not just that he was morally uncomfortable with the idea of any thinking beings being beyond redemption

but that, as a result or in parallel, Inherently Evil Dark Acceptable Targets isn't...really what came out

he was firm in his conviction that evil is incapable of pure creation, so what we have for the origin of orcs is not that Morgoth made them up, but that he made them from elves

which makes them by definition not inherently evil, makes becoming an orc a thing that is done to a person whose only key trait is "Morgoth succeeded in catching them"

and doing evil things doesn't turn an elf into an orc on its own, not ever

you can try not to think about that, but it can't resolve with "orcs cannot be treated with and must be killed"

you may say that people don't know this, or that undoing what Morgoth did is beyond the powers of anyone but a full Vala so people on the ground have to do what must be done to protect themselves

but it's not ontologically evil anymore then, is it? it's just sad

similarly, you have the idea that all orcs/goblins are creatures of Morgoth and do his will/the will of his most powerful available lieutenant

but on two separate occasions in LotR, characters benefit from orcish infighting

Saruman's orcs, sure, you can say he made, so they are loyal to him

but Shagrat and Gorbag are both definitely in Sauron's chain of command, albeit through different superiors

if they were bound to the will of Sauron, they wouldn't be able to act the way they do

there's this. straightforward, racist fairy-tale Forces of Evil

and then there are these much better bits he came up with

I don't really need supplementary information to know that he was never resolved himself on the issues of orcs; it's right there in the text

I love orcs, and it’s really interesting how “evil cannot create” got Tolkien in a logical jam there

it is!

(also never mentioned: the logical existence of female orcs and goblins)

(with how long Sauron was inactive for, after Morgoth got yote for good, if they couldn't reproduce naturally there'd be none left)

Robert Jordan dealt with that by saying his female troll-monsters loved being pregnant and just had babies all the time, which was…one way of dealing with that

...I'm cool with just not mentioning it

it turns out

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

that is also adding a fucking. birthrate overpopulation racism eugenics. element. and we do not need more of those!

Yeah RJ had some gender issues (understatement)

another thing that occurs to me is that you can tell, uh, that Tolkien knew more about war than most epic fantasy authors: not even orcs fight until they are all dead

they don't surrender, but they do run

they have morale, like real soldiers or raiders

That is a good point!

(if given a choice: the orcs that took Merry and Pippin were killed by the last by the Rohirrim, but that was because they failed to run and got encircled)

Tolkien served in WWI, so he knew the intricacies of war and specifically the complicated nature of how humans react to being in those situations

The dynamic between Frodo and Sam is not actually one of Gardner to house owner, but batman to officer of the army - a personal servant who Went Through It alongside their officer and took care of him and his luggage.

With regards to orcs, (no, autocorrect, not orchestra) part of what I love about them is that there is not just one kind of orc.

The Moria orcs vs.the goblins, vs Mordor orcs, vs the Uruk-hai...

What Morgoth twisted didn't stay as one people(?) for long. The range of time is somewhat less clear, but hundreds of years, if not thousands, seems highly likely.

of all things the licensed moria game used this

there were specific groups of orcs and they fought with each other because sauron exploding drove them all into moria and now there's much less space to coexist than there was

librariansheart: it's specifically his fantasy to imagine all the good soldiers he knew as being on one side, and all the bad ones on the other. which...is an understandable fantasy

rukafais: increasingly moriagame seems like the only spinoff that understands the assignment

Shadow of Mordor understood the assignment weirdly in that they made the bad guys great and fun and endearing and the good guy a lame chunk of dead-wife cardboard

The orcs are the best part

True, but by giving them personalities and different goals, he acknowledges that they are people in their own right. I have more thoughts on that, but it's all implication expanded rather than textual evidence. lol

yeah you're right!

I feel like the orcs have more accidental nuance then the uh.

easterlings.

I'm not entirely sure I would say that, but they sure get...more speaking parts...

I can't say that I've read the extant materials to determine if there's more about the Easterlings, but I do want to consider something specific: He's not writing about the whole of Middle Earth. He's writing specifically about this small section.

In particular, he wanted to give England a grand epic historical saga like unto the Norse eddas.

The Southrons and the Easterlings are not his focus.

The orcs are a more integral part of the section he's writing about/for.

All we as readers see of the whole of Middle Earth is Eriador, Anion, Arnor, Rhovanion, Rhûn, Mordor, and Gondor. Harad is even an aside rather than a focal point.

We don't know why or how the Southrons or Easterlings came to be working with Sauron, but given what we know about how Sauron approaches people he wants to ally with,

I don't think it's a stretch to think that maybe they were tricked or blackmailed into it. We just don't know. All we know is some basics about appearance and that they allied with Sauron.

We don't even know if Gondor ever tried to approach them as an alternative.

Do I like the way he glosses over all of that? No! I am a worldbuilding junkie! I wanna know all the things forever about everything! lmao

But I don't think we have enough information to say how he does or does not view the Southrons and Easterlings as people.

honestly if there was space for newer authors to fuck around star wars eu style i'd love to see people fuck around with those

oh man, I'd love that!

The focus is so laser-tight on this one specific section, and there's all this other Stuff out there!!

notably, Aragorn makes peace with the Haradrim during his reign, rather than conquering them or "stamping them out"

in general, "evil Men" forces at least surrender and their surrenders are accepted, which is how you treat people

yesssss