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Originally Posted by Inziladun
Now, the same footnote makes a point of saying the Elves themselves did not believe in the relationship because "their laughter and the laughter or Orcs are as different as is the light of Aman from the darkness of Angband." That would seem to be a rather shaky basis on which to dismiss the theory though, since it seems obvious that the Drúedain, like any other potential sources from which Morgoth could have bred Orcs, could easily have been so altered after he got through that they were in effect different creatures.
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I think this is a notable description. Internally Tolkien wasn't necesarily going to have anything known for certain about the origin of orcs, but from an external perspective he delves into possible candidates: Elves, Men, beasts, Maiar... never the Drúedain or 'early Hobbits' however. And then (internally again) he has the Elves negate an idea regarding the Drúedain because of... laughter! the light of Aman versus the darkness of Angband. I know it seems strange, but something about this particular 'tell' makes me (at least) think it's more likely to be true.
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Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc
For sure, Orcs existed before Men even appeared, but of course "continuous breeding" is more than possible.
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But we should note that Tolkien was quite aware that the chronology needed changing for his Orcs from Men/Maiar idea to make sense, and he intended to make adjustments. The more well known sequence of events hails from the 1977 Silmarillion, and since Christopher Tolkien wasn't going to try and incorporate the later sketched out chronology, the opinion of the Wise of Eressea was the natural enough decision for his published Silmarillion -- admittedly giving weight to the idea that Orcs began with corrupted Elves, even though the absolute 'truth' simply was not known.