Orcs

[Wayfarer]

What do you think about orcs?

My personal feeling is that they're not all that bad. I've gone through tolkien and decided that practically everything that orcs did, Dwarves and Men did as bad or worse, and even Elves managed to match them in quite a few instances. The Orcs in middle earth have my unhesitating pity and empathy.

But of course, I love to argue, so hopefully I've phrased this in such a way that it will start a good fight. ]: )

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Personally, I disagree. I view the Orcs as irrevocably and (nearly or completely) irredeemably evil. But that's just me.

P. S. Not arguing, just curious: What about cannibalism?

[Wayfarer]

Yay for argument! Whee!

Argument one: Orcs are /NOT/ cannibals.

When Ugluk and Grishnakh's factions fight, several orcs are killed. However, the bodys are simply left to lie there, not eaten.
When Shagrat and Gorbag's factions in mordor come to blows, there is no sign that the dead bodies are eaten.
When One orc is seen to kill another in mordor, he simply runs off, no hint of cannibalism.

Perhaps more telling, prior to the first instance I mentioned, Ugluk is heard to say that Saruman "...gives us man-flesh to eat!", to which Grishnakh replies "It's orc-flesh...I wager!" sparking the violent confrontation. Certainly this is an indication that orcs do not eat other orcs, even if they will eat men.

Also note that, in the hobbit, the goblins are said to eat ponies, and worse things- but keep humans as slaves. An interesting thing if they're supposedly man-eaters.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

But Orcs are derived from either Elves or Men, yes? They are "human", as I have read you yourself say, I believe. Therefore, eating Men would make them cannibals; if they are derived from Elves, than Elves are still biologically the same as Men, as Tolkien says, so it would still be cannibalism.

I haven't read the Hobbit for a long time, but I believe it says that they sometimes took Men as slaves; what do they do with most of them? Also, cattle are used for labour at times by us, yet we still eat them.

[Wayfarer]

True. But they're almost different species- they normally don't interbreed.

And the fact that orcs don't eat each other speaks pretty strongly- what cannabilism they do exhibit is limited.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

But it's still cannibalism. In what way did Men and Dwarves do as bad or worse?

[Wayfarer]

Let's look at a few examples, here.

At the battle of the Morannon, the armies of the midwest. were faced with a large force of Orcs and men. More than enough to destroy them completely.

When the ring was destroyed, the forces of mordor were released from Sauron's power. They did two things.
The orcs did one thing: They ran! They /threw down their weapons/ and /ran away/. As far as I'm aware, throwing down your weapon is generally considered a sign of surrender.
What did the humans do? They looked around, and decided that they were a great army still, and attacked! All on their own!

What does this tell me? This tells me that the vast majority of orcs only fought becuase they were forced to. They were slaves! While many humans willingly served the dark lords. And the moment they were freed, they stopped fighting. and ran. and got slaughtered.

While we're at it, let's think about something. Does chasing after and killing enemies who have thrown down their weapons strike you as a particularly noble thing to do? Does that somehow not violate the rules of decent behavior? As far as I'm concerned, it does. And so here you have Aragorn leading the noble Gondolindrim and Rohirrim in the mass murder of people who no longer pose any threat. That's the kind of thing that you would expect orcs to do, isn't it?

When we talk about dwarves, the track record isn't much better. Look at Mim's betrayal of Turin. Look at the way, after killing thingol, the dwarven craftsmen when home and got reinforcements so they could come back and do a better job on the rest of doriath. And before you say that most dwarves weren't like that, look at the way Thorin was willing to fight even the men of dale who had helped them. Look at how dain was willing to bring his people out to war against the elves and humans.

Think about it, really.

And I shouldn't even have to go into the individual evil people- the mouth of sauron, a !/human/! was said to be crueller than any orc! Think about it!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Sorry, I had to go to bed last night, as I work today. I'll see what kind of reply I can throw together before I head out the door.

And so here you have Aragorn leading the noble Gondolindrim and Rohirrim in the mass murder of people who no longer pose any threat

But they did. Not at the moment, but they did. If allowed to run free, they would have either regrouped, run around pillaging the weak, or settled themselves deep in mountains to use as a base of operations to raid from.

the mouth of sauron, a !/human/! was said to be crueller than any orc! Think about it!

A Black Numenorean. And certainly no-one ever said that Men could never be evil, and had no tendencies towards evil.

That's about all for now, except for one thing: I notice you avoided my question.

[Arien the Maia]

What happens to Orcs when they die? If they are twisted forms of life(elves or men) then they would have the same spirit that Iluvatar gave to Elves and Men wouldn't they?

[Bombadillo]

I'm getting in on this.
Now, so far, this arguementt is pretty general. Are all arcs generally worse than all humans or eEves in general, generally? Well yes, considering that they once were Elves but the two races split because most elves generally wanted nothing to do with evil or Sauron. So there. Orcs are lower and better than Elves.

And Men. Well, what can be said? The entire race of Men do look down upon orcs as mean evil and primitive (at least), save for a handful of southerners. So in other words Men are also better and higher than orcs.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

The origin of Orcs is not known. Some believe them to be from Elves, and some to be from Men. But what is almost universally agreed upon is that they did not choose to be Orcs, I think, but that they were twisted and perverted into their present selves.

[Lizra]

Slave masters! Blea...evil! They are "evil" more often, and more naturally (? ) than the other races. How about a nice position as "Headmaster" at "Orctown" Wayfarer? I bet you could work wonders with the vile unfortunates!

[Melko Belcha]

If we go by the published Silmarillion then Orcs can not be Men. Not because it says that they came from Elves, but because they participated in 2 of the Battles of Beleriand before Man even awoke. The only way Orcs could be Men is in Myths Transformed, all the later writtings on the Sil had the Orcs around before the Sun, but that still does not mean they were Elves.

[Falagar]

On time someone came up with a good quoth here :

From Morgoth's Ring: Myths Transformep, text 10 page 417:

(...)But the Orcs were not of this kind. They were certainly dominated by their Master, but his dominon was by fear, and they were aware of this fear and hated him. They were indeed so corrupted that they were pitiless, and there was no cruelty or wickedness they would not commit; but this was the corruption of independent wills, and they took pleasure in their deeds.

Of course, it depends on which teory you believe in. I can't remember how the orcs were described in the other texts (though I don't believe the descriptions there were any better).

[Ruinel]

From The Sil...

But of those unhappy ones (Elves) who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar*; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning; so say the wise. And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar.

There is your quote from another text, Falagar. Orcs were made from Elves in The Sil. But the Orcs hated Melkor, yet served him nonetheless.
*"multiplied in the manner of the CoI... must mean that Melkor didn't create more... that they did "the nasty" to create their own offspring. But I feel that that was done with other Orcs.

[Wayfarer]

*Wayfarer rubs his fingers together gleefully.

Yep. Still got it. ]: )

Something else that needs to be taken note of:

Men could under the domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning.

This is, of course, what Saruman discovered (or rather, re-discovered). It's for obvious reasons well accepted that Saruman produced a hybrid strain, and T olkien called this

his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile.

However, I think it's worth noting that Treebeard wasn't so sure. He noted how different the orcs of the Hand were from those he had seen before, and wondered...

Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men?

Granted, treebeard was not the worlds foremost expert on orcs. But it's strange that he might consider the orcs of isengard to simply be corrupted humans. That suggests to me that humans aren't nearly as much better than orcs as we like to pretend.

I should also point out that even elves weren't above a little Orcish behavior. In the various drafts of the mythology we see Feanor killing one of his sons, others of his sons killing women and children, and attemting rape, Eol comitting /actual/ rape, Saeros attacking Turin, Turgon's treatment of Beren, and so forth... It looks a lot to me like everbody has a bit of orc in them.

In fact, I don't believe that there's anything about orcs as a whole that didn't come from their heritage of elves and men. To be sure, they had been bred to draw out and normalize those traits, but that would have been impossible had not the raw material been there. They were corrupted, certainly, but no more than Elves or Humans can become. And I really do think that, in the abscence of a strong, subcreatively powerful dark lord to keep them in that state, the orkish race could have been reformed.

That's why I'm founding the Orc Civil Liberties Union. We need to prevent discrimination and insure that orcs have equal opprotunities in the workplace. Affirmative action! Unemployment Benifits! Access to Education!

[Falagar]

I should also point out that even elves weren't above a little Orcish behavior. In the various drafts of the mythology we see Feanor killing one of his sons,

Wasn't that an accident?

[Sween]

Orcs are not expressively evil. Let me explain without a leader or non orcs (morgoth, witch king, Sauron and saurman) they do little but live in there hills and do whatever orcs do. They show no ambition for widerlands or dominations of all unlike men. Even gondor wishes to have rule or at least reconised dominance over all middle eath is this evil?

One of the most telling parts of Orc character is when the two orcs are talking in cirith ungol and once expresses his wish to just set up with a good few lads and bascally have an easy life pinching the odd thing hardly mass evil.

In the documentry about tolkien on the start of the extendion edition it says that from his experiencinces in the war he was amazed how such evil acts were carried out by seemingly normal humans.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

So there's nothing wrong with robbing the helpless, slaughtering and enslaving men, women, and children, and the other things which are part of a "raiding" lifestyle?

[Sween]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
So there's nothing wrong with robbing the helpless, slaughtering and enslaving men, women, and children, and the other things which are part of a "raiding" lifestyle?

i didnt say they were angles! My point is without any real leadership orcs really are not too much of a threat if you stay out there way ur fine