[Nar]

Phantom, Eomer of the Rohirrim: There are some good threads on the orcs in the Silmarillion Forum. Originally, in early HoME and the Silmarillion writings, Tolkien has elves speculating about the origin of orcs as elves taken and twisted by Morgoth, a horrible idea—imagine it: captured, tortured, and not only do you become an evil monster, but your descendants, if you have any, do also. As far as I know, Tolkien was always troubled by this. Now, I haven’t read the later volumes of HoME like Morgoth’s Ring and the Peoples of Middle Earth, but I understand by then, Tolkien was working out a theory in which Morgoth twisted either animals or men, resulting in orcs. That’s why I included both categories in my question. There are difficulties with the timeline if orcs come from men. I don’t know why men would be less horrible than elves as the originals of orcs, but maybe it helps that men die and go off to an unknown fate, where, if they were orcs, they could possibly be sorted out, if they were willing. Elves just stay around til the end of time, if they’re messed up, they’re messed up til the end of time.

Thank you, Evenstar1—I was always bothered by that mechanism—it seems so horrible to turn into an evil monster because you were tortured—ugh! A very unchristian idea, if I may say so. The exact opposite of martyrdom! I think they were corrupted, rather than tortured—I just can’t see Tolkien making innocent torture victims into monsters, he CAN’T have meant that!

This is the theory I’m working on: Fea (spirit) goes wrong first, Hroa (body) follows after. (hope I spelled that correctly!) The power of Morgoth works to soften the Hroa like warmed plastic, so that it molds to reflect the corrupted Fea within it—sort of collapsing around the ugliness inside until the body reflects the mind. All of the Valar could shape matter—they created Middle Earth. I don’t think Morgoth ‘uglified’ the body at all, just ‘plasticized’ it so that it could conform to the current state of the Fea—most of Morgoth’s (and minion’s) efforts went towards completing the corruption of the Fea. Morgoth’s motives would be to make better cannon-fodder warriors, seal his dominion over creatures that would be shunned everywhere else, and torment his followers just for the fun of it. Nasty!

Evenstar1, Mattius, Frodo Baggins: In the movie, they invented some pods; in the book, as I mentioned above, Treebeard muses about Saruman’s great orcs of the white hand, but we don’t know for sure: I doubt Tolkien had pods in mind, and Tolkien didn’t have Sauron OR Saruman with the power to warp life the way Morgoth did. I agree with Frodo Baggins, I think the Uruk-hai were just a breed of huge Mordor orc for fighting, but I could be remembering wrong.
Frodo Baggins: In the books, Treebeard speculates that Saruman may have crossed men and orcs, (how is not mentioned) but we never know for sure, and Tolkien says somewhere that Treebeard didn’t know everything.


Child of the 7th Age: Very interesting insight. Yes, I too find Saruman and Grima more accessible. Neverthless, Saruman is a maiar --depressing thought! Some of the orcs I find all too human, horrible but pitiable. And it just bothers me that there seems so little choice for orcs other than to be evil minions. It’s the liberal in me, I guess. It’s not that I think they’re misunderstood and secretly good, or anything, but no one ever tries with them. I have a crazy obsessed elf-missionary in my head, but I’ve resisted writing it because I know perfectly well he’d die on-mission, probably horribly, poor guy, still trying to reach them just to satisfy himself that SOMEONE tried.

I don’t see Wormtongue actually BECOMING an orc. Sauron himself couldn’t make orcs as Morgoth had, I don’t think Saruman could. Saruman is a curious, clever, restless soul, though, and I think he’d be tempted to try.

I think of those long days and nights imprisoned in Orthanc, no more battle strategies, no more political stratagems, nothing to do but work on Treebeard’s tender heart … oh, and here’s Wormtongue, whining again about his lost life in Rohan ‘Coulda been a contender…’ That annoying, whimpering traitor. All this time Saruman’s used his voice and glamour to encourage Grima’s worst qualities and now he’s bored, irritated, shut up with him … why not one last experiment? If Saruman’s no valar to plasticize the hroa, well, maia have a certain power over matter—enough to make themselves bodies.

Saruman thinks: ‘Perhaps if I concentrate I can soften Grima’s hroa a little bit, so it better reflects what he’s become under MY influence … yes … I think I feel it giving … that must be a shadow of what it was like for Morgoth … If only I’d gone over earlier, I’d have been much greater than Sauron, really, I have much more in common with Morgoth the great … ’ … so Saruman would tell himself.

Whether it would be true, even a little bit, I don’t know. Things like encouraging Grima’s degredation, working on him to break all codes of ethics and civilization, just peering hopefully at him every morning to check for signs of orcishness—Grima wouldn’t know why, but no doubt he’d sense the attitude in one he was tied to so closely. That in itself could create a kind of hysteria in Grima, so lost, so dependant, so very messed up. It could work on his mind, become self-fulfilling. He certainly had good reason to hate Saruman!