Forgive me for being a Tolkien00b, I've only read the
hobbit and seen the movies. But I've always been a fan of fantasy worlds and always seen
orcs to be more of a science fiction
race than part of a magical world.
When I investigate different
races I think about their properties and culture rather than their history as they either represent something or they are a warped version of ourselves and it is these properties that strike interest. It is also fun to just imagine what it would be like to be or experience one of these
creatures. What would happen if you captured and
orc and tried to tame it? Undoubtedly it would try to trick you and escape, so you would have to capture a few orcs and breed them and indoctrinate the offspring. What would happen then? Could you turn them back into goodies, like
Frodo tried with
Gollum?
The sci fi "orc" has always struck interest, they represent harsh logic. A species which has evolved to industry and war much like
animals evolve to their environment. Except this species is sentient and has evolved to everything that goes with being sentient, the
technology and their purpose in ensuring a succesful warlike civilisation. Orc leaders are malicious megalomaniacs, but they are not corrupt as this is their purpose in life and other orcs want to be ruled by malicious megalomaniacs. Orc culture is purely functional and they see beauty as corruption and they are right, beauty is form of corruption, if you produce a space ship to look beautiful you will sacrifice it's functional properties. What's the point on spending buying a work of art when you can use it to make yourself more powerful? They do not need military discipline to deal with terrible situations, to them gaining pleasure and beauty is seeing themselves succeed in conquerring and gaining power, they do not gain power for the purpose of doing something they consider corrupt to gain pleasure. The perfect state of mind for gaining power.
The fantasy orc however doesn't seem to have a place in the fantasy world. To me they seem like gnomes or fairies, like something plucked out of nowhere with no real purpose. This is acceptable of course, a writer should be able to do this if he wants, stories don't have to be just about describing human conditions. Orcs seem to find their place in the
middle earth story line purely as alter egos to the
elves and perhaps so as
morgoth created them by corrupting elves, as if
Tolkien is serving their purpose up on a platter. Elves of course having the same philosophy as orcs, except they seem to have found their purpose (or created with that purpose ingrained) and have stopped relentlessly pursuing power like some sort of narcotic and settled down to writing poetry and such like. A pointless pursuit but perhaps not as pointless as relentlessly pursuing power with no end in sight. Though perhaps the only way to survive and gain pleasure at the same time would be to gain pleasure from gaining power. Though perhaps this erodes sentience and reduces a person's freedom to choose what to do. It's as if as a human I am torn between the choice of good vs
evil!
Tolkien's storyline is litterred with contrast: elves and orcs;
ents and
trolls; the
King of Rohan and the
Steward of Gondor;
Gandalf and
Saruman;
Aragorn and
Boromir etc etc.. Each one good and each one evil.
Is this why tolkien created the orc? To define the pure extreme of evil or the pure extreme of a servant of evil?
Maybe tolkien had the definition of evil, which is to cause maximum sufferring to all sentient life. Though he probably he believed evil was the relentless and mad desire to gain power, to diminish sentience itself with obsessiveness, which is another contrast with elves, whom are always calm and more botherred with being and beauty.
What about the torturing of elves? Wouldn't that be pure evil, the supporting of sentient life, just to torture? Morgoth tortured elves and created
sauron like he created orcs. Maybe Sauron is not pure evil, but a tool to relentlessly gain power, like the orcs. Sauron would probably live in a world of pain, which would be alleviated slightly whenever he gained a little power. Maybe this is why he destroyed morgoth, for revenge and to gain power. Maybe Sauron served a purpose as Gollum did!
But I digress..
What do you think?