A Question of Loyalty

[Morthoron]

Hmmm...if I remember correctly, Tolkien originally envisaged Orcs as physical manifestations of Maiaric spirits won over by Morgoth (this, of course, was before the corrupted elves concept or twisted mortal men idea came into effect). I suppose Orkish longevity depends on which concept you adhere to. If Orcs were, in fact, corrupted elves, then they would be immortal, would they not? However, most of the indications in Lord of the Rings is that Orcs were, at least in the 3rd Age, bred from mannish stock. Once again, the foggy-headed professor of philology never fully finished tinkering with his racial concepts, so the idea, as with many of Tolkien's storylines, will never be fully realized. But that's the reason Middle-earth forums remain prominent, isn't it? I mean really, one never tires of arguing the finer points of Balrog wings or Bombadil's racial designation.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Originally posted by Gordis
But "the bad old times of the Great Siege" referred to in the following quote almost certainly happened at the very end of the Second Age:


Quote:
Gorbag: `You may well put your thinking cap on, if you've got one. It's no laughing matter. No one, no one has ever stuck a pin in Shelob before, as you should know well enough. There's no grief in that; but think-there's someone loose hereabouts as is more dangerous than any other damned rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the Great Siege. Something has slipped.'

I wonder could ol' Gorbag be 3000+ years old

My interpretation of that is that Gorbag was just citing history. It
doesn't necessarily indicate he witnessed it personally.

[The Might]

Indeed Orc origins is a very interesting topic, and the problem is there is no clear answer, just more and less likely ones.

But, to remain on topic, I'm sure that any Orc would immediately have tried to make off with the Ring, maybe exert itw power over those around him. For such creatures this treasure would be worth risking anything.


Now as far as their fate in such a situation is concerned, I doubt that Orcs would be in any way successful once they got the Ring. What would happen - and I believe this would happen to all Orcs, no matter their rank - is that the Nazgûl would swiftly kill them.

Tuor provides that interesting quote where Tolkien speaks about what would have happened had Frodo kept the Ring. What is important there is that the Professor underlines the fact that the only thing keeping the Ringwraiths from stabbing him to death is the tranformation that Frodo had gone through during his journey. All of a sudden he wasn't the weak Hobbit on Weathertop, but had seen and gone through so much that he had the authority to keep the Wraiths form hurting him as the master of the Ring.

Now this is debatable, but I personally doubt that any Orc could match Frodo in that respect.

[Hakon]

The other thing here is mental ability. I think that Orcs lack the mental ability to control their own will when the ring is near. Hobbits are like Humans they can control their will if they try. We see Boromir give in to his will for the Ring but before he dies he is in control again. If an Orc found the ring they would instantly be taken over by the power of it and most likely end up dead very soon. Any Orcs near the Orc with the Ring would most likely attack the one with the Ring.

[Gordis]

We seem to agree that no Orc would willingly bring the Ring to Sauron.

The question then is what has happened at Parth Galen from Mordor point of view?

Sauron sent 40 orcs (IIRC) under Grishnakh to divert twice as many Orcs from Isengard and Moria from carrying two captured hobbits to Isengard and to make them turn to Mordor instead.

The two hobbits, as far as Sauron could suppose might have been carrying the Ring. Yet he sent only orcs. The available Nazgul, however, was not allowed to cross the River.

Why such strange orders? Could it be that Sauron himself was not informed of the happenings in Rohan?

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Interesting post by Gordis above. I'll have to reread parts of LOTR (not
at hand now). Trying to put the movie out of mind , what were the motivations of the various orc parties? The Moria lads were out for revenge, but precisely why were the other two bands there? Presumably (?) Saruman's bird spies gave him intel that made him suspect some sort of hobbits/wizards were there. But why were Sauron's lot there? Perhaps detected by outlooks on the east bank of the Anduin? As to orc mental abilities/resistance to the Ring, how about Gorbag or his chum Grisnakh having enough sense to hide with it in some mountain fastness and let the two sides go at it, with Sauron partially distracted searching for the Ring and the G. orcs hoping they'll wear each other out. Picture a situation not unlike Poland between WWI and II, existing only as long as Germany and the U.S.S.R. are distracted/weak.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

But why were Sauron's lot there? Perhaps detected by outlooks on the east bank of the Anduin?

Much further back. According to the Chronology, Sauron's agents in Moria (presumably the "black uruks of Mordor") sent bird-messengers to Barad-dur immediately after the Company's escape. Sauron responded by sending out Grishnakh and his force (presumably much larger than 40, originally). Saruman meanwhile did the same. Grishnakh (and the Nazgul) had originally intended to waylay the Company at Sarn Gebir. There was ample time, since the Co. spent a month in Lorien.

Mind you, Sauron did not *know* the Ring was there. It was a reasonable supposition, but S had had no positive fix on the Ring since he learned of the events at Weathertop and the Bruinen (some weeks after the fact).

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Hmmm...if I remember correctly, Tolkien originally envisaged Orcs as physical manifestations of Maiaric spirits won over by Morgoth (this, of course, was before the corrupted elves concept or twisted mortal men idea came into effect).

Other way round, actually, if I'm not mistaken. 'Originally' (i.e. in BoLT and the early 1920s or thereabouts) Morgoth 'brought forth' the Orcs in some unspecified way. Later Tolkien decided that evil couldn't create and came up with the idea that Orcs were corrupted Elves (as in the published Silmarillion). Much later still (in Myths Transformed) he changed his mind again and experimented with the idea that Orcs were twisted Men and/or (at least in the case of some formidable chieftains) Maiar.
Anyway - if Orcs = corrupted Elves, they should be immortal; if (some) Orcs = Maiar, too.

However, most of the indications in Lord of the Rings is that Orcs were, at least in the 3rd Age, bred from mannish stock.

Nope. As far as we know, only Saruman ever cross-bred Men and Orcs; otherwise the Orcs multiplied like the Children of Ilúvatar, i.e. took care of their own breeding without need for special intervention.
But as this is only a side-topic and doesn't contribute to this thread in general, I'll shut up now.

[Hakon]

The Balrogs are supposed to the form of corrupted/fallen Maiar. I think this may answer our earlier discussion in this thread about old times from an orcs point of view. If the Orcs were originally corrupted Elves, then maybe some Orcs are immortal like Elves. If that is so then very few Orcs are probably immortal and most Orcs were bred from men.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Nope. As far as we know, only Saruman ever cross-bred Men and Orcs; otherwise the Orcs multiplied like the Children of Ilúvatar, i.e. took care of their own breeding without need for special intervention.

That is up for conjecture. Sauron bred the Uruk-hai in the 3rd Age, a much larger breed than any previous Orc. Such a noticeable size variation in a fairly stable stock would indicate cross-breeding, as far as my genetic knowledge goes.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

That is up for conjecture. Sauron bred the Uruk-hai in the 3rd Age, a much larger breed than any previous Orc. Such a noticeable size variation in a fairly stable stock would indicate cross-breeding, as far as my genetic knowledge goes.

Not necessarily. It might have been simple artificial selection as when Men breed dogs. Just select the biggest and fiercest and let them interbreed.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Gordis

Not necessarily. It might have been simple artificial selection as when Men breed dogs. Just select the biggest and fiercest and let them interbreed.

Ah, that may be the case for little doggies; however, the Uruk-hai were less susceptible to the effects of the sun than your run of the mill Orc, just as the Olog-hai did not turn to stone like William Huggins. This indicates a new strain thrown into the mix and not merely having big orcs bumping uglies. Or maybe I am misremembering, having had far too much of the 70's than one person should rightly stand.

Ummm...what were we talking about again? And...are you going to eat that brownie? If not, I have the munchies.

*Wanders off and walks into a wall*

[Hakon]

Maybe they had evolved to withstand the sunlight and they were not bred withstand it.

There is also the idea that maybe they were bred by not corrupting the souls of a species but breeding with that species. I think that maybe a regular Orc could have raped a human woman and from that some kind of half Orc was born.

[Formendacil]

Indeed, it asks some interesting genetic question about orks--ones that might be answered if we had a certain answer about their parentage... but not probably. Though Tolkien seems to have waffled between Elves and Men, and toyed with the idea of Melkor having originally incarnated some lesser Maia, who then reproduced--ala Melian, but nastier, nonetheless I think it's fair to say (granted, not going to argue it either way) that Tolkien more or less decided that the idea of Melkor not being able to create his own race of slaves from scratch was a keeper. It's nicely paralleled by Aulë and the Dwarves, anyway, and all in-text evidence in the Lord of the Rings--the only text Tolkien ever really said was canon--is that orks have individual and independent personalities, nasty as they are.

Thus, my opinion would tend to the idea that Orks must have been been perverted somehow from Children of Ilúvatar. This being the case, both Elves and Men (and if you want to throw them in for completeness, Dwarves too) can both stand the sun. No problem there. Tolkien also says that Elves and Men are biologically the same species, for all intents and purposes, since they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, so as far as biology is concerned, it doesn't matter if Orks are bastardised Elves or bastardised Men--either way, they should have no more problem with sun than tanning.

But they do.

Or they did, until Saruman's reintroduction of non-tampered Eruhini DNA.

But (and as we stray from Tolkien to genetics, I admit my knowledge weakens), my understanding is that chromosomes come in pairs. Did Morgoth just tag ONE chromosome with the sun-pain, and then breed it into his orks? It certainly seems easier than hitting EVERY chromosome in that slot, and if sun-pain is a dominant gene, then once Morgoth had done enough breeding, practically every ork would hate the sun (quite apart from cultural pressures put on by the Dark Lord's antipathy, together with Sauron, the Balrogs, the Dragons, etc...).

If, however, Morgoth only tagged a dominant gene with the ork mutation, and then bred the species so that everyone, practically speaking, had it, then Saruman would NOT have needed to introduce an outside genetic, but could have just pursued crossbreeding the recessive, non-ork, genes that (making up numbers) only 2% of the ork population still carried in the late 3rd Age. Certainly, if what Morgoth was doing was playing god with genetics, when Saruman started doing the same thing 6 ages later, the rumours in Eriador could just as easily have assumed that he must have been doing vile crossbreeding with Men, since I'm going to assume genetics wasn't exactly your average Dunlending's forte.

Am I even in the right ballpark, science people? Or am I dressed for football at a cricket match?