Are Orcs That Bad?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Although they are not harvested, this sounds a bit like the future humans trapped within the caste system of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (genetically bred and raised from birth to be in on one of three levels of workers).

That's a huge favourite of mine. In contrast, the events in this novel seem to be set in near contemporary England. Little detail is given of how they come into being, except dark hints at things far more unpleasant than what we see in the novel. It's well worth reading - difficult to initially get into the rhythm of the narrator's voice though as she intentionally speaks in cliches. The banality of her tone is part of the horror of it...

The scenario is certainly possible within the framework of humanity, and without any exotic genetic manipulation. People generally have a flock or mob mentality in any case. How else could one explain how easily simple Nazi soldiers could so easily work within the framework of the Final Solution, day in and day out working among the incinerators? Or Japanese suicide bombers (or the Al Queda suicide bombers, or Republicans who still maintain that Bush is a good president, etc.).

People are easily persuaded. From reading how these characters accept their fate stoically, how some even hasten it, it's easy to see how just from the correct application of education a person can be made to accept almost anything. Rather than exploring the wilder edges of such 'science' as was available to him, maybe Morgoth simply raised his Orcs to think in a certain way?

As Tolkien says, there are Orcs around even today, people who have not necessarily been raised in the right way (or who have been raised in the wrong way, seeing as there may not be a 'right' way but there are certainly 'wrong' ways). Or maybe it's going too far to say Orcs were more a state of mind in Middle-earth However, rather than thinking of Orcs as naturally 'bad to the bone', it is actually more frightening to think of them as having been raised to be blood thirsty and vicious, brought up in a culture which demanded that of them. It makes them a more satisfying enemy than mere 'McEeeevil' stereotypes, to see them as humanity's dark side.