Are orcs actually evil?

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Erurin

I do not view it as genocide as much as extermination.

Giving it a different name makes it look so much more rational and justifiable, doesn't it? 'Exterminate' is something you do to vermin, not humanoid creatures. What happened to Gandalf's "I pity even his slaves"?

And on a not quite so serious tangent:

Originally Posted by Erurin

the spiders of Mirkwood- though bred by Morgoth and birthed by the Maia Ungoliant-

Leaving alone the question whether Ungoliant was a Maia or something else, I'm not sure Morgoth had much of a hand in their breeding. I'd suppose at least Ungoliant herself wasn't particularly amenable to participating in any plans of his after the Thieves' Quarrel; he may have got his hands on one or the other of her offspring and twisted them a bit (or found that they didn't really need much twisting), but on the whole they would have happily multiplied by themselves.