Tolkien was inconsistent over the years about orcs. Where they came from and whether they were purely evil was just kind of an afterthought to their purpose - someone for the heroes to fight. Kind of like his whole world was just a place for his hobby languages to exist in.
He was always adamant about that. The most "curtains are fucking blue" person ever. Meanwhile its impossible to not see a lot of very obvious parrells to WW1 and WW2 at minimum.
Like please try to not think that the Dead Marshes were inspired by experiencing WW1. i dare even the most media illiterate to think there's nothing there.
He wasn't thr most curtains are blue guy ever, here's the full quote:
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
There is a major difference there and he had said in other occasions that he's sure aspects of his work do reflect his life experiences but never as any intended 1:1 paralel
Also Numenor is funny from this angle: an island, where local civilization slowly turned from peaceful rural people into technologically advanced maritime slave-trading colonialist empire, which twisted its religion to place its monarch at the top of it and repressed those who still followed the old religion. That, of course, has absolutely no relation to Tolkien's Catholicism and his dislike of Industrial revolution and contemporary Britain.
I thought it was really clear in the Silmarillion that they were elves taken captive by morgoth and corrupted through torture. So like there's obviously a sympathetic way to approach this.
The Silmarillion is like fifty percent t Christopher Tolkien piecing things together. The guy changed his mind a few times regarding orcs and became more sympathetic to them each time but to work that in Christopher would have to change a lot of the silmarilliom to match. In lord of the rings itself (the books) You do get examples of orcs talking among themselves and they are intelligent, have independent goals and ideas and different cultures based on where they come from. The orcs guarding Cirith Ungol talk about how they hate their boss and would rather be back in the mountains just being normal bandits.
Definitely, I'm not arguing against that. I think its good that people are consciously moving away from the evil races trope. I just don't think what Tolkien thought about it one way or the other is that important.
Tolkien was inconsistent over the years about orcs. Where they came from and whether they were purely evil was just kind of an afterthought to their purpose - someone for the heroes to fight. Kind of like his whole world was just a place for his hobby languages to exist in.
JRR "Analogy is bad" Tolkien
He was always adamant about that. The most "curtains are fucking blue" person ever. Meanwhile its impossible to not see a lot of very obvious parrells to WW1 and WW2 at minimum.
Like please try to not think that the Dead Marshes were inspired by experiencing WW1. i dare even the most media illiterate to think there's nothing there.
He wasn't thr most curtains are blue guy ever, here's the full quote:
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.
There is a major difference there and he had said in other occasions that he's sure aspects of his work do reflect his life experiences but never as any intended 1:1 paralel
Oh that's cool. That's actually a really intetesting perspective on writing
Also Numenor is funny from this angle: an island, where local civilization slowly turned from peaceful rural people into technologically advanced maritime slave-trading colonialist empire, which twisted its religion to place its monarch at the top of it and repressed those who still followed the old religion. That, of course, has absolutely no relation to Tolkien's Catholicism and his dislike of Industrial revolution and contemporary Britain.
I thought it was really clear in the Silmarillion that they were elves taken captive by morgoth and corrupted through torture. So like there's obviously a sympathetic way to approach this.
The Silmarillion is like fifty percent t Christopher Tolkien piecing things together. The guy changed his mind a few times regarding orcs and became more sympathetic to them each time but to work that in Christopher would have to change a lot of the silmarilliom to match. In lord of the rings itself (the books) You do get examples of orcs talking among themselves and they are intelligent, have independent goals and ideas and different cultures based on where they come from. The orcs guarding Cirith Ungol talk about how they hate their boss and would rather be back in the mountains just being normal bandits.
Definitely, I'm not arguing against that. I think its good that people are consciously moving away from the evil races trope. I just don't think what Tolkien thought about it one way or the other is that important.