Orcs... were elves?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I don't think there's a need for linking especially the "little snuffler"-type of Orc with the Drûg. After all, the Orcs were probably so much interbred after all the centuries that it was a diverse mixture of everything that ever came out of Utumno. That's not to say that the Orcs' sense of smell might not be a relic from their Drûg ancestry (because after all, Elves or Men normally don't have such a great and prominent sense of smell. Unless it is some derivation of Elvish generally keen senses?). But I wouldn't link both the small size and the smell with Drûg ancestry of this particular kind of Orc. After all, there have been millenia in between...

For sure, by the time of Frodo and Sam's foray into Mordor there had been enough time for very many bits and pieces of different races to manifest themselves in various ways in Orcish behaviour and appearance.

Originally Posted by Galin

On the external side, Tolkien delves into possible candidates: Elves, Men, beasts, Maiar... never Drugs or 'early Hobbits' however; and then here, he has the Elves negate an idea because of... laughter! to me this speaks to a deeper perception, a factor that some Men might not even notice -- thus (in my opinion) giving it a greater ring of truth.

In other words, that laughter would seem a somewhat dubious 'tell' makes it all the more likely to my mind, especially with the description chosen to separate them -- the light of Aman versus the darkness of Angband. To me this seems very Elvish and on a level perhaps beyond that of mortals, again, making me (at least) think it more likely to be true.

The Elves certainly were capable of making accurate perceptions in such matters. However, the same footnote quoted above remarks of the Elves' dismissal of the notion, that

.....some thought, nonetheless, that there had been a remote kinship, which accounted for the special enmity.

So, perhaps the Elves were not in total agreement anyway.

That footnote ends with a wry quote from ROTK:

At that old Ghân made a curious gurgling noise, and it seemed that he was laughing.

Was "the light of Aman" really comparable to the sound a flushing toilet?

[Kuruharan]

This all means that the elves were willing to accept the idea that orcs were taken from their own stock because the laughter of elves and orcs were somehow similar..?

I think the development of orcs went through several stages. The first was corrupted animals and some of these bodies were inhabited by fallen ainur. Then elvish strains were added in followed by mannish they came along.

The renegade quote is very interesting as perhaps the Drûgs retained a clearer cultural memory of what happened to some of their members in their earliest days? Being the crafty woodsmen that they were perhaps they followed as some of their kinsmen were dragged off and observed what happened to them afterwards.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Was "the light of Aman" really comparable to the sound a flushing toilet?

And here I had always thought of it as being more like the flowing of a babbling brook...