[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by alatar

Is it that the Third Age orcs and other ilk have fallen from their original automaton evil prototype and, like men and elves, are lesser than like what came before? Men slowly became less long-lived and embued with special powers; orcs slowly decide that cannon fodder is a poor life. Isn't that the idea hinted at behind the 'fourth age snippet', that men and orcs were converging, so that by the present neither race is clearly distinguishable?

You consider this a fall by orcs?

Gollum I have no problem with, it's just that it is too convenient to have him fall just after he reclaims the Ring. Tolkien, assumedly in control of the situation, could have had Smeagol claim the Ring with Frodo between him and the Crack of Doom, and so his death (and consequent destruction of the Ring) could have taken more effort by Frodo and/or Sam, who could have given the wretched thing a bump into the lava.

But that would render Frodo a killer, which would drastically change the kind of character he had become. Not even Peter Jackson for an action oriented modern flick, could stoop that low.

That they do, though it's less apparent (at least to me) in the Hobbit, where Gandalf and a bunch of dwarves and Bilbo sitting in a tree throwing burning pine cones at the orcs and wargs below surely would have attracted their attention. And, after having saved Gandalf and the others, they may have seen that something interesting was going to come of the campaign, and so paid it more attention.

What's the difference between an deus ex machinum(a?) and a eucatastrophe, anyway? Or are you implying that there isn't one?