Origins of the Great Goblin

[Troelsfo]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Do any of the works say that the Orcs were "created", as opposed to "made"? They are not the same.

Oh yes, it is quite clear in the prose writings on the mythology from The Book of Lost Tales until some during the writing of The Lord of the Rings that Melko > Morgoth creates the race of Orcs.

In ‘The Fall of Gondolin’ in The Book of Lost Tales , Tolkien wrote that the Orcs “were bred by Melko of the subterranean heats and slime. Their hearts were of granite and their bodies deformed;”[1] and in the last pre-LotR (mid-thirties) we learn that Morgoth “brought into being the race of the Orcs, and they grew and multiplied in the bowels of the earth. These Orcs Morgoth made in envy and mockery of the Elves, and they were made of stone, but their hearts of hatred.”[2]. The idea of making the Orcs in mockery of the Elves apparently entered into the mythology in writings associated with The Lost Road, specifically the second version of The Fall of Númenor (circa 1937-8), and it seems quite clear that this idea of the origin of the Orcs underlies not only Treebeard's comments, but also the jolly wee game of counting Orc-heads that Gimli and Legolas play during the Battle of the Hornburg (this game, and indeed the treatment of the Orcs throughout the whole of the Rohan chapters) is not ethically consistent with the later view of Orcs as corrupted Eruhíni that should be pitied and spared when possible).

1. The Book of Lost Tales 2 (HoMe 2), ch. III ‘The Fall of Gondolin’, p. 159
2. The Lost Road and Other Writings (HoMe 5), part 2, VI ‘Quenta Silmarillion’, ch. 5 §62, p.233