Can Orcs be redeemed in LOTR?

I would assume that an orc baby can be raise the same as any non-evil race.

but the adult orcs are too indoctrinated to be saved.

If we look at it even beyond the author's intent--kind of, probably not? Part of the problem was that he wound up portraying them as a very cruel and ruthless people, but he also wrote them as individuals with their individual--though exceptionally twisted--thoughts. It's not too difficult to argue that maybe if we took an orc baby and raised it among men it would be difficult, but possible, to redeem it.

But then there's Word of God. And according to that, they are not; but he wished that they were after he wrote it as he did.

Do you think any of the orcs post fall of sauron become hermits or something?

I think that following the fall of Sauron there was a war of extermination and the Humans committed Genocide (or would it be Xenocide?) and killed every last one of them.

Probably not. They are supposed to be consumed with bitterness and hatred for all things. Apparently brute force and fear was how Sauron and his mooks controlled them.

Nope, and that's why they are good. None of this din do nuffin what if orcs aren't really evil crap from contrarians.

Orcs are best when they can be slaughtered with no moral quandary.

are there girl orcs?

Is meat back on the menu?

They went off into the mountains and lived in small groups and never really caused any harm because without their leaders they were little more than beasts.

I bet without Sauron messing with their shit, Goblins would make for good mates. They'd be grateful just for not getting their shit kicked in by stronger beings for shits and giggles.

>Tolkien later wrote he regretted portraying the orcs as irredeemable because it didn't mesh with him, and he suggested they might be

this is sometimes overstated. there was one aside, in one of his letters, where he says he wouldn't quite call the orcs irredeemable. there's nothing that says he regrets how they were portrayed.

I can't think of why not, if you were just willing to put the effort into it rather than slay them all.

Well, "goblin" is just another word for orc in Tolkien (they've sort of become a specialized kind of orc to most people, living in caves and smaller and weaker than regular orcs), and according to the Hobbit goblins actually continue to live to this day.

>Orcs are best when they can be slaughtered with no moral quandary.

I don't like the idea of slaughtering anything with no moral quandary. Even if it was a horde of baatezu or tanar'ri, if someone was jumping for joy at the chance to kill them, I'd kind of be questioning the morality or at least sanity of that person.

People who kill without concern worry me.

This basically. As they appear in the books they're irredeemably evil. However some of his later writings seem to indicate that Tolkien was planning on retconning it, but never got the chance to.

So it's a bit of a gray area.

As I recall it also implies that they're working for the arms industry.

Now there's an interesting thought...gonna put that in my ideas for a modern fantasy setting.

>every weapon since prehistory has been created by goblins, humans are complete shit at this
>every blacksmith is a Men In Black-esque location where a switch reveals an assembly line full of goblin workers
>every human blackmith, every weapon engineer is in on it, only paid to keep up appearances
>governments all over the world are terrified goblins are going to reveal themselves one day and just slaughter us all
>goblin just laugh at the thought of all the humans they've indirectly killed, while being paid for it

You know the line I'm talking about right? The one that goes like "They (goblins) are cunning and are responsible for the recent invention of a number of devices that are very good at killing large numbers of people very quickly."

>They (goblins) are cunning and are responsible for the recent invention of a number of devices that are very good at killing large numbers of people very quickly

Bilbo Baggins wrote the Hobbit, he is the narrator.

When he says recently, he means recently in the happenings of Middle-Earth.

Seems retarded to me

Usually these yellow text fantasy scenarios are the bread and butter of Veeky Forums

But this is stupid, you failed

>They (goblins) are cunning and are responsible for the recent invention of a number of devices that are very good at killing large numbers of people very quickly."

Goblins confirmed as allegorical Americans.

Depends on the version. I recently watched Rankin/Bass' The Return of the King and there was a bit where Frodo falls asleep and dreams how life would be like after the quest. He and Sam stop under a tree for a quick smoke and a pair of orcs walk down the street in actual clothes and happily wave at them. So I wouldn't count it entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Tolkien's letters basically said: They can be redeemed, though it is likely beyond the powers of man, elves, Maiar and possibly even Valar.

As a christian no evil is utterly irredeemable, but they may have required a more direct relationship with Eru.

I bet Tom Bombadil can make Orcs redeem themself.

Tolkien was the narrator of The Hobbit. He always described The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as translations of the Red Book of Westmarch which, by the time of the modern day, would likely have come from Gondor's copy than that kept in the Shire.

Also Bilbo couldn't possibly narrate, having sailed into the West.

What seriously? I always thought the narrator is supposed to be J.R.R. Tolkien who is speaking to us in the present day.

>yellow text

user, are you colorblind? Be honest.

Couldn't Tolkien be translating Bilbo's narration?

killing orcs ought to release their elvish souls, freeing them to go to mandos and be healed by the neinna

Possible but why would Bilbo refer to himself in the third person? And in the beginning when the narrator talks about hobbits, describing how hobbits are never seen much these days (referring to the modern day).

They were on the right side to begin with.

...

Last Ringbearer pls go.

Or he was translating from a middle man, or many, between them.

You typically narrate in the third person when you want your story to read more like a story and less a biography.

IF ONLY HE GAVE A SHIT!

According to a lot of fan fiction written by women, apparently so.

They used to be elves, but now they're more like beasts controlled by Melkor. Im not sure they even have souls anymore.

Modern morals mate, go back a far enough and no one really had a problem with killing people outside their own group. A lot of cultures even glorified it.

>Greentext is Yellow in the Tommorow Style

Maybe not colorblind, but certainly foolish, or new, since he doesn't know the common terminology.

What about a succubus?

How about go fucking kill yourself?

Seconded.

I killed a thread on page 10 with my redeemed succubus maymay instead.

No, is wrong. Bilbo wrote "There and Back Again, which is the fictional "source material" for The Hobbit.

(I mean, Bilbo wouldn't write a book and call it "The Hobbit," any more than an elf would write a book about an adventure he had and call it "The Elf.")

The goblin inventions quote is a reference to World War 1. Tolkein was very upset about the new warfare, with its industrial-scale slaughter. It's the reason why industrialization and modernity are evil in his books: they're Mordor stuff, and Mordor is Verdun.

No; they're animal scum.

Their elves hepped up on evil, so probably not.

They were driven from the western parts of Middle-Earth, but there's a whole lot more world to the east and south.

according to writings which are only legal to publish in russia due to their comparatively lax copyright laws, they're the good guys

>Orcs are best when they can be slaughtered with no moral quandary.
I half agree. In LotR killing orcs is okay because, generally, they're trying to kill you. Based on shit like orcs aren't evil for the sake of evil as they are totally fucked up by society based on cruelty and servitude. You kill an orc for the same reason you kill a man or an elf: because the fucker is trying to destroy everything you love.

It's not so much about slaughter as it is righteous retaliation. In LotR slaughter is the sort of thing done by assholes who want to kill for the sake of killing.
It's the difference between making an excuse for violence and having a purpose.

Russian fanfiction does not count as canon.

>"Many that live deserve death. And some who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."
Love that quote. It's not subtle at all but it really hit me when I reread the books.

>Nope, and that's why they are good. None of this din do nuffin what if orcs aren't really evil crap from contrarians. Orcs are best when they can be slaughtered with no moral quandary.
>reading a "war is fun" tone from fucking Tolkien, the WWI vet
Your reading comprehension is way fucking off, assuming you even read the books. Tolkien espouses over and over in his works that violence can ONLY be just or remotely good if it's in defense. Remember what happened to the guy who fell to the temptation of the Ring under the justification that he would bring the war to Mordor and lay waste to it offensively?

It does but then you have to realize actual Chinese companies have a thing were they hire white people to literally stand about in suits at meetings/events as it makes their companies look more ''international''.

I wasn't making a joke. I was just being flippant about Tolkien's Christian ethics and how they impact his work.

Where the fuck do tolkien's orcs come from? Can they even reproduce at all?

Supposedly, they were made by mutated Noldor elves that Morgoth captured and tortured. They spawn in pits through black magic. There are no females or the like. From what I can tell, there is no other biological explanation. Just pit spawning, kind of like what you saw in TTT I guess (even though those were Uruk-hai).

I'm 90% sure Uruk-hai are just a particularly well groomed "breed" of orcs.

Yes, it's pretty annoying that all the orcs are portrayed as noble savage dindu nuffins I still think it's hot

Maybe "strain" would be more accurate

They are half-breed orcs. They are part wildman, part orc. They are not quite the same.

At least the orc is drawn suitably monstrous here whilst still being qt

Supposedly when it comes to things twisted by dark powers, normal orcs of the Red Eye are analogous to elves, Uruk-Hai (which is supposed to translate to something like "orc-folk" are halfbreed orc-men who are analogous to men, and Trolls are analogous to Treants.

Okay, but I'm a modern person, not a Akkadian, and when I'm DM the games I run take place in my own homebrew setting, which isn't ancient Akkad, and when I'm a player my DM runs in the Forgotten Realms, which is also distinctly not Akkad.

And Tolkien was a early-20th century Englishman and Catholic, not an Akkadian.

So I don't see the relevance of that statement.

Se dont know, because Tolkien never decided on it. In the letter where he brings this up all he essentially says is that he couldn't find a reasonable argument for why all Orcs where evil and that eventually he stopped caring and just went with it. Not every question needs an answer.

That's from the foreword, explicitly stated to be Tolkien's words to the readers where he mentions how he came upon the Red Book and the fate of Hobbits and Goblins.

Moreover, Bilbo can't be the narrator because the Red Book is merely based partly on his journal. The actual book comes from Gondor and also includes segments from several other stories.

I do have concern, just for the victims of orcs rather than the orcs themselves. LoTR orcs are corrupted elves, not even a natural creature. They are vastly destructive, and try to wipe out any group of people they come in contact with. The land around them becomes blackend and blighted from their evil.

All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Kill Orcs with as little mercy as you would a cancer.

>LoTR orcs are corrupted elves, not even a natural creature.

And dogs are just a human-bred version of wolves, hardly natural creatures. Simply being unnatural does not make them innately evil.

>They are vastly destructive, and try to wipe out any group of people they come in contact with. The land around them becomes blackend and blighted from their evil.

But we never learn nor are given a chance to learn if that is a result of their nature, or their society.

Yes, if a horde of orcs are bearing down on me with weapons drawn, then of course I'm going to defend me and mine. But I'm not going to go out of my way to exterminate every last orc, and I'd certainly try to seek out orc settlements - with an armed guard behind me - to try and see if orcs can be divorced from their corruption by more than just blade and bow.

I know you can't tell, but I'm making that face that elves make when you try and tell them about your plan to use the One Ring for noble ends.

Thise orcs are going to kill your party at the first opertunity, and torture you for as long as they can before you expire.

>without their leaders they were little more than beasts

They're skilled craftsmen, they have games and songs, they have friends and enemies

They're far from beasts

In the Silmarillion he describes them as reproducing just like any other people in Arda/Middle-Earth.
I find it funny that the argument of 'history!' Is brought up to justify a very unhistorical depiction of tribal cultures.
Yes, back in time we didn't give a shit about stabbing somebody else for something mundane as personal glory. At the same time, no people in history has been objectively evil as to justify taking up arms against them to be the only logical outcome.

I also find it just disappointing how people seem to immediately jump to accusations of dinduism when authors try to give a fictional monster race a daily live where they're just people and not cackling 80's cartoon villains who eat evil frostrd flakes with a glass of vile orange juice for their malicious breakfast.
Granted, there's been shitty works pushed out and prople have been riding the greenbrown warcraft dick for a long time now and it may get tiresome. It doesn't mean that it's not a viable approach.
Technically speaking - It's not certain. Various sources contradict themselves, and although we know Tolkien struggled with their concept, none of his later ideas made it into the final work. So they are as in the books, and in the books they have an innate bitterness and anger that's only surpassed by their stockholm syndrome for Melkor and Sauron. They're bred to be attack dogs and the process has lasted for the past ten-thousand years. It would take insane amounts of work and your best bet is the orphaned orcbaby.