[Gwaihir the Windlord]

The Ainur were the beings first created by Illuvitar, the 'offspring of his thought' as it is recorded. All of them; the good ones and the bad, Manwe as well as Melkor. And it would also seem that they sprung from various 'parts' of Eru's mind: 'But Manwe was the brother of Melkor in the mind of Illuvitar...'

The like of Melkor, Sauron and Ungoliant, undoubtedly evil, are clearly as much a part of Eru as the kin of Manwe, Varda and Yavanna; every Ainu in fact, great or small, evil or goodly, bright or shadowy, violent or sedate, represents a facet of the mind of Illuvitar. He contains evil as well as good. His mind contains every inclination there is, which, I spose, is why he is the creator of everything. Which leads me to a very interesting conclusion.

First of all, it explains why Illuvitar did not intervene to destroy evil such as Morgoth and Sauron, for anyone who wonders. He has as much chance of smiting the Valar, which is obviously something he wouldn't do -- it's his creation and it all stems from him originally anyway.

More importantly, I now have a perhaps radical idea on the origins of Orcs and what they were. Aule made the Dwarves, and out of sympathy, Eru granted them the Secret Fire and gave them life of their own. He can maybe also be said to have done the same with Yavanna's trees, creating the Ents (or 'Shephards of the Trees'; see 'Of Aule and Yavanna', the Silmarillion.). So if his mind was, as stated, inclined to Melkor's thoughts as much as Aule's or Yavanna's, could he have not done the same with the Orcs, and granted the work of Melkor too his Secret Fire?

What do you think? Nowhere is anything like it actually stated (that I know of anyway); but it's an interesting idea.