LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 03 - The Uruk-Hai

[drigel]

Perhaps its not a 'question' after all, perhaps its a 'statement'. Orcs are all evil, & that's simply a Mystery beyond us (& beyond Tolkien). Tolkien won't offer us any easy answers because there aren't any.

Sins of Morgoth...Facinating! I see the primary difficulty in understanding, as referenced earlier in this thread (Letter 153), orcs are "born bad", while we are not. We become bad.

It is interesting to consider that, if these creatures are as long lived (or close to) as elves, yet they seemingly do not have the "wisdom" that one assumes would accumulate in such a long lived entity. Some of these creatures were fighting elves before mankind even awoke - many thousands of years prior...This, to me is the nature of orcish behavior: eternally enthralled. Ever fixated on the maintainence and domination of an order that is not theirs, but their masters.