - always Evil?

[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'.....