The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls.

Derek Broughton wrote:

>Name a battle in LOTR in which the majority of participants on the "bad"
>side are human.

That's easy enough: the Battle of Bywater will serve.

There's also lots of examples in LotR history. The Wainriders who
invaded Gondor and Rohan were all human, for instance, and I don't
think there were any Orcs involved in the wars between Cardolan and
<mumble> (cf. the Barrow-Downs and the brooch that Bombadil commented
on).

Not to mention Gondor's Kin-Slaying, or even the Elves'. Though it may
be hard to pick out an unequivocal "bad" side in those conflicts,
there were no Orcs involved on either side.

Since we get mainly the Elves' side of the story of the Nauglamir, the
Dwarves are definitely shown as the bad side there, when they slay
Thingol and get slain in turn by Beren and the Elves: no Orcs.

Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"In a superhero story, Superman jumps off buildings and flies. In a
realistic story, Superman doesn't jump off buildings and can't fly.
Deconstruction is writing a story where Superman can't fly but he
still jumps off of buildings."
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:09:59 +0100, Troels Forchhammer
<Troels.DeleteThis@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote:

>In message <news:0aeiu3pfc1m148r2aa48t2j23e111jl7d9@4ax.com>
>Paul S. Person <psperson.DeleteThis@ix.netscom.com.invalid> spoke these staves:
<snippo>

>> And evil Men are given souls (fëar) on a regular basis, so the
>> "theological problem" was, I suggest. all in JRRT's mind.
>
>A part of the difference is that no Man is pre-destined to be Evil
>just because he is a Man (I don't equate 'fallen' with 'evil'), and
>hence there is a reasonable chance that the soul will not be evil.
>With the Orcs the problem is that there appeared to be no chance of
>anything other than evil (short of divine intervention, anyway).

Pick any group you really don't like: Nazis, Stalinists, Huns,
whatever -- so long as it meets your criteria for "Evil"

Consider a child born into one of those societies, who grows up in
that society, who never encounters any alternatives. Will such a child
not grow up to be Evil with no chance of any other outcome? How does
such a child differ from an Orc child?

>I wonder whether the Orcs would be capable of the minor good acts
>(those that, according to Catholic dogma, do not require grace)?

In /The Hobbit/, they are depicted as forming a society and raising
young Orcs (we know there are Orc children about, because Gollum ate
one shortly before he met Bilbo). They protect this society from
interlopers by capturing them -- as, interestingly enough, do the
Wood-elves, indisputable Eruhini, later on in the book. This
mini-state clearly has a ruler, and there is no reason to believe that
the ruler does not satisfy the criteria for a state to be "established
by God" per Paul (early in Romans, IIRC): that is, no reason to
believe that he does not enforce the rules and protect his people.

So, yes, left to their own devices, Orcs appear to be quite capable of
such good acts as forming, regulating, and defending states, creating
homes, and raising and feeding families. To be sure, these would not
be very pleasant societies: every Orc we meet is pretty much an Alpha
male, or at least acts as if he were when not subdued by another Orc,
so it would feature lots of swaggering, lots of bad language, and lots
of interpersonal violence. I still think /Gone Baby Gone/ paints a
good (if a bit tame) picture of what an Orc society would be like (as
opposed to /being/ a good picture or one I can recommend -- if you see
it, don't be surprised if you feel like bathing immediately after).

As to it's not requiring grace -- when I got to the final bits of
Aquinas in the /Great Books of the Western World/ I realized that the
earlier statements along the line of "any action begins with God",
which I had taken as psychological, were more likely intended
literally: action occurs, that is to say, because God, the Prime
Mover, moves the outermost Sphere, the Prime Movable, which imparts
motion to the other spheres (stars, planets, Sun, Moon) and so finally
to the mundane world (not rotating it, but providing the motive power
for all actions). At the end of the show, as it were, this movement
stops: God no longer imparts motion. From this it would seem clear to
me that God's action is not an inherent part of His nature (if it
were, it would neither start nor stop but just be), and, in that case,
if it is not grace (that is, if it is not voluntary), then it is
compelled, and the idea that anything that God does is compelled is
unlikely to be consistent with Aquinas (or Christian theology more
generally, for that matter). So that appears to leave us with "grace"
as the basis of all actions whatsoever. Please note that it is
entirely possible that I am missing, misunderstanding, or
misinterpreting parts of what I read; this paragraph is strictly IMHO.
--
"A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature,
but contrary to what we know as nature."
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:20:56 -0500, "Clams Canino"
<cc-marine DeleteThis @earthdink.net> wrote:

<snippo>

>While I agree with the above, we also need to weigh in that the Orcs appear
>more lacking in self-will than the other species. When the One Ring was
>destroyed and the Dark Lord was defeated, the men in his alliance continued
>to fight on. The Orcs were berift of that will which drove them, and ran
>willy nilly in despair and fear. Militarily, this is "strange behavior" as
>they still posessed the overwhelming force for assured victory in the battle
>at hand. This is true even if thier only motivation was revenge.

How do you think you would react if, having been controlled by Sauron
for your entire life, that control was suddenly gone? Suddenly you are
on your own, with no experience of this state at all.
--
"A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature,
but contrary to what we know as nature."
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

In message <news:MPG.2253f647b95cfb98b575@news.individual.net>
Stan Brown <the_stan_brown.TakeThisOut@fastmail.fm> spoke these staves:
>
> Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:09:59 +0100 from Troels Forchhammer
> <Troels.TakeThisOut@ThisIsFake.invalid>:
>>
>> A part of the difference is that no Man is pre-destined to be
>> Evil just because he is a Man (I don't equate 'fallen' with
>> 'evil'), and hence there is a reasonable chance that the soul
>> will not be evil. With the Orcs the problem is that there
>> appeared to be no chance of anything other than evil (short of
>> divine intervention, anyway).
>
> Does this explanation work? They have the capacity for redemption
> when they are born, but are so twisted by their upbringing among
> Orcs that they become irrevocably evil.

Characteristically I'd have to say that 'I don't know' I don't
think I consciously thought of upbringing as the deciding factor, but
of course it easy to see in hindsight it would have to be very
important in reducing to naught the 'chance of anything other than
evil.'

One thing that I did find very appropriate in Jackson's films is the
way his orcs are portrayed as very human-like in appearance. A number
of Tolkien illustrators have stressed their inhuman characteristics
(tusks, pig-snouts etc) and thus distances themselves from from the
Orcs (of course Jackson achieves that by his <negative expletive>
'Orcs from slime-pods'), but I think there's an important point in
portraying them as basically of twisted human shape.

I do like Jon's idea of comparing the inheritance orcish ugliness to
the inheritance of Númenórean longevity -- I think it goes some way
towards explaining what orc might mean.

The example of Morgoth's Curse on Húrin shows that the children can
be cursed through the father. A similar thing, weaker and yet more
persistent, could possibly be imagined being transmitted from
generation to generation of Orcs -- possibly no more than a physical
trait: an added susceptibility to the Morgoth Element in Arda Marred.

I have encountered no text where Tolkien considers the question of
Orc infants. He stated that would be conceived and born in the same
way has human or elven children, but apart from that I don't recall
having seen anything as to their upbringing etc.

We do know that traits such as an aptitude to violence can be bred in
a line (e.g. for dogs), and so it doesn't appear to me to be wholly
beyond the realm of the possible to explain orcs and the orcish
predisposition to evil by a combination of various inheritable
factors, most of which would, in themselves, be insufficient for
solving the problem.

- A physical ugliness ensuring that they would be out of place and
shunned in any society of the Eruhíni except their own.

- A predisposition towards violence and aggressiveness.

- An extra susceptibility to the corrupting influence of the Melkor
element.

- A society which is wholly dedicated to the Orcis 'code of conduct'

Under such circumstances the chances that an orc-infant would be
found and raised by Elves or Men who would prove caring and loving
foster-parents to the child are extremely small -- small enough that
Tolkien could effectively reject the possibility.

> It's so simple that probably somebody has already considered it
> and rejected it for some good reason that doesn't occur to me just
> now.

That is indeed very likely

Though that should, of course, not stop us from investigating it a
bit further -- and possibly find the reason by ourselves.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

"He deserves death."
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve
death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to
them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in
judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
- Frodo and Gandalf, /The Fellowship of the Ring/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

JimboCat wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:
>
>>Name a battle in LOTR in which the majority of participants on the "bad"
>>side are human.
>
> That's easy enough: the Battle of Bywater will serve.

Fair enough. Not much of a battle, though...
>
> There's also lots of examples in LotR history. The Wainriders who
> invaded Gondor and Rohan were all human, for instance, and I don't
> think there were any Orcs involved in the wars between Cardolan and
> <mumble> (cf. the Barrow-Downs and the brooch that Bombadil commented
> on).

None of that is IN LOTR, which is part of the point. It's one thing to talk
about Human/Human wars, but he doesn't actually show them.
>
> Not to mention Gondor's Kin-Slaying, or even the Elves'.

Ahem. The latter certainly can't count.

> Since we get mainly the Elves' side of the story of the Nauglamir, the
> Dwarves are definitely shown as the bad side there, when they slay
> Thingol and get slain in turn by Beren and the Elves: no Orcs.

And again, it can't count. Since when were Elves and Dwarves, Men? I'm
arguing that it's more acceptable to war against non-humans. For the most
part, because of the relationships we're shown in LOTR, we tend to think of
Elves & Dwarves as "human" and orcs as "sub-human", but when it comes right
down to it, Humans will tend to treat all other races as non-human (they
never do, on the whole, trust Elves in LOTR) and "lesser".
--
derek
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown.TakeThisOut@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> Does this explanation work? They have the capacity for redemption
> when they are born, but are so twisted by their upbringing among Orcs
> that they become irrevocably evil.

If you replace "irrevocably" by "so far down this road that turning back
is almost impossible" then that's what I settled on.

> It's so simple that probably somebody has already considered it and
> rejected it for some good reason that doesn't occur to me just now.

It's again a "theological" problem. Letter #153:

They would be Morgoth's greatest Sins, abuses of his highest
privilege, and would be creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally
bad. (I nearly wrote 'irredeemably bad'; but that would be going too
far. Because by accepting or tolerating their making -- necessary to
their actual existence -- even Orcs would become part of the World,
which is God's and ultimately good.)

So Orcs cannot have been created by Evil, because Evil cannot create.
They cannot be "irredeemably" evil, because since they are not created
by Evil, they are mocked creatures of God, which are ultimately good.

OTOH, as described in the books, they are not treated with any
compassion at all by Humans, Elves and Hobbits, which contradicts the
theological assumptions. So, trouble.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Troels Forchhammer <Troels.DeleteThis@thisisfake.invalid> wrote:
> Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach.DeleteThis@usenet.arcornews.de> spoke these staves:

> You got me to doubt my memory before I finally found it It's in
> /The Road to Middle-earth/, chapter 7, 'Visions and Revisions':
>
> There can be little doubt that the orcs entered Middle-
> earth originally just because the story needed a continual
> supply of enemies over whom one need feel no compunction,
> 'the infantry of the old war', to use Tolkien's phrase from
> 'Monsters' (p. 264)
> [RtMe, p. 265]

I guess then one has to invoke the rule "There can be no doubt that
sentences that contain 'there can be no doubt' must be doubted".

More seriously, I disagree with Shippey here. In the passage (which,
BTW, is on p. 207 in my edition), Shippey doesn't justify this thought
at all, and I think it is really only his impression.

> The reference to 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics' is to the
> passage where Tolkien writes:
>
> The monsters remained the enemies of mankind, the infantry
> of the old war, and became inevitably the enemies of the
> one God, . . .
> [/The Monsters & the Critics and Other Essays/, p. 22]

Which is about a completely different context, namely the hopeless
struggle of Men against Monsters, which the Monsters will win in the
end, but which Men will fight nevertheless.

This isn't specific to the Orcs (though of course it's ultimately
also behind all the Trolls, Dragons, Orcs and Spiders our hero must
battle against). "Nature" is hostile, and if you go on an "adventure",
you'll encounter that hostility.

>> but when the Orcs are first told about in detail in the Hobbit,
>> the "Goblin-tradition" is quite visible. And they don't serve as a
>> "supply of enemies" there, either.

> I believe also that he used the word 'goblin' in the first texts when
> he was starting out on his Middle-earth writings. But already during
> the early prose writings of the Lost Tales orcs was used
> alternatingly with goblins

The point is not so much that he used both names (or that he used both
"Ngoldor" and "Gnomes"), the point is that he used *ideas* from the
"Goblin-tradition". Goblins coming out of some cave and capturing people
is very much in this tradition.

> There is little doubt that the orcs stem from the evil side of the
> goblin tradition; 'the infantry of the old war' as Tolkien wrote, 'a
> continual supply of enemies' in Shippey's words.

Well, *I* say that there is a lot of doubt And I think one really
misses the important parts of one reduces Orcs just to a "supply
of enimies". That's not what it is about.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Clams Canino <cc-marine.RemoveThis@earthdink.net> wrote:
> "Troels Forchhammer" <Troels.RemoveThis@ThisIsFake.invalid> wrote in message
>> There can be little doubt that the orcs entered Middle-
>> earth originally just because the story needed a continual
>> supply of enemies over whom one need feel no compunction,
>> 'the infantry of the old war', to use Tolkien's phrase from
>> 'Monsters' (p. 264)
>> [RtMe, p. 265]

> Which was my basic point... more or less.

But the problem is that even if you and Shippey see it that way, if
one looks a bit more closely, one sees that it doesn't really fits.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Troels Forchhammer <Troels DeleteThis @thisisfake.invalid> wrote:
> In message <news:0aeiu3pfc1m148r2aa48t2j23e111jl7d9@4ax.com>
> Paul S. Person <psperson DeleteThis @ix.netscom.com.invalid> spoke these staves:

>> Late in HOME (XI? XII?) there is an essay which suggests that
>> there were no Orcs, as such, before Man arrived (any earlier
>> "orcs" were low-powered Maiar in Eruhini suits) and that, while
>> Melkor may have planned them, Sauron actually created them --
>> from Men.

> There's a lot of very interesting details and considerations in the
> orc texts in the 'Myths Transformed' part of /Morgoth's Ring/ (HoMe
> 10) (texts VIII through X),

Ah. As VIII shows, this is an attempt to solve the problem given "that
though Melkor could utterly corrupt and ruin individuals, it is not
possible to contemplate his absolute perversion of a whole people, or
group of peoples, and his making that state heritable." So, at this
late stage, the problem gets even worse, and so get the solutions
("spirits" in Orc-disguise).

> A part of the difference is that no Man is pre-destined to be Evil
> just because he is a Man (I don't equate 'fallen' with 'evil'), and
> hence there is a reasonable chance that the soul will not be evil.

Now I think that this is the completely wrong way of looking at it.
It's not a sort of "chance game" if one chooses Good or Evil. And it's
not about pre-destination at all.

One point is "Were the Orcs independent beings, with a soul of their
own?" We have already discussed this. A second point is "If they have
souls of their own, then why do they only act evil?" The easy answer
to that is "because they have been Corrupted", but as one can see above,
in the later writings he didn't like that, either.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Paul S. Person <psperson.DeleteThis@ix.netscom.com.invalid> wrote:
> which were modified over time so that the Dwarves, from being allied
> with Melko, become staunch allies of Elves and Men,

Where does it say that the Dwarves were allied with Melko? Is that in
HoME?

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

In message
<news:20080326144304.22FF.2.NOFFLE@dthierbach.news.arcor.de>
Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach RemoveThis @usenet.arcornews.de> spoke these staves:
>

<snip>

>> There is little doubt that the orcs stem from the evil side of
>> the goblin tradition; 'the infantry of the old war' as Tolkien
>> wrote, 'a continual supply of enemies' in Shippey's words.
>
> Well, *I* say that there is a lot of doubt And I think one
> really misses the important parts of one reduces Orcs just to a
> "supply of enimies". That's not what it is about.

Of course it is not what 'it is about' -- that was never the point,
and neither Shippey nor I ever made such a ludicrous claim (Shippey
indeed goes on to spend a lot of space on some aspects of what Orcs
are about).

The idea is that Tolkien, when he began his work on the mythology, at
some point had a need for a 'continual supply of enemies' as Shippey
describes it. Having already brought in some elements from the goblin
tradition, he embraced it also for this purpose, gradually developing
this, Melkor's infantry, to the Orcs we know, and which are in many
ways much different from the original.

The point in this is that Tolkien did not originally have any of the
philosophical and sub-creational reflections which he later engaged
in with respect to the orcs -- at first he simply introduced them as
goblins simply because he needed them in the story, not to fill some
philosophical (or even philological) place, but simply to fill the
place of Melko's infantry.

At some point, /after/ he had used them as simple cannon-fodder, he
started wondering from whence they came -- probably while still
writing the Lost Tales (long before /The Hobbit/), and he began the
process which eventually led to the various deliberations in
/Morgoth's Ring/.

So, no, this is not what 'it is about' -- you could say that the
point Shippey makes, and about which I think he is entirely right, is
that it wasn't about anything at all when they first appeared; other
than a ready supply of enemy infantry.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

It is the theory which decides what can be observed.
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Troels Forchhammer <Troels.DeleteThis@thisisfake.invalid> wrote:
> The idea is that Tolkien, when he began his work on the mythology, at
> some point had a need for a 'continual supply of enemies' as Shippey
> describes it.

And that's what I don't believe. I can never wrap my head around the
historical development of all the texts (isn't there somewhere
a summary of HoME in that respect?), but from what I've seen how
Tolkien works, I rather think he started out with concrete "stories",
in which the "Goblin-tradition" played a much bigger role than some
"need for enemies".

> Having already brought in some elements from the goblin
> tradition, he embraced it also for this purpose, gradually developing
> this, Melkor's infantry, to the Orcs we know,

But that is quite different from what you wrote before:

: [Shippey] suggests that the Orcs, story-externally, originated as
: simply a ready supply of enemies for the wars, and that many of the
: later problems surrounding their story-internal origin spring from
: their fairly unconsidered original inclusion in the mythology.

If you now agree they didn't *originate* as a "enemy-supply", but
rather *developed* into it (or, as I would rephrase, Tolkien made a
connection between the "hordes" of Goblins in the tradition and the
needs for servants of Melkor), then everything's fine. But note then
that the second part of the argumentation above is also changed: The
problems spring from their "unconsidered" inclusion as a "traditional"
motive (and that's how nearly all inconsistencies in Tolkien's works
started), and not because of the need for some story-telling device.

> The point in this is that Tolkien did not originally have any of the
> philosophical and sub-creational reflections which he later engaged
> in with respect to the orcs

Yes, of course.

> At some point, /after/ he had used them as simple cannon-fodder, he
> started wondering from whence they came

Again, I think that's not the point. Story-externally, he knew they
came from fairy-tale tradition. Like elves and dwarves. But
story-internally, he had made up a creation myth for elves and dwarves
(which was new, and didn't have anything to do with the tradition),
and he had to somehow fit the Orcs into this. So he didn't really
"wonder" in that sense, he had to consolidate the stories he already
had with the framework he invented for it. Which should expressed his
religious beliefs -- and hence the problem.

- Dirk
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls. 

Dirk Thierbach wrote:
> Paul S. Person <psperson RemoveThis @ix.netscom.com.invalid> wrote:
>> which were modified over time so that the Dwarves, from being allied
>> with Melko, become staunch allies of Elves and Men,
>
> Where does it say that the Dwarves were allied with Melko? Is that in
> HoME?
>
> - Dirk

In /BoLT/ the Dwarves are treated as an evil people, but neutral
with regard to the war. In the tale of /The Nauglafring/, we are
told that:

[...] The Nauglath are a strange race and none know surely
whence they be; and they serve not Melko nor Manwë and reck not
for Elf or Man, and some say that they have not heard of
Ilúvatar, or hearing disbelieve.

It wasn't until he wrote /The Hobbit/ that JRRT depicted Dwarves
sympathetically.
 >> Stay informed about: The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls.