Theory on Trolls, Olog-hai, and their [I]fear[/I].

[Orofacion of the Vanyar]

My my, what a post! You have definetly put some thought into this, quite impressive I must say. Hail and well met Olorin.

Let me take a stab at this. I'm going to refer to something you said in your first post.

However, Tolkien later says (again in HoMe X) that such "'Puppets' would simply cease to move or 'live' at all, when not set in motion by the direct will of their maker." And yet we see that Trolls continue to live and act with minds of their own after Morgoth's defeat.

Morgoth's influence on Middle Earth was extremely strong. In fact, he put so much of himself, his evil, into the earth that lingers still after his captivity. We see this in disease, the Fell Winter, and such. I believe this also could apply for Trolls. Morgoth could have set their existence into motion, and even though he is no longer in direct, control over them, they still can function. It's like ripples in a pond I suppose.

Now, if Tolkien stated that Trolls could reproduce, then this idea would not hold merit, but he doesn't. Trolls didn't reproduce on their own. I think that the stock of trolls that he possibly made were the only ones in existence.

This could explain thier origins.

As far as the Olog-Hai, that is obviously Sauron's doing, and like Tolkien stated. Their power is solely dependent on him so that takes care of that, so to speak. How he mixed troll with man is another thread in itself, but suffice it to say, with the power that Sauron had in the Third Age, a combination of the two is not unlikely. How did Sauruman mingle orc with man? I can't picture the two mating, so their has to be some other power behind it. But that is conjectural.

I hope I haven't sounded too, well, ridiculous. Just throwing out some ideas. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Amazing topic!