it is an interesting point on how exactly orcs were corrupted and twisted into creation….i refer to my above post, specifically

Melkor could be seen as starting this off with ‘lifeless’ beasts, then mating the end results with the later elves to further create the true orcs.

what i personally think happened is that melkor used maia (as some think the 'immortal orcs' were) and then bred with men or elves (depending on the period)…….what is interesting, is, is this possible?

we know from the silmarillion that offspring between maia and human is possible from Luthien….so were orcs mated in this way, between an evil maia in orc form, and elven/human women?….a nasty but inevitable thought i think.

if this is true, then elves/men werent corrupted by acts against them, but the race of men/elves were corrupted through breeding with evil itself

@lleimmoen: i agree with you. fantasy works can be the worst for resorting to cliche in the world of literature. i think the beauty of tolkien's work compared against others is the use of sources and inspiration (though i guess the fantasy scene wasnt as packed then as it is now) and the lack of graphic violence….now im not one who thinks books should leave this out, but if a sense of war and death can be created without resorting to graphic scenes, then i think its all the more effective

rich

richsabre said:

Well then…. PINEAPPLE.

That is all.

benhanses said:

cucumber?

Now that I've gotten that ridiculousness of the pineapple out of my system, I thought I'd throw in just a few thoughts in response to some of the excellent posts here!

*Edit… I am making some of these responses to some ideas/comments as I am reading through, so apologies for coming late to the conversation and if I restate anything that has already been said. I'll try and just keep re-editing this singular reply so as not to clutter this thread up with all my ramblings…

In thinking about some of the nasty deeds that were performed by some of the first-age elves (obviously most notably Feanor and his brood) that was mentioned by a couple folks on here in comparison to the more "noble" appearance of Elves later in ME history/Tolkien's writings: I don't think it is necesarily a drastic change or diverging from a "natural progression" of a race that is ages old… It is quite clear that Tolkien expresses that the Elves (and Men, Dwarves, Balrogs, Spiders, etc) of older times were not only more numerous, but more "potent" (for lack of a better term) than the later version. Elrond, Galadriel, Aragorn, Thorin, etc are a fleeting rememberance of the glory that each of these races used to possess in greater numbers. In that vein, the motives and passions of a more potent citizenry of the ME world would definitely lead to greater deeds, both notorious and grand. That being said, I'd like to think that the Elves have gained communal knowledge and wisom as time has progressed, possibly demonstrated no better than by Galadriel herself. Initially created as a character that fell from grace as a follower of the sons of Feanor, and originally sworn to repossess the Silmarils at ALL costs, we see that after thousands of years of fighting evil and living in ME, she has now gained the wisdom and ability to resist the temptation of the ring when presented to her.

All that to say, the Elves definitely committed some evil acts early in the history of their race, but I believe that it can be more attributed to the hot-headedness and false pride of those characters than an innate "evil" that may have been lurking in them (I won't cover much on the free-will" discussion,as that has been covered well already). My personal response to characters like the sons of Feanor and even Thranduil interests me, because I realized that I actually view them as borderline villains because of their roles in the stories. But when I stop and evaluate them through the kaleidescope of my own emotions and how I think I probably would react in their given situations, I think as a hot-headed individual myself that I can easily see myself doing many of the same things…

Raven1015 said:

As an initial reaction to the free-will (or lack thereof) possibilities for orcs, I was thinking about how the various orcs/goblins/uruks quarraled amongst themselves in how to deal with their captives in LOTR. Also, if Illuvator is the sole source of free-will in ME, where does that leave the Dwarves, since they were not created by Illuvator, but rather by Aule (granted, then it becomes a level of degree/semantics, as he did submit his creations to the song of Illuvator, whereas Melkor obviously did not). Still, it raises the question of free-will's source in ME..

I think there are signs of how orcs look at Elves. And yes, they find them evil. Even Smeagol does so, right? And there's an interesting aspect to it, Smeagol doesn't imagine it, the Elven rope really burns him, and the Elven bread tastes foul.

He definitely despises them… but on a not-really-related concept, does the rope literally burn him and the bread truly foul? Or are those both figments of imagination? I guess it's really more a question of the power of the mind… that his hatred of them that was in his mind created a physical manifestation. Was there a similar response from him in raction to the orcs/goblins that tortured him? If not, then why not? Although captured by Elves/Aragorn at one point, I don't recall any talk of them mistreating him… so where would this extra level of hatred be derived from? Personally, I'd have a lot more hatred for someone that tortured me, i would think…