[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by blantyr

I would think the answer to the first question depends a great deal on whether the One Ring and Sauron have been destroyed. In the battle before the Black Gate just before the ring was destroyed, the orcs and many other similar species were intensely determined to kill. When Frodo put on the ring and Sauron bent his will on getting the Nazgul to Mount Doom ASAP, Sauron's other servants were as marionettes with their strings cut.

I see the effects of the Ring and Sauron's will (which really are one and the same) on Sauron's Orcs as not so much controlling them, but as a driving force, giving added ferocity and hate to allow them to overcome such battlefield factors as superior fighting skill and weapons. It was said that Sauron had "spell enslaved" beasts in his service, but I don't think one can imply from that that all his servants were incapable of free thought. Sauron was mighty by the standards of Middle-earth, but he wasn't that powerful. If he was, why the need to have Orkish slave-drivers to control the rank-and-file Orcs? Wouldn't they have obeyed his orders without question if they were controlled?

Originally Posted by blantyr

One might propose that Morgoth created them as marionettes, as being subject to his will. Sauron later used them in the same way. Thus, a policy by any of the free peoples to kill on sight in self defense could be considered quite reasonable during the First, Second and Third ages. With the destruction of the Ring, you almost have to sit down and ask the first question all over again.

I disagree with the base assumption that Orcs were "created". The sole being in the cosmos in question capable of actual creation was Eru, who had possession of the Fire. Orcs must have had their origins with the Children created by Eru Ilúvatar, and therefore, were only ruined and twisted by Morgoth. The society forced upon them by Morgoth, and later, Sauron, would have been geared toward fostering and steadily increasing a hatred for the "Free Peoples" of the world. That being the case, the Orcs would not have been irredeemable, but it would have needed a very long time and careful handling of them by the West to turn them away from evil.

Originally Posted by blantyr

One might also want to consider the difference between Tolkien's time and our own. In World War II and before, it was quite traditional to demonize the enemy. The hun, the nazi or the nips were presented in government propaganda and Hollywood film as subhuman beings, killers and lacking morals. In short, ordinary people in western countries saw fellow human beings as if they were orcs. Fiction commonly portrayed characters as wearing black hats or white, as pure heroes or vile villains.

There's a fundamental difference between historical villains of our world and the Orcs. The latter were universally known to be servants of an actual "divine" incarnate evil being. The Orcs did not serve an ideology, or a certain way of life, but a "fallen angel" who had made them what they were over millenia. Their deeds and way of life needed no exaggeration for propaganda purposes.

Originally Posted by blantyr

I would suggest that Orcs under the sway of Morgoth and Sauron effectively lacked free will and might reasonably be treated as sentient vermin. During the Fourth Age Aragorn was able to negotiate borders with them and peacefully coexist. While not a lot was written about the Fourth Age, it would seem improper to treat them as sentient vermin after the destruction of the Ring.

I think it was the Men of Rhûn and Harad whom Gondor made peace with, not the Orcs. No more is said of them in the books, though certainly not all were killed. With the dissolution of Sauron, and their allies in the East and South no longer hostile to Gondor, I like to think that the Orcs were by and large free of external evil influences. As I said though, it took a very long time to make them evil, so it would have also taken a very long time for them to have renounced that.

x/d with Legate, who had similar thoughts