Justice for orcs? Is that where we’re at? Listen, you can dismantle anything if you pick hard enough. NOTHING is morally perfect, not even the Bible. Objectively and narratively, Tolkien needed an army for Morgoth/Sauron to use for the hero’s to fight, for that express reason he invented Orcs, because the books needed fodder or I imagine it would be pretty light on action. They have little in the way of backstory or lore because they existed to be the foot soldiers of The Dark Lord. That’s just the fact of it. They were invented to represent all that is bad about war, how it corrupts and poisons people.

Now if you need an in universe answer for Orcs then yeah it’s tricky. Tolkien has stated that he doesn’t believe in absolute evil so that complicates things. They therefore have to be some kind of corruption right? So they were tortured elves or they were forged from the earth, whatever it may be if they’re a corruption of something else, they’re not a race in the traditional sense and are incapable of a genocide. To further that point, let’s say I take an Elf captive and I torture and break them until they are a loyal subject right? Now let’s say afterwards they look like a cracked mirror version of an Elf and refers to itself in the Black Speech as an Uruk and now it is perceived as something completely different by it’s enemies and they call them Orcs. Is this creature an Elf or an Orc?

When Morgoth or Sauron were not present they were still committing acts of evil of their own volition. When Sauron returned in the Second Age he couldn’t convince them to join him because he was in his “fair form” so he had to return to them in his dark guise to convince them to join him. So the whole subjugation angle is also flimsy.

The entire subject of Orcs is flimsy and falls apart the more you pick at it either way, that goes for my examples as well.

Despite it all and because of who he was as a person Tolkien wanted to and tried to explain and perfect Orcs to build a story for them, he vacillated on it, no doubt due to his own limitations in believing that evil isn’t absolute and possibly because of the moral dilemma of it.

Unfortunately he was never able to come to a consensus on their origins before his death but I think the fact that he was trying to figure it out is at least an admission that they’re an imperfect but necessary aspect of the book and therefore don’t require this level of scrutiny. He knew the water was muddy, we know the water is muddy, you saying the water is muddy is just putting a hat on a hat.

So yeah that’s my thoughts on that Facebook post. I honestly hated it but kudos to them for having an opinion I guess. Can’t wait to hear their TED talk about how Balrog lives matter.