[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Say, for instance, that the Professor stumbles upon some records in chronological order. What may he find? There could have been different speculations voiced by different people at different periods in time. A little fanciful illustration:

...A little too fanciful, perhaps, but I think not impossible.

And very well supported in the text, because the last major text on Orcs (HoME X:V:X, pleasingly) is exactly this kind of document:

So far as can be gleaned from the legends that have come down to us from our earliest days, it would seem that the Quendi had never yet encountered any Orcs of this kind before the coming of Orome to Cuivienen.

Much like the occasional Numenorean scholar author, the Elvish writer of this piece (written in the Fourth Age, because she talks about Saruman's experiments in the past tense) has fiercely strong opinions that she presents in the guise of facts.

This view of the origin of the Orcs [that they were corrupted Men] thus meets with difficulties of chronology. But though Men may take comfort in this, the theory remains nonetheless the most probable.

She mentions most of the theories - independent creation of Melkor, spirits/phantoms, Maiar (handled separately), and of course corrupted Men - but is utterly silent on the question of Elves. Except...

But even before this wickedness of Morgoth [the corruption of Men into Orcs] was suspected the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not 'made' by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil.

... which is a direct reference to the Annals of Aman, the last pre-Myths Transformed account, which states that it "is held true by the Wise of Eressea" that Orcs are corrupted Elves. So yeah, the most complete late text is explicitly an opinion-ridden denunciation of both mortal Men and their arrogance, and the naivity of old-timer Elves.

(Incidentally X:V:X is also where the idea that Elves would always take an Orcish surrender offer, though Orcs rarely offered, comes from.)

~

Glancing over the other Myths Transformed texts, I feel like the shift from the simple "they're elves" version came about because of the Athrabeth. Finrod tells Andreth that he cannot believe that Morgoth could change the Doom and nature of a whole people. In that text he was referring to her claim that Men were not supposed to be Mortal, but Tolkien seems to have realised it applied equally to making Orcs inheritably evil. Everything from then on was an attempt to write himself out of that contradiction, by making them either no longer Eruhini, or so crushed by Morgoth's spirit and will that they weren't entirely rational creatures any more.

hS