Thank you very much, Mr. Underhill. Good point about Ugluk. I'm sure Saruman would have gotten around to micromanaging, given enough time-- look at the way he popped up all over the fields of Rohan 'old man all in white' pestering his hardworking orcs. Where's the trust? Dwarin, you are so right about Morgoth and Sauron. They did not think the orcs were worthy of any serious consideration; they were created to be used and used up. It's just a bad idea to work for the forces of evil, they got no ethics.
You make many good points about the misery of the orcs, Bombur. And you certainly write a stirring call to arms. However, I have to disagree with some of your points.
Tolkien stated that elves DID accept surrender from their enemies, even orcs --I believe it's in the later volumes of HoME. This business about the Valar massacring orcs is simply not supported by anything I've read, not at all. They invaded because the orcs' resident tyrant Morgoth was enslaving, massacring and torturing every living creature he could gain power over. The orcs themselves were awful to anyone they captured, because they chose to be. Those orcs that were in Morgoth's army no doubt fought with the Valar and their army, no doubt many were killed if they did not surrender-- that's a war for you. They're nasty things, wars. As far as I can tell, orcs were left alone if they left others alone. They lived under the mountains because they were mountain orcs, and naturally liked caverns. All the elf attacks I ever read about were provoked by orc attacks: the case of Celebrian, for example.
If you're talking about leaving, moving on, finding an empty land, orcs finding a way to live that satisfies them and does not involve abusing other thinking creatures-- both because that's wrong (why else would it be wrong to massacre orcs unneccessarily? because they're thinking creatures... like elves, men and hobbits) and because that leads to more wars and trouble with other thinking creatures, wars orcs historically lose, then in that case I agree, Bombur. Go do so! Find a free, relatively harmless way of orc life!
But if you're talking revenge for a list of wrongs that omits the orcs' part in events, if you're talking about conquest licensed by imagined wrongs, then you're simply offering to be the newest tyrant of the orcs. They've had enough of that.
So go ahead and seek a new life for the orcs, with them minding orcish business and not 'great angry tyrant' business. As long as orcs do no harm to other thinking peoples, I'm all for it.
[ September 07, 2002: Message edited by: Nar ]
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