Sauron's Great Miscalculation

[Ivriniel]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

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.

Servants or no, it implies a parental relationship. We don't know what secret affectations and affections Sauron had with his Orcs in hierarchies. Certainly, if Eru's manifestation of sentience was in Elvendom and Humanity, then Aule (craftsman) who 'created' the Dwarves was channeling the architect. Likewise, Morgoth and Sauron and Orcs same, same.

@Zigur,

Hi there Zigur, great to see you. Well trained and equipped to war craft is certainly probable. We might remember also they had craftsmanship capacity in appreciation of the beauty of hatreds and rages. Do you remember the Orc blade with the leering tongue during Merry's and Pippin's captivity.

@Reader

In a competing appreciation of Sauronic purpose, I wonder: did the Three and their preservation ideology, bely the Noldorin undercurrents of greed for Elevendom's preservation, by accelerating the Fading of Ea in Middle Earth.

Certainly, it seems that the three Elvish regions (Ost In Edhil, Imladris, Cirdan's Grey Havens) with a Ring each, were syphoning lifeforce and concentrating it into small territories. Forgive the reference to physics, but that seems very Entropic to me, and rather like turning a gas flame on your stove high, to boil a small area of water, while the rest of the home is providing the biosphere of support.

So, in my 'Sauronic-Beneficence' theory, Morgoth and Sauron were aware that Ea were ill crafted, and during the insurrection in the music, they were both obviously aware that Eru would prevail and so were volunteering themselves for a dire, labour or horrific burden, bearing the sacrifice of the Vanity of the Host, by pooling the 'bleeding' energy of Ea into a repetitive Song of Sustain.

Thus, in the Second Prophesy of Mandos, where Morgoth returns through the Doors of Night, this is the parable as read by the Eyes of Vanity WITHING the Middle Earthian biosphere. It's a Vanity Inversion and only Eru sees the unfolding of the illusion FROM the Void's Beyond, where obviously, Sauron, and Morgoth were not disconnected from Eru.

I wonder then, what Middle Earth would have been like without Balrogs, and Dragons and what role these mythological creatures played in their theory about Energetics.