Orcseys - always Evil?

[Eldar14]

But temperament and things of that sort are still nature. A person's entire personality is NOT based on nurture, but a lot of it is also based on nature.

For example, dogs make good pets. For hundreds of years humans carefully selected the more obediant dogs and bred them to create a race of obediant pets. Most dogs, when you feed them, would never bite your hand. Most dogs wouldn't decide to maul their owner one day.

However, if one of us were to get a newly born lion cub, and raise it exactly as we would a dog, or a wild hyena pup, we would be fools to believe that we could safely feed it, or safely take it in public with us after it grows up. They have an inherent nature for violence, and you can't nurture that out of a creature.

It is very happy and nice to believe that people and creatures aren't born with parts of their personality decided, and anyone has a chance to be whatever their parents raising them want them to be, but it's naive. Part of a person's disposition and good nature are decided before they are born, as an element of their genetics. Sometimes 'good' families raise a 'bad' child, and sometimes 'bad' families raise a 'good' child.

[Gothmog]

Eldar14 provided a good example with the dogs and lions (even if a comparison with a wolf might be closer to the elf/human vs orc relationship). But one thing is missing. There are lion cubs, or wolf cubs, that are raised by animalkeepers and I've seen lion behave like peaceful kittens. They have a inherent nature for violence, yes, but they can control it. And there are dogs that bite their owners, just like there are elves and men that turn more or less evil. Yes, elves too make stupid things that hurt their own.

I won't tell you that raising an orc baby as your own won't lead to complications. The violent nature and misery of their race is probable partly genetic, but with the right upbringing where morale and normal values are a part of their life, even orcs can be turned into something functional in the "good" society. To pick a fight with one of these orphan-orcs may not be a very good idea, but if they're kept away from things that will trigger their instincts, I think they deserve the chance.

To say that Orcs are irreversible evil and forever lost doesn't fit very well with the view of a forgiving God that most Christians have. See also the quote Son of Númenor provided; Orcs are not irredeemably bad.

Fact is nurture has such a big impact on an organism that it would be strange if an Orc couldn't adapt itself to society. Not even clones or identical twins behave identical. For example: cows with the exact same genetic material take on different roles in a group. The first cloned cat (Copy Cat ) was a copy of it's mother, but it's personality was different.

If an orpanaged orc would be happy is another question. To know what "it" is and carry with it the "misery of it's race" and inherited hate could be to much to bear...

Forth tolkiengas! orcrist wielder at your service, may your beards grow large and never fall. I think i am one of the newer posters, in fact this is my very first post reply, concerning this particular issue, i am not quite sure that there are even orcseys!! i have never read in any of the J R R works (i have not read the letters yet tough) and correct me if i am wrong or if i am missing something important, that orcs have "childhood". Of course it is obvious to imagine that the must be younger at some point of their lives, but nothing that can be compared to a "childhood" i think. and there is no quote that i know of that might create that impression... i dont know maybe they are created and breeded by artcrafts, because as far as i can recall, it is in very short periods of time that both sauron and saruman "amassed" a very large army wich makes me think that they must be using some kind of dark and malicious power to rise so many orcs (should it be uruk-hai or regular orcs ) in a not-large ammount of time, therefore i dont really think there is enough time to "breed" an orc just like you would rise a human being or an elf or a fellow dwarf. If were are all just speculating, then i would agree with most of you, in the fact that a little orc can be rised i a way or another, depending of whom is to raise that little orc (burarrum), but i do agree with the perspective that no matter how "well" raised is that orc, there always will be a little part of him that will be "evil" inherent and as a part of him...
Greetings.

[Kath]

Ooh orcrist wielder may have a good point. We're assuming there are orc children. As far as we know they may not. We know they are corrupted Elves or a mixture of elves and goblin men. Perhaps this would be impossible.

But, that is perhaps a matter for a different thread.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

A topic oft spoken about. Try the search function if you want to know more about Goblin kids.

Gollum used to eat them, remember.

[narfforc]

Yes they did have children, Tolkien states this when he says: They had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar. We know that The Eldar and Atani bore children.

[Eldar14]

Gothmog, you raise a very good point regarding how there are lions in captivity which don't attack their keepers. However, this isn't because the lions are tame.

In most cases of a predatory animal being kept in activity, such as in zoos or circuses, the zookeeper plays a very clever game to convince the creature that the keeper is dominant, and that the keeper is more powerful than the predator. There have been cases where once this illusion is broken the lion will kill the keeper.

For example, one way this happens from time to time is if a new creature is introduced, and this animal doesn't yet know the keepers position, it may attack the keeper. The instant this happens, and the keeper shows their weekness, the other animals also attack.

So, while there often is an illusion of tameness amongst naturally violent animals, this is merely an illusion created by the animal's fear and respect for its keeper. The parrallel for orcs in regard to this phenomenon wouldn't be an orc growing up in society and fitting in, but the fact that an orc doesn't attack his superiors because he believes them to be stronger.

It's not that the lion is tame to its keeper, but that it believes its keeper is more powerful.

[Gothmog]

You're probably right, Eldar14, but the animals I thought of was not the usual zoo-animals and their keepers, but animals that of some reason has been left without parents and are raised by an animal keeper, not in a zoo together with other lions (or whatever the animal is). Besides, there are few animals that hunt humans for food. Polar bears are the only land living animal that do that. In other cases, wild animals attack to defend themself, their offspring or their own area.

To keep the animals, or in this case orcs, away from strerssing situations might be necessary. But then an orc isn't comparable with an animal; the orcs have a more advanced brain and can think for themselves. If they don't want to adapt to the elven/human world, then they won't. But if they have a wish to leave the life of their kin behind, then I still think it's possible.