Are Orcs That Bad?

[Anárion Cúthalion]

Originally Posted by skip spence

*phew* (if Nogrod agrees with me I know I'm on the right track)



You're right, in Tolkien's world there is no absolute evil (maybe I was sloppy expressing myself before). Eru is Good and the norm and as everything comes from him there can be no autonomous evil principle. Or can it? Not so sure about that actually, couldn't he have created that too just because? Well. in theory perhaps but not in Arda...



I suppose that whichever choice Eru made it was still Good as he is the norm. Eru makes no mistakes as there is no-one above him with the authority to judge him.

I believe it was the theologist Sorenson who said that evil as we understand it is merely "shadow", that evil is not a separate comcept by a twisted version of good. Perhaps Tolkien was influenced in some manner by that thought.

[Boromir88]

...but as davem suggested in his Fantasy thread, maybe seeing some of the gore involved in battle, and some of the fallout, would make these images of slaughter somehow more important.~Lal

And he certainly had a penchant for glorifying battles too, with swords shining in the morning sun, banners flying high and men dying almost happily on the battlefield, praised ever after in song and verse.~skip

And it's interesting that the one time we really experience the pain of war (on the baddies side) is Sam's first encounter, of war, with the dead Haradrim soldier:

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace - ...~Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

Before this, Mablung and Damrod were "cursing" the Southrons, for joining with Sauron. Sam steps in as much like an independent narrator, who just got his first look of "Men against Men."

Perhaps also part of the glorifying is because of the value both the Men of Gondor and Rohan place on battle:

"...For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts. Such is the need of our days. So even was my brother, Boromir: a man of prowess, and for that he was accounted the best man in Gondor..."~The Window on the West

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

And it's interesting that the one time we really experience the pain of war (on the baddies side) is Sam's first encounter, of war, with the dead Haradrim soldier:

True that. The Hobbits never see any glamour in war as far as I can remember. Bilbo's account of the Battle of Five Armies is his 'least favourite part of the adventure' and although no symphathy is evoked for the Goblins there's little or no glorification of the rout either.

Btw, I quickly browsed the Absolute Evil thread and and it does interest me.

[Stoatly Grimes]

If a race of beings is determined that they are going to kill you and eat your flesh, then I think it's reasonable to attempt to prevent them from doing so. Evil is always an arbitrary concept, but self-preservation is fairly black-and-white (at least in this case).

I imagine the thought-process goes something like this: "The angry orc coming towards me with a blood-stained scimitar does not want to chat; rather, he means to cause significant harm upon my person, because he hates me. Call me belligerent, but I reckon I'll kill him first, as I do not wish to be brutally hacked apart."

It doesn't really matter why or even if they are truly evil, beyond the philosophical interest. If you hesitate to kill them because they might not be evil, they will kill you, perhaps after sustained torture.

I can picture a group of "progressive" individuals picketing at the gate of Minas Tirith with placards reading "Orcs have feelings too!" and being promptly butchered after venturing into Mount Gundabad to discuss potential leaflet drives.

I suppose you could attempt to discuss morality and metaphysics with a gang of marauding orcs over a coffee, but I fear they are some way beyond reasoned discourse.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

It doesn't really matter why or even if they are truly evil, beyond the philosophical interest. If you hesitate to kill them because they might not be evil, they will kill you, perhaps after sustained torture.

I can picture a group of "progressive" individuals picketing at the gate of Minas Tirith with placards reading "Orcs have feelings too!" and being promptly butchered after venturing into Mount Gundabad to discuss potential leaflet drives.

I suppose you could attempt to discuss morality and metaphysics with a gang of marauding orcs

Shame on you! This is not the forum for right wing political posturing.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Stoatly Grimes

If a race of beings is determined that they are going to kill you and eat your flesh, then I think it's reasonable to attempt to prevent them from doing so. Evil is always an arbitrary concept, but self-preservation is fairly black-and-white (at least in this case).

I imagine the thought-process goes something like this: "The angry orc coming towards me with a blood-stained scimitar does not want to chat; rather, he means to cause significant harm upon my person, because he hates me. Call me belligerent, but I reckon I'll kill him first, as I do not wish to be brutally hacked apart."

It doesn't really matter why or even if they are truly evil, beyond the philosophical interest. If you hesitate to kill them because they might not be evil, they will kill you, perhaps after sustained torture.

Well, well, but that's what's been contested on threads like this or the one which had been here recently - I think it was called something like "Orcseys-always evil?" or something like that. But I think this, what you say, is the usual approach from an average Orc towards a human or elf, or (not to forget) also from an average Gondorian soldier towards an Orc. But I would like to point out that it's not necessarily like that. 90% of this approach (of this thinking "if I don't kill it, it kills me") is the chain of wrongdoings from Orcs to Men and from Men to Orcs in the past, which is passed down generations and taught to little Gondorian children or pressed into the heads of Orcs by Sauron. It is "reasonable", under these circumstances, but when you go back and come to the first, "Utumno generation", there was the first impulse - we are quite lucky that we can see to the beginning of the chain of events, and pretty clearly! - and that came from Morgoth, who said: "Now, go out and raid some Elven villages." The first Orcs, basically, had little other choice as slaves. The Elves, then, had little other choice than to defend themselves just the way like SG illustrated above - something they haven't ever seen before suddenly jumped out of the bushes and started to massacre them. Okay. And from that moment on, it was always like that - thanks to deathless guys like Morgoth who kept sending Orcs out, and thus the other races started to build the long-term experience: "Orcs always kill people". And also it was quite likely for some Orcs to actually start to enjoy these raids, killing and such. The Orcs also were not doing much else in their life than raiding Elven/human settlements, and so for them, this was also "normal". Maybe, at one point, one or two stopped to think like this, whether it is right to do it - however still the majority was used to it, the same as let's say humans were to cultivating crops, or it was still worth it more, or easier to leave things like they are than trying to raise a rebellion against Morgoths&Saurons up there, and such... I think it would take a long, long transformation with the condition of the Orcs being set free at first, until they could become at least somewhat "peaceful" race. But on the side of the Free Peoples, there was more of a chance to come up with a different approach to the other side (for example if such a tribe of "free Orcs" formed).

[Boromir88]

Well said Legate.

Besides the reasons mentioned by you, and others, I think you have to wonder about this:

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.~HoME X; Morgoth's Ring

Tolkien hints that by the standards of Elves and Men, orcs might have become "irredeemable," yet the Valar (and Eru) may see it differently. But I think you have to ask, how can Orcs become "redeemed" in a society (of Elves and Men) that believe, by their own standards, are irredeemable?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Tolkien hints that by the standards of Elves and Men, orcs might have become "irredeemable," yet the Valar (and Eru) may see it differently. But I think you have to ask, how can Orcs become "redeemed" in a society (of Elves and Men) that believe, by their own standards, are irredeemable?

Tolkien's societal norms are static, unchanging for ages (one of the few real dislikes I have for the overall tale); ergo, there is little chance for attitudinal changes within societies regarding those of another race (Elves of Lorien still holding a centuries-old grudge against the Dwarves, for instance). I guess what one would have to really ask is, given the static nature of societies (Orcs included), does it seem likely that such redemption could take place? The answer would be no, given the information we have.

Tolkien societies are not like those of the antebellum South and North United States, where negroes were considered chattel and not-human or subhuman in the South, but with a growing abolitionist movement in the North that fought against the inhumane and reactionary policies of slavery.

I don't see a Gondorion Orkish Abolition League (GOAL) for the better treatment of Orks being started up anytime soon.

[Nogrod]

There seems to be an interesting and uneasy combination of massacre and romantic warfare intertwined in Tolkien's writing.

Just maybe it has to do with the WW1 experiences? Just think of the gap between the literature & ideals Tolkien had read and honoured and the brutal industrially efficient killing of the war. And even if I'm no WW1 historian even I have read descriptions of courageous captains and soldiers who tried to live with some quasi-chivalric code in that war and we all know what happened to them... Polish cavalry even tried it against the Wehrmacht panzers in the second world war!!! (they were probably the last "knights" of Western warfare)

So maybe Tolkien was trying to combine these two? Or maybe he wished to reinstate the chivalry but the reality overtook him as he wrote the battle scenes? Or maybe he wished us to become uneasy in just this way thinking about the uneasy co-existence of chivalric ideas and modern warfare... Whatever.

Originally Posted by Anárion Cúthalion

I believe it was the theologist Sorenson who said that evil as we understand it is merely "shadow", that evil is not a separate comcept by a twisted version of good. Perhaps Tolkien was influenced in some manner by that thought.

The idea stems from an early church-fathers consil (I'm not sure if it was the famous Nichaean consil or some other one they held in the first centuries A.D.) where Manicheanism - which said there are autonomous principles of Good and Evil which fight in the world and thus limit each other - was judged to be a heretical way of thinking. After that it has been more or less the official dogma of Christianity that evil is just lack of goodness or twisted goodness if you wish. Even if it has been challenged every now and then during the history.

In this sense I think Tolkien was an orthodox-christian - not meaning a Greek-Catholic but one following the "right doctrine" (orthos doxa). And all the problems that follow from the "orthodox" Christian position follow with Eru as well. That was the reason of my lighthearted playfulness in my last post. Sorry. But I couldn't resist the temptation there and not to bring the theodicea-problem forwards with Eru...