Sauron's Great Miscalculation

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Ivriniel

The bias tends to obviate any likelihood that Sauron had any beneficent motivation. We know this is incorrect. His Orcs were sentients, and had will. He wanted to thrive, and had a parental relationship with them. And frankly, they were much better at coping with dust and impoverished environments than vain, conceited Elves, determined to make creepy artifacts in their own images, which is a nausea at times I have about how Elves make things. At times, I see Sauron's point about Galadriel, whose vanity had NO end (e.g. she was "UNfriends" with Feanor "FOREVER"), and that mirror was offensive. Anyhows, hahah that's for another topic, and no doubt it upsets Elf lovers.

I disagree with your assessment of Sauron's relationship with the orcs.

First, there is a wide range of possible interpretations about the level of sentience for the orcs, but operating from the assumption that they all had full sentience Sauron deserves no credit for this because he didn't make them, or at least was not the prime engineer in their creation.

Second, at best he regarded them as "useful servants." In the context of the expression of that very sentiment he didn't care if Shelob ate some of them. The Witch-king, and by extension Sauron himself, did not care how many of them were killed in the assault on Minas Tirith. He never seems to have gone to the bother to effectively equip and train the orcs. Saruman seems to have done a better job on that front.

Orcs may have been better able to exist on a more primitive and impoverished level than the Elves but Sauron never did anything to raise them above that status. They were trapped in miserable conditions in a brutal tribal society barely able to function at even the most basic level. Orcs functioned adequately enough, in Sauron's mind, for the purposes he desired and so he kept them trapped at that level. He didn't care about them. He certainly didn't have a parental attitude toward them.

As an aside, I would argue that orcs didn't function to a serviceable level at all. In the narrative we see the entire garrison of one significant border fortress exterminated and the remaining garrison of an even more significant border fortress seriously depleted all through a petty little tribal conflict over a single piece of loot.

It can hardly be overstated how "non-functional" this is in a military context...or indeed in any context.

I'm not convinced that in the event of Sauron's victory that he would have even kept orcs around. They were not good slaves. In the event of his dominance they would have served their purpose. He might well have extirpated them. He was always more interested in Men and Elves anyway. Orcs were just a tool for him to achieve domination over them.