Are orcs actually evil?

[Eönwë]

Well, remember. TOlkien believed in Redemption he was Catholic, and Christianity talks a lot about forgiveness, so I'm sure Tolkien thought that Orcs were not pure evil. In fact, probably no-one, not even Melkor is 100% evil (depending on how you view Ungoliant)

[skip spence]

If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost. This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded. Morgoth's Ring, HoMe X, 419

I believe the question of whether orcs were irredeemably evil or not gave Tolkien a lot of headache. If orcs indeed were corrupted forms of elves and/or men they then would have had a 'fea' granted by Eru and a rational mind capable of moral choices, as others already have pointed out.

But consider the above quote in the light of what happened during the first battles of Beleriand. During the second battle, the elves were said to have routed the orc hosts so severly that "no more than a handful of leaves" returned to Angband. During the third battle the orc host was destroyed "to the last and least".

If orcs were rational beings and not mindless beasts, this would've be a terrible crime. Surely at some point before their ultimate annihilation the orcs must have realised they were uttterly defeated and asked for mercy or at least tried to flee. Yet they were slaughtered to the last man.

I'm sure Tolkien had this in mind when he later on tried to device other orgins of orcs to replace 'the corrupted elves'-one. Yet he realised that it wasn't belivable to say they were just mindless beasts. They were not. IMO Tolkien really tried to make up a plausable theory on how they could've been beasts, but never quite managed it. He really wanted them to be beasts but realised that they couldn't be, not without contradicting much of what he already had written. There's just no way that Melkor could have made intelligent and rational humaniods out of beasts, without granting him the gift of original creation, and this was out of the question.

[The Sixth Wizard]

Whenever I read The Lord of the Rings and sometimes the Silmarillion, I get the feeling that the border between Man/Elf and Orc is less well defined than one might think. For example:

Faramir, in the RotK thinks that Gollum is some kind of scout-orc. Gollum, in my mental image, looks nothing like the stereotypical orc, or even the scout orc. It suggests that there are more breeds of orc than just Uruk, Uruk-Hai, Snaga etc. and that it is easier to mutate Men and Elves than we might have thought.

There are mentions of "half-orcs" and "goblin-men" when dealing with Saruman. Saruman was not the first to experiment with Orcs so we can assume Melkor and other dark powers tried this too, and probably made half-breeds which were more peaceful, and super-breeds which were more ferocious and reckless. I could imagine a kind of half-man, half-orc race which lived a rough and tribal existence, with less of the civilised qualities other men had. These men would still have peaceful ideas in their heads and could be integrated somewhat (and interbred) into society.

Massive armies of orcs seem to spring from almost nowhere, especially in the cases of Saruman and Mordor. To create the armies so quickly the sorcerors must have bred already wild men, slaves and other sub-species into the "pure" orc strain. The purer orcs would be the slave-masters and leaders, but the underlings of the armies and the orcs who have been depicted as more independant in Tolkien's books must have been the ones with man- and half-man-blood in them. I could see Gorbag as a stronger, more man-blooded orc.

I don't see redemption as easy. While the orcs were adapting to their new values, there would undoubtedly be instances of their violent nature getting the better of them, for which they would have to be punished, which would brutalise them further and lead to shunning and killing of their race in the end. I do see redemption possible, but it would not work in real life because men do not care for orcs, and orcs do not care for men.

[skip spence]

Good point The Sixth Wizard.

In fact, If orcs and men are interbreedable, they must be the same race biologically, if their offspring are able to reproduce. That would make orcs no more (or at least, not much more) different to men than, for example, ethnic Chinese are to eskimoes. And doesn't Tolkien talk about modern day orcs too? Wow, I never really thought about that before. Orcs are men. Simple as that.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

You're right, skip - this isn't a movie discussion. Occasionally threads get unearthed from barrows not intended to be their home. No problem - I'll just move it; as it's a question that seems to interest newcomers, and there are previous similar discussions in Books, I'll place it in the N&N area. Please continue reading and posting there - thanks!

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

There are mentions of "half-orcs" and "goblin-men" when dealing with Saruman. Saruman was not the first to experiment with Orcs so we can assume Melkor and other dark powers tried this too, and probably made half-breeds which were more peaceful, and super-breeds which were more ferocious and reckless.

You are right, VI, Saruman certainly was not the first to dabble with Orcs; in fact, a common misconception (engendered by the movies no doubt) was that Saruman created the Uruk-Hai. This is not the case, as Sauron had created the fighting Uruk several centuries earlier.

In regards to Orc-Men and Half-Orcs, it is certainly reasonable to believe that the 'squint-eyed Southerner' in FotR had more mannish stock in him than orkish, and thus was better able to assimilate unnoticed in Bree.

[Animalmother]

As Morgoth could only ruin, but could not independently create, orcs must be a sort of unnaturally selected type of genus Homo. The gestation periods of elves and dwarves were too long for those species to be suitable as the founding stock of orcs. Perhaps pointy ears were a dominant trait; so if orcs had pointy ears they might have had a small amount of elf blood. If orcs had great longevity -- another point of controversy -- they might have had more than a small amount of elf blood.

Darwin teaches that species can emerge from isolated races, so it's plausible that Morgoth could have selectively bred captive men for various nasty human characteristics, and could also have bred them for shorter gestation periods, shorter periods of sexual maturation, and greater frequency of twins and triplets. Morgoth then ultimately could make them into a new species, Homo orcis, or whatever the Latin might be. The new orc species would be inter-fertile to a high degree with Homo sapiens. In nature there are distinct species which are fully inter-fertile but which do not normally interbreed due to psychological inhibitions. In other cases, species are partially inter-fertile, so that a hybrid must be bred back to a specimen of pure species to produce viable offspring. Probably humans and elves were only partially inter-fertile, while humans and orcs were more inter-fertile, with human-orc crosses prevented by human revulsion.

If this surmise is correct, orcs are not doomed by nature to do evil, but simply have a much harder time avoiding evil.

Has anyone solved the riddle of orc longevity? Were they like elves, immortal unless killed, or were they mortal, and if so, what was their life expectancy?

[Animalmother]

The black blood of the orcs could signify that it was extraordinarily rich in hemoglobin.

This is a hint that orcs were bred in high altitudes, and might also explain their powers of endurance in long distance loping.

Their dark skin seem anomalous, given that they were active at night and inside dark mountains. Perhaps it is a kind of natural camouflage.

I'm not sure what function the pointy ears of an orc might have served. In an orc v. orc fight, and in a cold climate, pointy ears would be a disadvantage. Perhaps they were useful for predation, as are wolves' ears. Perhaps too they were useful for controlling body temperature.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Animalmother

I'm not sure what function the pointy ears of an orc might have served. In an orc v. orc fight, and in a cold climate, pointy ears would be a disadvantage. Perhaps they were useful for predation, as are wolves' ears. Perhaps too they were useful for controlling body temperature.

I am not aware there was ever a description of Orcs having pointy ears. Is this perhaps a conclusion based on Elves having pointed ears, and so a transference to Orcs? Since Tolkien later on decided that Orcs more likely came from Man than Elves, would not the shape be mannish rather than elvish? I'm at work, so any reference material is unavailable to me.