Quote:
Although I love Tolkien, I've always thought that he was unfair with orcs.
Former elves transformed into monsters, they had no choice in the matter. Nonetheless, they were stripped of their free will.
It looks like predestination.
This is all about Manicheism and the vision of a world where Good and Evil are two opposite fields. It annoyed me when I was twenty-one; it annoys me now. |
Yes, Tolkien was pretty firm in this and it is what sets him apart from all other writers. There -is- true good and bad in Middle-Earth. It isn't all based upon subjective morality, but the fact that Elves were created to do good and Orcs were 'created' to destroy. This is a good thing, I feel, for Tolkien doesn't want the reader to get sentential about orcs. They are corruptions, and it's Morgoth's doing. As for predestination... well, Tolkien never says much on the state of the Elves' spirits. I think it is possible for the spirit of the elves to have left the bodies and arrive at Mandos while the shell, now corrupted into the figure of an orc, was filled with the malice of Morgoth. I'm unsure... maybe someone else could elaborate.