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Post by Desi Baggins on Feb 5, 2006 7:04:06 GMT -6
What do we know about orcs?
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Post by Desi Baggins on Feb 5, 2006 7:15:27 GMT -6
Stormrider Ilúvatar
Another question, are Orcs' lifespans more like humans? I thought they were more like Elves' lifespans since they were corrupted forms of Elves. I would think Morgoth would have wanted long lived slaves.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 5, 2006 20:50:03 GMT -6
Thanks for opening this topic, Desi!
Stormrider -- Hmmm, long-lived Orcs? I wonder if the corruptions induced by Morgoth and furthered by Sauron would have shortened the life-spans of the Orcs? The general "lifestyle" of the Orcs (not just a higher frequency of mortalities due to "accidental" deaths) might also shorten the lifespans they enjoyed; just as Denethor of Gondor (who was only one year older than Aragorn, was nontheless much older in appearance due to the stresses of his life, he was prematurely aged by trying to control the palantir of Minas Arnor). Also, Numenorean Men of the Second Age, when they began to worry more about dying than just living, and when they started to seek magics and chemistries to hang onto life, they began to actually have diminished joy, and a lessened span of years (if I am remembering the material from the Akallabeth correctly). So, how much greater would the alteration of lifespan be among the unhappy, high-stressed Orcs?
Maybe there is some way of looking at the chronologies in the indices of RotK to see if we can get even a rough set of dates for any of the named Goblins like Azog and Bolg? When do they first show up in the chronologies, and when/ why do they die?
Does Tolkien say anything about Orc lifespans in "The Letters"?
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 6, 2006 2:32:41 GMT -6
Good call on Azog and Bolg, Andorinha. I just looked them up and it says that Azog died in 2799 Third Age, killed at the Battle of Azanulbizar by Dain Ironfoot. His son Bolg, however, lives until 2941 and dies in the Battle of Five Armies, killed by our old friend Beorn.
That's 142 years after dear old dad kicks it. So that's a pretty long life span. It seems that orcs do live longer than men (unless Bolg was just in remarkably good health).
What I always wondered the most about orcs is whether they were all evil, mindless brutes. Is it possible that there were good orcs or at least, rebellious ones? Orcs that didn't go in for all that warfare and servitude to the Eye? Would such a thing be possible or are they not allowed enough independent thought? I guess I was always a little uncomfortable with the idea of an entire species being evil. Surely, one or two must have thought for themselves. In Mordor, a rebel orc wouldn't live too long, I grant you. But what about one living in the Misty Mountains or some other remote location?
I ask because I'm using this notion in the novella I'm writing (one of the characters is a peaceful intellectual orc named Zanarsh). It's in my own fantasy world so not in line with Tolkien. But given the professor's religious beliefs, I always wondered if orcs could be redeemed or think for themselves.
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 6, 2006 7:37:27 GMT -6
On the MSN Archive site, there was a huge debate about the redemability of Orcs. groups.msn.com/TolkiensRing/entitiesofarda.msnwaction=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=991&LastModified=4675413384677312905 This link on the Redemability of Orcs will not be active after the old TR MSN group moves to the new Multiply location, so I have added the discussion from the MSN site starting with Reply #24 of this discussion. --Stormrider This may not be the whole argument. I have to rush off to work and cannot research the archives for more right now.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 7, 2006 7:40:15 GMT -6
Thanks Fredegar! So, 142 years at a minimum count, wow.
Now, I suppose the debate turns on an old, old issue: how well does the early (1932 - 38) material of "The Hobbit" mesh with Tolkien's later conceptual scheme for LotR? The Goblins of Bilbo's adventure have always seemed to me, to be quite a different set of creatures when compared with the Orcs of LotR. Did JRRT have any deliberate thought about connecting these Goblins with his earlier Orcs from the Silmarillion tales?
In "The Silmarillion" there is a stated Elf origin for Orcs, but did Tolkien, at the time he was writing "The Hobbit," mean for these Goblins to be connected to that Orkish heritage? And was any conscious decision made in Tolkien's mind concerning Goblin lifespans as he wrote "The Hobbit?"
I get the feeling that the long life of Bolg is just an "editorial" accident, but I may be very wrong here.
I am wondering if -- after wrting "The Hobbit" -- JRRT may have found that he had accidentally made Azog the direct progenitor (father) of Bolg simply because (in 1932-38) there was no connecting chronology to worry about. "The Hobbit" was largely a stand-apart tale, only loosely set in Middle-earth. Later, as he wrote LotR it became necessary to pay attention to the matter of continuity between "The Hobbit" and LotR. At this point, we know that JRRT wrote up several different chronologies (appearing in various HOME volumes), until he had worked out MOST of the kinks.
In "The Peoples of Middle-Earth," HOME XII, p. 249, note 35, Tolkien, in one of his "tentative" chronologies shows us that he did not yet have a good idea as to when the Dwarf and Goblin Wars took place. He only knew that he had mentioned these wars in "The Hobbit," and now, in the late 1940s, he wanted to give them more reality in LotR and assign them a firm date.
"The War of the Dwarves and Orcs entered his history at this time [after the publication of "The Hobbit"]. ... my father asked himself: 'When were the Dwarf and Goblin wars? When did Moria become finally desolate?' He noted that since the wars were referred to by Thorin in 'The Hobbit' they 'must have been recent',"...
Tolkien was stuck with Thorin's tale in "The Hobbit," that mentioned Azog, and then Gandalf's identification of the Goblin king (at The Battle of Five Armies) as Bolg, son of Azog. But, to keep his chronology consistent, the Battle of Nanduhirion had to be quite a bit earlier than Bilbo's adventure. Eventually JRRT got a "final" chronology prepared for the 1954/ 55 publication of the LotR, but by that time it was too late to alter "The Hobbit" again, to slip in a couple more Great Goblins to correct the life span of Bolg toward a more human norm. So he just left the matter where it stood, with a 142 year old (minimum age!) Bolg.
In summation here, I do not think we can use the long life of Bolg as a good measuring stick for the other Orcs, I think Bolg got a "gift" of extended life quite by accident!
Alternatively, Tolkien could have decided that the Orcs should share some of the Elven longevity (hence Bolg's long life) but I can find no direct quote to back up this hypothesis. In Carpenter's edition of Tolkien's letters, the index does list several that discuss the "redeemability of Orcs," but so far I can find none that address their longevity -- I'll keep shifting through them.
_____________
Stormrider, thanks for the link to the archives. For myself, I think I'll refer to them later, and, just for now, I'll see what we come up with on our own. It may be quite different from what the old group did? Then I think it would be cool to look at that material and see if we independently come up with similar results... Of course, being lazy these days, I can see that there may be some good references leading to pertinent Tolkien quotes in those early debates. And that might save us some research time! LOL!
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Post by Desi Baggins on Feb 7, 2006 11:53:10 GMT -6
I don't have any research to back me, this is just my gut instinct to say that since orcs derive from elves I think they would have long lives...how long I am nto sure yet...I better get busy with researching!
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 7, 2006 19:38:13 GMT -6
My first thought was that Orcs must have a long lifespan because they were created from Elves. My reasoning was that Melkor/Morgoth would wish to have long lives for his slaves and as he kept creating more, he would begin to build huge armies of Orcs that would last a long time.
Perhaps because of the corruption or twisting of Melkor/Morgoth to bring these creatures to life, it may have worked just the oposite in that they ended up with shorter lifespans in mockery of the longevity of the Elves.
Anyway, I cannot imagine Orcs living very long even if they were created with longevity in mind. Their whole attitude toward life, their subjection to slavery, their lust for blood (even their fellow Orc's!), their distrust and suspicion of others (including Orcs), and their cruel nature points them down the path of destruction! An Orc is more likely to wind up being done in by another orc or even by himself or killed as punishment for a wrong deed by his master before he could have enough years under his belt to qualify him as having long life.
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Feb 8, 2006 23:20:20 GMT -6
Storm and Desi, I agree with you that in theory, the orcs would have longer life spans, having been derived from elves. But in practice, it's unlikely that many orcs get the chance to live out a full life without dying in battle or at each others' hands or as punishment by their masters. The nature of their demeanor and culture wouldn't allow for it. I've been looking through that archive (the link didn't work but I found the thread in question) and I think the difference between theory and practice also applies to whether orcs can be redeemed. Someone pointed out that the orcs have a role in Tolkien's mythology and a role in the story. In the mythology (and in Tolkien's own beliefs), no creatures are created evil. They are corrupted and fallen. As such, orcs could potentially be redeemed, as all sentient beings could. But in terms of the story, Tolkien needed some genuinely nasty monsters so it's unlikely that we'd ever see such a redemption take place in his work. Again-- in theory, yes, in practice, no. Regardless, I stand by my story and its peaceful orc. Whether it's possible in Tolkien's cosmology or not, it's consistent with mine and it gives the tale its own unique spin.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 9, 2006 3:15:17 GMT -6
The Torturous Path To Orkish Origins:
Do the Orcs share the "immortality" of the Elves? Are the Orcs possessed of Elven souls? Are the Orcs redeemable?
The answers will vary according to which Tolkien version of Orc Origins you wish to use:
1. JRRT's first Orc origin theory -- they were made from stone, made from earth by Morgoth and had no genetic connection with spirits (lesser Ainur?), Elves, Men, or Dwarves. (see First draft Silmarillion, HOME X)
2. Morgoth corrupted captured, tortured Elves to form his Orcs. (see LotR appendices and 1977 version "The Silmarillion")
3. Orcs come in two distinct types. a) The Great Orcs who were corrupted minor Ainur-like spirits, and might be immortal. b) the huge mass of the Orcs who were derived from Men, not Elves. (see "Myths Transformed," HOME X)
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 9, 2006 3:27:14 GMT -6
II. The Torturous Path To Orkish Origins
1. The Early Myth:
Christopher Tolkien, in his analyses of JRRT's manuscripts, points out that there was an earlier version of the Silmarillion material, one in which the Orcs "originated in mockery of the Elves, but not yet [stating] that the Orcs were in any other way associated with them: they were a 'creation' of Morgoth's own, 'made of stone' ..." (HOME X, p. 123, section 127)
Additionally, from this early version, we learn something about the first set of characteristics JRRT associated with his Orcs. They were creatures of flesh, despite the fact that the actual term "orcus" is a very real, very ancient Graeco-Roman concept translated as "Demonic Spirit." JRRT borrowed the word, but wanted to change its meaning, so he made it very clear to his readers that the Middle-earth Orcs were mortals of Flesh and not spiritual beings.* As such, Tolkien's first Orcs were mortal in many manlike ways, with a life span no greater than those of regular men. Whether they had souls, whether they were redeemable, whether they varied in levels of personal committment to evil -- so that some could actually become "quite decent" on their own -- was never addressed. These "stone-orcs," did not even need to have souls, they could walk/ talk/ act and still not really be alive, or independent in their thinking. Such "depersonalized" Orcs were simply available to be slaughtered (without arousing the pity of the readers) whenever the logic of the narrative demanded a great battle, and great deeds from the heroic Elves and Men.
"Orcs we may name them, for in the ancient days they were strong and fell as demons; yet they were of other kind [not real demons in the classical sense], a spawn of earth corrupted by the power of Morgoth, and they could be slain or destroyed by the valiant with weapons of war" (HOME X, p. 195)
So far everything was just swell -- Orcs were expendable, souless "enemies." But then, Tolkien created a raft of troubles for himself. His "Orc problems" all started when he decided to Christianize his Middle-earth mythology. Had he left his "English Mythology" alone, had he left it as a "stand-alone" fantasy, he could have made up all the rules to suit his own fancy, and changed those rules (as needed) to cover new additions to the ever-evolving corpus of this work. But, by tying his Middle-earth into the "pre-history" of our own world, and trying to make its story consistent with the received wisdom of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition (monotheism, God as sole creator, God as All Powerful, All Knowing, All Good) JRRT was left with some major, unforseen difficulties:
Would his Middle-earth, sapient creatures have Free Will, Original Sin, the possibility of Salvation/ Redemption -- just as they are laid out in the Biblical texts and the exegetical literatures of the Church Fathers? Tolkien, sometime in the 1940s, appears to have decided "YES!"
But, his first version material about Elves and Goblins, Olympian/ Norse styled gods, and the Heroic Age of Men had been written down since 1910, or so. A lot of his early stories were closer in philosophy to the Nordic sagas, with very different sets of moralities from those promulgated by Christianity. But, he did not want to simply dump all this treasured material -- so he would have to revise and re-write it. His first theory for the origin of Orcs (made out of stone and with no souls) was a simple Fairy Story sort of explanation, not suited to his new inspiration. It would have to go.
JRRT gradually "christianized" many of these early tales, and re-wrote the source myths to give them an ever increasing Christian-moralistic flavor: The Valar were demoted from gods, to become "angelic powers" working under a monothestic system where Eru became the One God. Elves, Men, Ents, Talking Beasts, Dwarves, Hobbits etc, would now be ruled by Christian philosophy, even though many of the actions of this work took place in pre-Christian times.
Suddenly it became important to demonstrate that all sapient/ independent thinking creatures must have souls. It became important to show that a "fallen angel" like Melkor/ Morgoth, could not really create anything -- he might only corrupt pre-existing creatures. So, the Orcs could not have been made from stone by the creative impulse of Morgoth, only Eru could create. Then where did Orcs come from? ____________
*The classical term "demon" did not really fit Tolkien's Orcs as well as it fit a creature like the Balrog. A Balrog, like the one Gandalf fought in Moria, was essentially a malevolent spirit, a true demon in the old Graeco-Roman sense. This Balrog, "a Demon of Morgoth," was a spirit-being, a Maia, one of the lesser Ainur. It could take on a physical form, but that form was not its real essence. Hence this type of demon might be "overthrown," might have its fleshy appearance removed, but it could never really be killed -- just as Gandalf and even Sauron could not ever be finally killed, only diminished in defeat, "de-fleshed" and made impotent.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 9, 2006 3:52:30 GMT -6
III The Torturous Path To Orkish Origins
2. A New and "Soulful" Version:
In the forms of Christianity that Tolkien accepted as orthodox (RC faith) only the All Good, All Powerful God can actually create sensate, thinking, reasoning beings. The Orcs, by Tolkien's own admission, certainly were sensate, they did think, and they even had a good measure of independence (as they are seen in the stories of the Silmarillion and LotR as frequently initiating actions of their own, and sometimes they defy the wills of their masters, Morgoth and Sauron). So, Morgoth could not have created these rational-independent Orcs on his own, they had to be derived from some "source creature" already made by Eru.
There were no Men awake yet, no Dwarves either, so when the first Orcs appear, they could only (logically) come from Elven stock. Being logical himself, JRRT accepted this axiom and altered his first Silmarillion to reflect the dictates of his Christian doctrine: Orcs MUST come from Elves, and this became the standard version that would finally see print as the 1977 Silmarillion:
"But of those unhappy ones [Elves] who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. ... Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressea, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor ... 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..." ("The Silmarillion," p. 50, hardback edition, in the chapter "Of the Coming of the Elves")
This did not, alas, solve all the problems. In fact, having the Orcs originate from the Elven lineage soon caused Tolkien more Christian-philosophy problems than it solved. If Tolkien retained this second explanation (Orcs = Elves corrupted), it brought up too many embarassing questions which his discerning readers soon began to ask:
How can such good Elves be corrupted from an initial state of high purity without a conception of a "Fall by way of Original Sin?" Do Orcs keep their original Elvish souls? Are the children of the Orcs born corrupted from the womb, with their immortal souls already twisted? Is there no freewill for each succeeding generation of Orcs? Can Orcs be redeemed in life, or at least after death? Do "dead" Orcs go to the Halls of Mandos where the hurts done them by Morgoth can be slowly reversed? Do the revived/ reincarnated "former Orcs" return to life within Arda in what would have been their original Elvish states of existence? And finally, do Orcs have the same life span as that which the uncorrupted Elves enjoyed?
Faced with such a barrage of "answerless" questions, JRRT soon began re-working his early cosmologies as he now tried to find ways of divorcing the Elves and the Orcs without having to scrap all of the pertinent chapters in his revised Silmarillion, and the published texts of LotR.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 9, 2006 4:17:25 GMT -6
IV The Torturous Path To Orkish Origins
3. A Blizzard of Origins
If coupling the Orcs and Elves was so troublesome, JRRT decided to simply "uncouple" the pair. He could not withdraw the LotR and rewrite it, but he could work around those statements that derived Orcs from Elves by offering a fuller, corrected version in the soon to be published Silmarillion.
In one manuscript, dated to the late 1950s, early 1960s, JRRT added a marginal note to the description of the Orcs as having originated from the Elves: "Alter this. Orcs are not Elvish." (HOME, p. 80, note 43).
While he was living out his last few years of life, Tolkien scribbled away at his incomplete revisions for a final Silmarillion. These "final revisions" were published by Christopher Tolkien in HOME X, "Morgoth's Ring." In the section titled "Myths Transformed" we find that Tolkien was trying to come up with a final solution for his Orkish problem:
________
"Orcs. Their nature and origin require more thought. They are not easy to work into the theory and system."
"1)... only Eru could make creatures with independent wills, and with reasoning powers. But the Orcs seem to have both..."
"2) Therefore they [Orcs] must be corruptions of something pre-existing."
"3) But Men had not yet appeared, when Orcs already existed. Aule constructed the Dwarves out of his memory of the Music; but Eru would not sanction the work of Melkor so as to allow the independence of the Orcs. Not unless Orcs were ultimately remediable, or could be amended and 'saved'?"
"... though Melkor could utterly corrupt and ruin individuals, it is not possible to contemplate his absolute perversion of a whole people, or a group of peoples, and his making that state heritable. In that case Elves, as a source, are very unlikely. And are Orcs 'immortal', in the Elvish sense?" (HOME X, p. 409)
_________
But soon, in yet one more set of notes, JRRT seems to be desperately re-connecting the Orcs and the Elves, simply because he could find no other reasonable statement for the origins of the Orcs: "Most of them [Orcs] plainly (and biologically) were corruptions of Elves (and probably later also of Men)." (see HOME X, pp. 413 - 414)
Then, in still another revision, Tolkien asked himself whether he could get around all of the major obstacles by creating a new class of "lesser spirits" that he could use as the seed-bed source of his Orcs. These spirits would be something like a very, very weak and almost insignificant kind of Ainur. Maybe akin to the spirits of the Olvar and the Kelvar used by Yavanna to inspirit some animals and plants (huorns). "... there must have been numerous corrupted minor spirits who assumed similar bodily shapes" [as Orcs]. (HOME X, p. 414.
Eventually, JRRT penned, sometime in the late 1960s, an eight or nine page synopsis of his final ideas on Orkish origins, characteristics, and properties. In this "last" version there were to be several types of Orc, some coming from corrupted spirits before Men were created. After the creation of Men, the bulk of the Orcs could follow. By having two types of Orcs -- 1. spiritual-being Orcs (who were immortal, like the Ainur); and 2. Orcs derived from Men -- most of the problems created by having Elves be the ancestors of the Orcs, were removed. Now, the Man-derived Orcs would not have Elvish souls, they would not go to the Halls of Mandos for repair and renewal, they would NOT have a longevity that mirrored the "immortality" of the Elves.
As most Orcs would come from Men who were corrupted of their own free will, the new Orcs would share the basic traits of Men:
"They were capable of acting on their own, doing evil deeds unbidden for their own sport ... they might neglect his [Morgoth's] commands. They hated one another and often fought among themselves, to the detriment of Morgoth's plans. ... They needed food and drink, and rest ... They could be slain, and they were subject to disease; but apart from these ills they died and were not immortal, even according to the manner of the Quendi; indeed they appear to have been by nature short-lived compared with the span of Men of higher race, such as the Edain*." (HOME X, p. 418)
In summation (finally!), if JRRT had lived a few more years, the finished version of "The Silmarillion" would have gone back to his first idea that Orcs and Elves were entirely separte creatures with no connecting links of genealogy. New additions would be the facts that Orcs would come in two sorts, immortal spirit Orcs, "The Great Orcs" (probably including Azog and Bolg); and a huge host of Man-derived Lesser Orcs, with nothing more than regular (70 year) life spans, or even less.
Of course, we all know that JRRT died before he had a chance to make this third revision for "The Silmarillion," and so it is the second version that was actually published as it stood. This became the posthumous 1977 Silmarillion book -- a book in which the Orcs WERE still derived from the Elves despite all the logical and theological problems such a connection insured.
Since most readers are familiar with "The Silmarillion," and LotR, I suppose the standard version becomes: Orcs are derived from Elves -- and all discussions of longevity, redeemability, possession of souls etc, should be drawn from this version?
_____________ * Not all of the Edain became Numenoreans with tripple-length lives. The Rohirrim are of the high race of the Edain, and they live "normal" spans. I think Tolkien means at this point to say that the Orc life span (for the Lesser-Orcs derived from human stock) would actually be significantly less than 70 years.
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Post by Desi Baggins on Feb 9, 2006 6:56:05 GMT -6
I agree that we should look at version 2 the one that says orcs derived from elves. Because they come from elves you would think that they had long lives, but maybe during the coruption of elves that part didn't convert over to the orcs. Maybe the first orcs that were elves once had long lives, but the ones born after that had shorter lives and so on.
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 9, 2006 19:53:25 GMT -6
Andorinha: Thank you so much for writing the evolution of the Orc. I have not yet gotten into all of the HOME series, let alone up to Book X!
It is a shame that JRRT was not able to finalize The Silmarillion the way he wanted it published before he died. I think most of us are thankful to Christopher Tolkien for piecing it together and trying to make it as close as he could to what his father wanted.
I tend to like this explanation for Orc origins the best: This seems to be the way I picture them in The Sil and LOTR. The corrupted Elf theory always bothered me.
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