[SilverMoonLady]

[varialectio]

[Andreth]

[varialectio]

No offense taken at all! I personally find the quote about the Blue Wizards to be EXTREMELY interesting and pertinent... now, someone please tell me that Radagast didn't go back to Valinor and things will become even more interesting...

[Andreth]

Actually, I remember reading something that said Gandalf/Olorin was the only one to return over the sea to Aman. (Another interesting extra is that Tolkien thinks he would have taken Shadowfax with him as well ) So that would definitely mean that Radagast never returned to Valinor. Give me a little while and I'll track it down for you.


Anna

[varialectio]

[Vulgarweed]

Although I think there is a 'textual reference' somewhere that says that Gandalf/Olorin was the only one who achieved his objective, I choose to believe quite strongly that Radagast has not finished achieving his yet. As a Maia of Yavanna, he'd be concerned with the natural world, with trees and plants and animals (as he's seen to be in LOTR) and Sauron was by no means the last great threat to the environment! He's still very much needed and therefore is still here!

[Andreth]

Thank you, Vulgarweed, for giving a nod to my personal peeve about the word canon. Don't worry though, I don't mind when other people use it, I just don't like to use it myself. Mostly because I would feel hypocritical after having argued the point with others before. I also don't think Radagast 'failed' at his appointed task. He was kind of sent to tag along with the other Istari at the special request of Yavanna, though she never says why she wants him to go or what task she's sending him for. In my opinion, I don't think Radagast was ever intended to come back to Valinor. I think Yavanna had other plans for him and he doesn't seem to be too involved with what's going on in Middle-earth like the other Istari were.


And here is part of the Orc information I promised. It's only the first section of it because that was the only part I had already scanned and I won't be able to use my scanner for the rest of until until this evening or tomorrow. Having a few technical difficulties after a nasty night of tornados galore.

varialectio, this is only the first part of the section so while reading it just keep in mind that this was the professor trying to sort out his ideas on paper. He never came to a final conclusion. These were just the possibilities he toyed with, which are sometimes more fun than concrete conclusions. The rest of the section is about nine pages long, so I might have to just email you that part instead of posting it here on the forums.

Anna

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Morgoth’s Ring – Myths Transformed, Section VIII

In the last sentence of the original short version of the text VII (p. 406) my father wrote that the Eldar believed that Morgoth bred the Orcs ‘by capturing Men (and Elves) early’ (i.e. in the early days of their existence). This indicates that his views on this subject had changed since the Annals of Amana. For the theory of the origin of the Orcs as it stood, in point of written record in the narratives, at this time see Annals of Aman. In the final form in Aam ‘this is held true by the wise of Eressea’:

All those of the Quendi that came into the hands of Melkir, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty and wickedness were corrupted and enslaved. Thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orkor in envy and mockery of the Eldar, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orkor had life and multipled after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar; and naught that had life of its own nor the semblance therefore, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainunlindale befor the Beginning: so day the wise.

On the typescript of Aam my father noted against the account of the origin of the Orcs: ‘Alter this. Orcs are not Elvish’.

The present text, entitled ‘Orcs’, is a short essay (very much a record of ‘thinking with a pen’) found in the same small collection gathered in a newspaper of 1959 as texts of III and VI. Like them it was written on Merton College papers of 1955; and like text VI it makes reference to ‘Finrod and Andreth’.


Orcs


Their nature and origin require more thought. They are not easy to work into the theory and system.
(1) As the case of Aule and the Dwarves shows, only Eru could make creatures with independent wills, and with reasoning powers. But Orcs seem to have both: they can try to cheat Morgoth/Sauron, rebel against him, or criticize him.
(2) ? Therefore they must be corruptions of something pre-existing.
(3) But Men had not yet appeared, when the Orcs already existed. Aule constructed the Dwarves out of his memory of the Music; but Eru would not sanction the work of Melkor so as to allow the independence of the Orcs. (Not unless the Orcs were ultimately remediable, or could be amended and ‘saved’?)
It also seems clear that though Melkor could utterly corrupt and ruin individuals, it is not possible to contemplate his absolute perversion of a whole people, or a group of peoples, and his making that state heritable. [Added later: This latter must (if a fact) be an act of Eru.]
In that case Elves, as a source, are very unlikely. And are Orcs ‘immortal’, in the Elvish sense? Or trolls? It seems clearly implied in the Lord of the Rings that trolls existed in their own right, but were ‘tinkered’ with by Melkor.
(4) What of talking beasts and birds with reasoning and speech? These have been rather lightly adopted from less ‘serious’ mythologies, but play a part which cannot now be excised. They are certainly ‘exceptions’ and not much used, but sufficiently to show they are a recognized feature of the world. All other creatures accept them as natural if not common.

But true ‘rational’ creatures, ‘speaking peoples’ are all of human/’humanoid’ form. Only the Valar and Maiar are intelligences that can assume forms of Arda at will. Huan and Sorontar could be Maiar – emissaries of Manwe. But unfortunately in The Lord of the Rings Gwaehir and Landroval are said to be descendants of Sorontar.

In any case it is likely or possible that even the least of the Maiar would become Orcs? Yes: both outside Arda and in it, before the fall of Utumno. Melkor had corrupted many spritis – some great, as Sauron, and some less so, as Balrogs. The least could have been primitive (and much more powerful and perilous) Orcs; but by practicing when embodied procreations they would (cf. Melian) [become] more and more earthbound, unable to return to the spirit-state (even in demon-form), until released by death (killing), and they would dwindle in force. When released they would, of course, like Sauron, be ‘damned’: i.e. reduced to impotence, infinitely recessive: still hating but unable more and more to make it effective physically (or would not a very dwindled dead Orc-state be a poltergeist?).

But again – would Eru provide fear for such creatures? For the Eagles etc. Perhaps. But not for the Orcs.

It does however seem best to view Melkor’s corrupting power as always starting, at least, in the moral or theological level. Any creature that took him for Lord (and especially those who blasphemously called him Father or Creator) became soon corrupted in all parts of its being, the fea dragging down the hroa in its descent into Morgothism: hate and destruction. As for Elves being ‘immortal: they in fact only had enormously long lives, and were themselves physicall ‘wearing out’, and suffering a slow progressive weakning of their bodies.

In summary: I think it must be assumed that ‘talking’ is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a rational soul or fea. The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men and Elves) deliberately perverted/converted into a more close resemblance to Men. Their ‘talking’ was really reeling off of ‘records’ set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical words – he knew about them. Melkor taught them speech and as they bred they inherited this; and they had just as much independence as have, say, dogs or horses of their human masters. This talking was largely echoic (cf parrots). In The lord of the Rings Sauron is said to have devised a language for them.

The same sort of thing may be said of Huan and the Eagels: They were taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level – but they still had no fear.

But Finrod probably went too far in his assertion that Melkor could not wholly corrupt any work of Eru, or that Eru would (necessarily) interfere to abrogate the corruption, or to end the being of His own creatures because they had been corrupted and fallen into evil.

It remains therefore terribly possible there was an Elvish strain in the Orcs. These may then even have been mated with beasts (sterile!) – and later Men. Their life-span would be diminished. And dying they would go to Mandos and be held in prison till the End.

The text as written ends here, but my father subsequently added the following passage. The words with which it opens are a reference to the text VI ‘Melkor Morgoth’.

See ‘Melkor’. It will there be seen that the wills of the Orcs and Balrogs, etc. are part of Melkor’s power ‘dispersed’. Their spirit is one of hate. But hate is non-cooperative (except when under direct fear). Hence the rebellions, mutinies, etc. when Morgoth seems far off. Orcs are beasts and Balrogs are corrupted Maiar. Also Morgoth not Sauron is the source of Orc-wills. Sauron is just another (if greater) agent. Orcs can rebele against him without losing their own irremediable allegiance to evil (Morgoth). Aule wanted love. But of course had not thought of dispersing his power. Only Eru can give love and independence. If a finite sub-creator tries to do this he really wants absolute loving obedience, but it turns into robotic servitude and becomes evil.



IX

This is another and quite separate note on the origin of the Orcs, written quickly in pencil without any indication of date.

This suggests – though it is not explicit – that the ‘Orcs’ were of Elvish origin. Their origin is more clearly dealt with elsewhere. One point is certain: Melkor could not ‘create’ living creatures of independent wills.

He (and all the ‘spirits of the ‘First –created’, according to their measure) could assume bodily shapes; and he (and they) could dominate the minds of other creatures, including Elves and Men, by force, fear or deceits, or sheer magnificence.

The Elves from their earliest times invented and used a word or words with a base (o)rok to denote anything that caused fear and/or horror. It would originally have been applied to ‘phantoms’ (spirits assuming visible forms) as well as to any independently existing creatures. Its application (in all Elvish tongues) specifically to the creatures called Orks – so I shall spell it in The Silmarillion – was later.

Since Melkor could not ‘create’ an independent species, but came into his power, it is probable that these Orks had a mixed origins. Most of them plainly (and biologically) were corruptions of Elves (and probably later also of Men). But always among them (as special servants and spies of Melkor, and as leaders) there must have been numerous corrupted minor spirits who assumed similar bodily shapes. (These would exhibit terrifying and demonic characters.)

The Elves would have classed the creatures called ‘trolls’ (in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings) as Orcs – in character and origin – but they were larger and slower. It would seem evidence that they were corruptions of primitive human types.

At the bottom of this page my father wrote: “See the Lord of the Rings Appendix p. 410’; this is the passage in Appendix A concerning trolls.

It seems possible that his opening words in this note ‘This suggests – although it is not explicit – that the “orcs” were of Elvish origin’ actually refers to the previous text given here, VIII, where he first wrote that “Elves, as a source, are very unlikely’, but later concluded that ‘it remains therefore terribly possible there was an Elvish strain in the Orcs’. But if this is so, the following words ‘Their origin is more clearly dealt with elsewhere’ must refer to something else.

He now expressly asserts the earlier view that the Orcs were in origin corrupted Elves but observes that ‘later’ some were probably derived from Men. In saying this (as the last suggest) he seems to have been thinking of Trolls, and specifically of the Olog-hai, the great Trolls who appeared at the end of the Third Age (as stated in Appendix F): ‘That Sauron bred them none doubted, thought from what stock was not known. Some held that they were not Trolls but giant Orcs; but the Olog-hai were in fashion of body and mind quite unlike even the largest of Orc-kin, whom they far surpassed in size and power.’

The conception that among the Orcs ‘there must have been numerous corrupted minor spirits who assumed similar bodily shapes’ appears also in text VIII: ‘Melkor had corrupted many spirits – some great, as Sauron, or less so, as Balrogs. The last could have been primitive (and much more powerful and perilous) Orcs.’

[BittenBuggy]

Anna, you are now dubbed the "Queen of Impossibly Long Posts That Nobody Wants To Read Because They Fear They Will Be Blind Afterward"

Now, everyone bow!

[Andreth]

I feel no guilt whatsoever. They asked for it - literally. I'm all about sharing knowledge. If you don't be quiet I'll start posting my opinions on religion in Middle-earth. That'll really give you eyestrain.



Anna

[varialectio]

[SilverMoonLady]

Blinded by knowledge is better than fumbling in ignorance!

I like your long posts:)

They give my bunnies something to munch on:)

[BittenBuggy]

Yes, Anna is very wise.. BUT she is a cruel-hearted meanie that tortures a certain person in the trivia posts...

*wallows in self pity*

We need an emoticon for that!