Grey Ships

[page 5] _CONCERNING ORCS_ I think the only flower that grows in Mordor is the "orch id".... Everyone seems to have at least a little @allittle@ trouble pictureing @picturing@ orcs. But the absolute worst mess-ups are by _Time_, November 22, '54 (which pictures them covered with feathers and having beaks). Apparently the former confused them with Trolls and the later with...eagles? '54, November, was a wild time. I think Gandalf had a head in this. At the '66 Yulemoot we gave out a clay orc as a booby prize. Armoring them covers up any slips or guesses. I hadn't realized that the orcs of the Misty Mountains were the _same_ race as the goblins of _The Hobbit_. I knew the names were interchanged once in a while in _TLotR_ but I had pictured goblins a littles different and had thought they were mostly killed off in The Battle of Five Armies. I guess Tolkien didn't want to confuse kids with a term like "orc"....I should have known just from the mention in _The Hobbit_ of 'Orcrist'-'goblin-cleaver'.... The Over Hill Under Hill scene is practically the only example of orc 'homelife'. (But I the Mountain orcs lived somewhat differently than the others). This brings up the question of Sex and the Orcs. if I may use the phrase. If the orcs (the first) were made by Morgoth then there was a great space of time between Morgoth's Fall and Sauron's first appearance and between the first and second appearances of Sauron in the which the Creators were withdrawn from the world and thus they would not create. But we are told that they multiplied greatly....So...were there women orcs. We really know little about the race. The only semblance of 'normality' that is shown in the orc's life is in the _The Hobbit_ and a few passing mentions as of "farms" (I think) near Nurnen. It is only at these places that I pictured any possibility of the existence of womenfolk. The dwarves, in a sense, seem to be _somewhat_ like orcs (blasphemywell @blasphemy well@ I _do_ like dwarves quite a bit, but some _did_ make alliances with orcs and they do have the hardness of mountains in them.) They dwarf women are somewhat obscure and not very plentiful and look just like the men (if I may use the term). It may be the same with goblins. More later... I agree with Auden about the the orcs not being quite rotten enough because they do reason, too much, and are speaking people. However Tolkien tells us that "they had no language of their own. but took what they could of other tongues and perverted it to their own liking...they made only brutal jargons, scarcely sufficient even for their own needs, unless it were for cusses abd @and@ abyss. And these creatures, being filled with malice, hating even [page 6] their orcs liked, sock eyes they would, without love of words or things; and their language was actually more degraded and filthy than I have shown it. I do not suppose any ill wish for a closer rendering, though models are easy to find. Much the same sort of talk can still be heard among the orc-minded; dreary and repetitive with hatred and conetempt, too long removed from good to retain even verbal vigour, save in the ears of those to whom only the squalid sounds strong." In _The Hobbit_ we are also told that their only delight was in making others suffer, and in clever wickedness, and in making instruments of trouble and torture. And in the various scenes (with the Prisoners, at the Tower, etc.) throughout the book we know their psychological make-up. Thus Auden need not be at all bothered them, their sole goals were destruction of others and in other's suffering and this is their only direction of reasoning. While it is true that they can't be "held accountable" for their "sins" they _deserve_ and must be destroyed on sight, even if they do feel pain. I seem to remember a quote (brought to my attention, but unfound as of yet, by Marcells C. Juhren) about Sauron and Co. only being able to make a negative or opposite of the good created beings, as they (Morgoth and Sauron) "could make (nor create) nothing of (their) own". Orcs were they opposite negative of Elves and Trolls of Ents. However even the orcs were afraid of the Nazgul and such. Gorbag said (II,B3,441) :"Those Nazgul give me the creeps. And they skin the body off you as soon as they look at you, and leave you all cold in the dark on the other side." It is this semblance to to humans that would perhaps make the new soldier hesitate to kill one+, if, say, he met one or two alone and unarmed (though unlikely). And also, if the orcs are the opposite of the Elves then there is quite likely a variety of orcs which serve the same function as the woman. It is interesting to note, in the light that their oppositenes to Elves is only in looks and attitude, that perhaps they are immortal (until killed of course) or at least very long lived. Speaking of Sam after the Orcs found Frodo@,@ Gorbag says (II, BB,443):"--there's someone loose hehereabouts as is more dangerous than any other damned rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the great Siege". I assume he means the Siege of the Barad-dur by the Last Alliance...and that was about 3,019 years before! There are reputedly close to fifteen "Orcs' Marching Songs". + see II, 346, 1.17-19