Are orcs actually evil?

[Boromir88]

Arathor, I'm afraid you are mixing the Orcs Tolkien created with the common stereotypical view of Orcs that is common in literature. See, Tolkien created Orcs that are much more complex and have the human feelings of individualism and free will. What you've said completely contradicts what we see Orcs are capable of doing in Tolkien's story.

First you disregarded Letter 153 where Tolkien directly says that even Orcs were not beyond redemption, also consider these...

1) The Orcs were certainly capable of rebelling against Morgoth and Sauron:

“The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men and Elves) deliberately perverted / converted into a more close resemblance to Men. Their ‘talking’ was really reeling off ‘records’ set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellion critical words - he knew about them.”~Morgoth’s Ring; Myths Transformed

2) We see a glimpse of a more humane side of Orcs with the discussion between Shagrat and Gorbag:

’They would,’ grunted Gorbag. ’We’ll see. But anyway, if it does go well, there should be a lot more room. What d’you say? - if we get a chance, you and me’ll slip off and set up somewhere on our own with a few trusty lads, somewhere where there’s good loot nice and handy, and no big bosses.’
’Ah!’ said Shagrat. ’Like old times.’~The Choices of Master Samwise

Even Orcs had a desire to settle down and get away from the 'big bosses.' Sure we see them as the spiteful, hateful, ant-like slaves of Sauron and Morgoth. Yet they were much more complex than that stereotypical label. They could not be part of the 'cogs' of the machine. They could rebel and they could feel a desire of individualism.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Boro88

Quote:
I don't have the exact quote but I remember that Melkor creating the orcs was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, crime he committed.

Why, it's right about you in Letter 153:
Quote:
They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins...

I agree, responsibility must be laid upon Morgoth, as the Letter continued:
Quote:
Because by accepting or tolerating their making - necessary to their actual existence - even Orcs would become part of the World, which is God’s and ultimatly good.

This makes it seem like for Orcs to even exist (or in order for them to be "created") Morgoth needed to spew all the evil and hatred into them.

Now, see, this use of Letter #153 goes to the heart of our use of Tolkien's Letters. The very looong draft is, I think, an excellent example of Tolkien's love of pinhead debate, that is, angels dancing etc. It also rather provides a commendable model for much of our discussions here. (Well, certainly, the current I found the Entwives thread gives more than passing nod to Tolkien's linguistic legerdemain and a great lot of fun it is.)

When is a letter canonical and when is it not? When is it a legitimate expression of Tolkien's intention and when is it rather expressive of his delight in debate?

What is called Letter #153 by Carpenter was in fact never sent to Peter Hastings, Tolkien's Catholic questioner. It is identified as a "draft" at the top of the letter and given a specific qualification at the conclusion. Here's the note at the end of the draft, p. 196 in my paperback edition of the Letters:

Originally Posted by Tolkien via Carpenter

[The draft ends here. At the top, Tolkien has written: 'Not sent,' and has added: 'It seemed to be taking myself too importantly.']

Now isn't that an absolutely fascinating sentence structure! "It seemed" refers to the letter, as something taking Tolkien too seriously. It isn't "I seemed to be taking myself too seriously." Tolkien steps away from authorial omnisience and hands it over to the letter itself. Now there's a writerly sleight of hand if ever I saw one!

I would argue that we should take this entire draft as speculative on Tolkien's part, an intellectual challenge. Hastings had seriously questioned part of the sub-creation in terms of Catholic theology. I can myself quite imagine a Tolkien, clever wag that he was, delighting in the exercise of seeing if he could prove Mr. Hastings wrong by delineating how consistent his sub-creation was or was not with the primary world. Why, look, he even used "orc" not metaphorically to refer to barbarians in his own world, but to the sub-created creatures of Melkor and then he used "God" rather than "Eru". Talk about deliberately muddying the waters for such a serious questioner. I'm sure Tolkien would have made an excellent Jesuit!

No, I don't think we can in all seriousness--although in a great deal of play--use this draft as an example of Tolkien's intention. It has altogether the air of intellectual gamesmanship--an air which Tolkien himself recognised when he decided not to send it. It needs to be appreciated as such, methinks.

(Note also, that Carpenter says "the draft ends here", as if Tokien gave up the game before he came to what would have been the logical conclusion.)

Now, if this post is technically off-topic in that it does not specifically address the oft-visited Orc question, well, then, let it stand as a study in the nature of evidence we ought to employ in visiting the orc question.

[Boromir88]

Bethberry, everything would be so much easier if you just nodded your head and agreed with me.

Ok, seriously though, great stuff. I had no idea about any of that. But now the pressure is on you. What do you think about Tolkien's Orcs? Were the outright evil and wicked? Or was there a chance for their redemption...for as we do see in the Lord of the Rings (and not Tolkien's messy Letters), the Orcs did have and idea of individualism and could not 'live' within 'the machine.'

[Child of the 7th Age]

Bêthberry and Boromir - Great comments.

I'd like to throw one more quotation in the pot:

But even before this wickedness of Morgoth 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. They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. 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

This is another fine example of Tolkien answering a question without actually answering it. I love the phrase "might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men)". (Hmm... There is a sneaky hint here that the situation could have been regarded differently in the eyes of the Valar or Eru.)

Still, JRRT was at least willing to consider the possibility that an Orc might plead for mercy. If a orcs had the ability to make such a plea (and why would Tolkien raise the point unless he felt that they had that ability?), I think they might be able to be "redeemed" in some form or fashion.

Actually, what I find most interesting is not what Tolkien said about this subject, but how I feel about this situation. There is something inside me that rebels at the idea that all orcs are unconditionally doomed simply by the mere fact of their existence. What kind of world condemns someone at birth and does not allow for any possibility of change? And how about the original Elves who were captured by Morgoth and tortured into submission so that their very nature was changed. To me, it raises questions about the justness of the world.

OK, I'm going out on a limb here. But is it possible to have a just world, a world where there is a clear demarcation between goodness and evil (at least in theory), if a being is condemned to perdition simply because they happen to be born to a particular station in life? I am willing to accept that 99% of orcs were doomed....but I somehow can't accept that each and every one of them down to the end of time had no chance to be anything but evil.

But maybe I am way too soft-hearted....

P.S. For a definitive answer to this question, drop into the ongoing Rohan RPG "The Fellowship of the Fourth Age". Its main question is similar to that posed by this thread: were any of the orcs of Mordor redeemable after the destruction of the Ring and the demise of Sauron?

[Laurinquë]

I certainly do not think you are being way too soft-hearted Child of the 7th Age, I in fact have a softer heart. All the while I have read LOTR I never really understood why things like wargs and orcs had to be intrinsically evil, I mean sure, they did terrible things to people, but don't you think that they thought that people did terrible things to them? People went out there and slaughtered them, they can't have liked that. If I met an orc on the road one night I wouldn't kill it, no matter what it tried to do to me, it has a life just like mine, how am I better then it? Because some important people think I do the right thing verses what the orc does? There is no set rules of right and wrong, the orc was doing what it thought it should do, maybe someone had made it do on threat of death or something. It's for this reason that I am not totally in awe of Legolas or Gimli for killing X number of orcs, it's bad enough you killed them, but did you have to glorify it so much? You could just do it for the sake of protecting your friends and family, that's not something to scoff at.

Ah well, it seems I have gone off on rampage here, I get really touchy on this sort of thing, I follow the Buddha's teachings on the value of another's life.


I might add that in the LOTR rip off Eragon the big, bad, orc things called Urgals are not really the bad creatures they seem to be at first, as is reviled in the second book Eldest.



*Much later edit* I hope I did not kill this thread....I got kinda enthusiastic there, heh heh..

[MaultheStoor]

See, a lot of people never think "Well, this monster I just mowed down might actually have feelings." Can there honestly be such thing as a "good" Orc?

[A Little Green]

Just a few thoughts to stir the pot...

I like to explain orcs by socio-cultural reasons, mainly because I loathe the idea of a race being ultimately evil (manly because I hate the idea of good and evil ). The moral values and upbringing methods in an orc society differ much from what we call acceptable or normal or good. In the same manner a human child (hopefully) learns from his surroundings that killing and hurting others is wrong, an orc child learns that it's right. The surroundings from which an orc child learns are originally created by Sauron or Morgoth or whoever, and repeated by other orcs around the child because they have been brought up the same way. Similarly the children of the free peoples are, I would think, taught to hate orcs.

So what is the difference? Why are the heroes never bothered by the amount of slaughter they do, or rather, why are we never bothered by it? Why are they still not evil in any way? Okay, they don't take joy in violence and they are on the defending side...

But somehow that isn't sufficient for me. True, we could justify the heroes' hatred for orcs by what orcs have done to their families or homes or freedom or whatever, but aren't we then doing the precisely same thing that those people who eg. hate all supporters of a certain religion because some 0.00000001% of them are terrorists who happened to kill someone, or those who hate all inhabitants of a country because their leader is a brute?

Of course LotR is an epic fantasy novel, almost like a fairytale, and I'm probably making a mistake in comparing it to things happening in this world. After all, Middle Earth is a world of its own, a fantasy world, and in such places I suppose good and evil can exist even if they didn't in this one. (Especially if it is a symbolic story or especially if the author needs a way for describing war in his books without making his heroes seem cruel because they kill others... )