On the Origin and Nature of the Orcs

I have ''let the side down'' of late. It has been quite a while now since I posted about The Silmarillion, so I shall do so now (forgive the length of this post by the way!)

As has been told, the origin of the Orcs goes back to the ancient days of the Quendi when they dwelt yet by the Waters of their Awakening. The most ancient songs of the Elves, of which echoes remain in Elven-home over Sea, told of a dark Rider upon his wild horse that ensnared and devoured any Elf, or small group of Elves, that wandered far from Cuiviénen. When the Elves first met the Vala Oromë, those did not flee from the light of his face told him of the shadow shapes that stalked the woods of Cuiviénen. For with after-knowledge, the Wise have declared that Melkor, ever vigilant, was first aware of the awakening of the Elves, and it was his desire to enslave them (and especially to keep them from any knowledge of God).

The account given in The Silmarillion is that the Orcs were ''corrupted Elves.'' The passage goes:

''But of those unhappy ones who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of a certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves...And deep in their dark hearts the Orcs loathed the Master whom they served in fear, the maker only of their misery. This it may be was the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Ilúvatar.'' (The Silmarillion, Of the Coming of the Elves.)

This account is both satisfactory and unsatisfactory on various points. It explains why the Orcs had an apparently longeval span of years. For example, those of you who remember The Choices of Master Samwise, will perhaps recall that the Orc Gorbag remembers the ''Great Siege.'' This is a term of ambiguity, as there were two ''great sieges'' (recorded) in the history of Middle-earth, the Siege of Angband and the Siege of Barad-dûr. It is more likely that Gorbag was referring to the Siege of Barad-dûr, but even that siege occurred some 3000 years before the events recorded in The Lord of the Rings. But the passage does not explore other dimensions in this vast and very complex area of the Legendarium, eg: the correlations between the race of the Orcs and the Dwarves, the Children of Aulë; at least taking into account that only Eru could ''create'' ex nihilo a race of sentient beings, with individual wills, needs etc. Aulë, when he had fashioned the Dwarves, was told by Ilúvatar that the Dwarves would not have individual wills and reasoning powers unless God should approve and bless the work. Orcs seem to have both, although even this may seem dubious given the account of the behaviour of the Orcs when the Eye of Sauron was bent with fierce impetuosity not on the battle before the Black Gate of Mordor but on Mount Doom. In this respect, and in others, we encounter various problems and apparent contradictions which I shall attempt to explore.

Until the mid-1950s, Tolkien's position on the Orcs was that they were corrupted Eldar (this is the solution to the problem cited in The Silmarillion). However, Tolkien's position shifted somewhat after this; their nature and origin requiring more thought. Like the other Ainur, Eru had given Melkor special ''sub-creative'' abilities (indeed, Melkor had been given more than the others) which was the guarantee that what the Ainur created under God (sub-creation) would be given the reality of Creation - naturally, since the Ainur are finite creatures and do not see all ends, with limitations. But since Melkor the Diobolus fell, and wanted creatures under him and to be worshipped as a god, the creatures of his hand would be creatures ''begotten of Sin'' (as Tolkien put it) and naturally bad (not, however, ''irredeemably'' bad, as he assured W.H Auden). Since, however, Tolkien had not conceived of the making of souls as a possible ''delegation,'' he devised an ad hoc solution by presenting the Orcs as having been in origin real beings on whom Melkor had exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, and nursed with an unappeasable hatred of Creation. What were they, then, in origin?

In Volume X of The History of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien explores this problem in a chapter consisting of various manuscripts, scribblings etc gathered together, called ''Myths Transformed.'' In one of the sub-chapters, J.R.R Tolkien explores the question of whether ''talking'' is one of the marks of a rational soul, and whether or not Melkor had instead created ''beasts'' of humanized shape, perhaps blended with a strain of Elves or Men, deliberately perverted into a more close resemblance to Men. These pitiful and disgusting beings would have been like puppets, with words and sentences driven into them, which would be memorized by rote and repeated (very much like a parrot). Hosts of these creatures would then obey every command as with one will, even were it to slay themselves. Were the mind of the Dark Power elsewhere, then perhaps they would be mindless, dull and dumb. This makes the account given of the battle before the Black Gate of Mordor seem more plausible, if you take into account the words:

''From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain.'' (The Lord of the Rings, Book VI, Chapter III, Mount Doom - emphasis my own).

Contrast this with the account given in Chapter X of Book IV, where the Orc Gorbag wants to desert his post serving in Minas Morgul and to go off somewhere with Shagrat and ''a few trusty lads,'' and an interesting contradiction arises. For Tolkien's theory of the Orcs being in origin humanized beasts seems to fit in nicely with the account of the battle, but doesn't really reconcile well with the latter account. But Myths Transformed is not solely limited to the ''sentient beast'' theory. Another, more radical, theory surrounded the nature of Mankind in relation to the Orcs. Tolkien writes:

''Finally, there is a cogent point, though horrible to relate. It became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the domination of Morgoth [the name given later to Melkor] or his agents in a few generations be reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new breeds, often larger and more cunning. There is no doubt that long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this, or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men, producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men treacherous and vile.'' (The History of Middle-earth, Volume X, Morgoth's Ring, Part V, Myths Transformed).

Although this latter quotation does not concern the origin of the Orcs per se, it does shed light on a rather horrid fact about them - the immense diversity among the many ''sub-breeds''of this grotesque race. Those of you who have read The Lord of the Rings will perhaps remember the ''squint-eyed Southerner'' at Bree? There is no proof for this, but my supposition is that the Southerner at Bree was one of the Orc-men bred by Saruman. Also, the ''tracker'' Orc in Mordor seems to pertain rather to the nature of this breed than to the fighting Uruk-hai.

I have not said all that I could, for this is a vast subject. The history of the Orcs goes back to the Lost Tales, where they were spoken of as ''bred by Melko of the subterranean heats and slime,'' and stretches some 56 years of Tolkien's own ''sub-creation.'' I think that in conclusion, I shall venture to say that Tolkien's ''final'' solution to the origins of the Orcs was mixed. My own thoughts are that the Orcs were a rather horrid medley of all of these theories; sentient beasts, corrupted Elves and Men, some were indeed fallen Maiar in Orc-form. But the theory that they were mindless puppets seems too problematic in relation to the race as a whole. My supposition is that the Orcs seen at the Great Battles (most of them) were Orcs with their own reasoning abilities, with their own needs and passions, but were so daunted and enslaved to the Dark Power that they were literally driven by some special demonic force on account of the occasion - they were, indeed, the ''fingers of the Dark Lord.'' Nunc silebo!