Are orcs also immortal???

[imladris]

:confused: :confused: :confused:
I'm a bit confused.
Are orcs and goblins also immortal??
They were elfish.
I didn't thought of it before, but now I asked it myself and I just don't know.
:confused: :confused: :confused:

[Greenwood]

Tolkien never seems to have totally settled in his own mind the origin of orcs. He seems to originally have thought of them as distorted elves, but perhaps because that would imply immortality he later rethought their origins and late in his life seemed to be leaning towards orcs being distorted humans, but it does not appear that he ever really settled on a final opinion. He certainly did not publish one during his lifetime.

[imladris]

Oh, so it was never mentioned.
But i still think they are immortal.
Thanx anyway.
:D :D :D :D :D

[UngattTrunn475]

I don't think it makes sense that orcs are mutilated elves. Elves are immortal, and orcs aren't.

[Greenwood]

Originally posted by UngattTrunn475
I don't think it makes sense that orcs are mutilated elves. Elves are immortal, and orcs aren't.

But how do you know orcs are not immortal? Can you cite any orc in Tolkien's work who died of old age? All that I can think of met their ends violently.

[ReadWryt]

One may not think that it makes sense that Orcs are "Tormented Elves", but then that's just the way it is no matter how much/little sense it seems to make.

[Tar-Elenion]

As Greenwood has noted JRRT never seems to have come to a firm conclusion on the origin of Orcs, having switched around between Elves, Men, Maiar, beasts and even some sort of 'puppets' (IIRC), or perhaps even a mixture. An interesting tidbit: Bolg, son of Azog, was slain at the Battle of Five Armies, in TA 2941. Azog was slain at the Battle of Nanduhirion in 2799. This puts Bolg at at least @142 years old (if he was born the same year that Azog was slain).

[Gary Gamgee]

I would think that they are immortal, they began as Elves there is no mention that Eru took away anything from after they were ruined by Morgoth. They also breed like Elves and can of course be killed, but where do they go when they die? Is there a special hall Mandos has laid aside for them? Will they be forgiven and return to thier original form? at least the orignal ones? I don't remember any mention of a hell, is there one?

Interesting thread.

GGG

[GimlisonofGloin]

Orcs are Sauron's version of elves, and Trolls are his version of Ents. And I do not beleive that orcs are immortal because immortal means that you cannot die or be killed.

[Beorn]

Immortal means you cannot die of old age or of disease, not necessarily dying in battle.

[Mayberry]

Paging Grond... Paging Harad... Read-Wryt, come in, please...

Ok, where are these guys? Even their disagreements should be insightful...at least as far as this question is concerned. ;)

[Harad]

Sorry but I dont think there is an answer. The Orcs are mostly said to arise from the corruption of captured Elves--see quotes below from both Letter and the Sil. However, whether this "fact" remained true for LOTR and whether the "corruption" affected the originals' immortality is not mentioned. The way orcs were slain by the gazillions and presumably multiplied by the gazillions makes immortality rather irrelevant for them.


The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes

Elves may turn into Orcs, and if this required the special perversive malice of Morgoth,

I don't think it gave life to the Orcs, it only ruined them and twisted them.' In the legends of the Elder Days it is suggested that the Diabolus subjugated and corrupted some of the earliest Elves, before they had ever heard of the 'gods', let alone of God.

, I have represented at least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them.

Yet this is held true by the wise of Eressëa, that all those of the Quendi who came into the hands of Melkor, ere Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty were corrupted and enslaved; and thus did Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orcs in envy and mockery of the Elves, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance of life, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulindalë before the Beginning: so say the wise.

[Bill the Pony]

Check out this (http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?threadid=2594) thread, where HoME, Morgoth's Ring is used as reference on this issue. Grond seems to start out by saying orcs were bred from men, so they are not immortal and don't go to the Halls of Mandos. This theory, however, seems to give conflicts with what's in the Silmarillion. I don't think there's a final verdict yet...


Harad, I'm a very lazy pony, would it be possible if you quote to say which quote comes from where? That makes it easier to put them in context....

[Harad]

no


wait..its still your week...

So they are all from Letters, except the last from the Silmarillion.

[Bill the Pony]

Still my week?:confused: Good!
Which letters? Where in the Sil??

[Camille]

Orcs are Sauron's version of elves, and Trolls are his version of Ents. And I do not beleive that orcs are immortal because immortal means that you cannot die or be killed.
sorry Gimli son of Gloin but the orcs are not Sauron's elf version but Melkor's elf version, if we take the orcs theory from the silmarilion... but this is a very good thread!!! orcs inmortal!! mmm if they were elves then maybe they can be inmortal but if we take the thoery that were breed from man thn they are not, but we can have a conflict because orcs were in ME before the Men, so can they be men? well I think we are discussion something that Proffesor Tolkien didnt finished....

[Lantarion]

I don't think Tolkien actually states anywhere that Elves are 'immortal': they just can't be killed by old age. Orcs are used for nothing but fighting and harsh slavery, so it's incredibly unlikely they will live over the age of recruitment.
And I think it was the grand scheme of Ilúvatar that Elves were the only race who were allowed to be 'semi-immortal'. Elves could basically live forever, Men died and went to some kind of 'Heaven', and Dwarves... Well, just try to figure them out. :)
Anyway, Melkor couldn't make anything, as has been stated before: he CORRUPTED some ELves to make Orcs. He bred all the good features out of them and brought out the bad parts (and discovered a few on the way). And nothing in the universe can go against the word of Ilúvatar, so the only possible answer to this question is that Orcs were not immortal, because Elves already were.

[Kelkorian]

I would like to strengthen Pontifexs' point about Elves 'immortality'.

According to the standards of Men, Elves are immortal. But, they do infact age. Tolkien states in 'Letters' this:
"The Elves were sufficiently longeval to be called by Man 'immortal'. But they were not unageing or unwearying"

Just wanted to point that out.

[Bill the Pony]

Just wondering: Elves could, when they grew weary of middle earth, lay down and go to the halls of Mandos, right?
So, if orcs were indeed tortured elves, how come they did not go to Mandos early in the torturing process? Surely Mandos would have received them? Or is this option only for the elves that saw the light of the trees?

[aragil]

In the metaphysics of Tolkien's world, all rational incarnates had a soul (fea?) and body (hrato?). The fea of the Elves were bound to Arda. Because of this, the fea would be in big trouble if it lost it's body, so it behooved the elves fea to hold on to their hrato, so to speak. Tolkien wrote that early on the elven fea were not all that capable of holding on to the hrato, so some did 'die of old age', which left their fea roaming around the Earth without a body.
Every time that an Elven fea loses it's hrato it is summoned to Mandos. The fea can refuse the summons, and is then left to wander as a spirit. If the fea goes to the halls of Mandos then it is judged, and spends some time there (probably like Catholic Purgatory) until it is allowed to be 're-born' and given a new hrato.

So what about Orcs? Well, I haven't read the HoME thread, but I have read the relevant sections of Morgoth's Ring. Tolkien went back and forth on whether Orcs were bred from men (rational incarnate), elves (rational incarnate), or beasts (non-rationale incarnate). If the latter is true, then they posess no fea and have no possibility of continuing beyond death. If the orcs came from Men, then their fea would be free after death, and would wander around with Luthien, Beren, and whoever else they cared to until the second music. If the orcs came from elves, then their fea would be summoned to Mandos, but they'd probably refuse the summons and wander around as spirits.
I prefer to think of the orcs as corruptions of elves. They certainly seem to be rationale, so they could not come from beasts. In Morgoth's ring we learn that Tolkien's last thoughts on the matter (~1960) were that the orcs came from men. However, this required some pretty convuluted (IMO) warping of the time frame, and the only reason I see for this is that Tolkien felt it was distasteful for orcs to be in any way related to elves. However, if we remember that Morgoth was able to warp the perceptions of someone as inherently noble as Hurin in a relatively short amount time, it was in my opinion possible for him to corrupt the elves into something totally unrecognizable over the course of 100's of years. One last thing to note is that ~1970 Tolkien ammended his 1960 essay in a way which conflicted with all of the tortured timeline to get orcs from men. This leaves the possibility that towards the end of his life Tolkien was leaning back to the Orcs from Elves theory.
A further reason that I like this theory is that it allows for interesting fea-hrato relationships in the orcs. Your average primitive orc would have a weak fea much like the original elves did, and these early elves had hrato which died of old age. However, an Orc with an especially strong will (fea) would be able to keep their hrato around longer. Hence my favorite example Bolg, which Tar-Elenion pointed out earlier.

A final note on the Silmarillion: CT had to publish it by selecting what he felt to be his father's most consistent bits of narrative. For every passage he had several alternatives to choose from. It appears that he picked the Orcs from Elves passage because he felt it was the most consistent with the rest of the work. It certainly was not the only possibility available (although it's my favorite).

[Goro Shimura]

Good work, aragil...

It is tempting to try to change orc from being preverted elves to being perverted men.... But it's very messy to do that.

Among other things, Saurman's innovation (of incorporating Man-Orc stock into a tougher sun resistant orc) ceases to make sense.

[Eonwe]

um simple point, but what about the conversation between Shagrat and Gorbag talking about the "bad old times", the siege. Are they talking like they were alive at that time? I don't have the books with me...

[Bill the Pony]

That's a very helpful post, Aragil, but I still have this question. My interpretation of Miriel going to the halls of Mandos after the birth of feanor, is that a fea as you call it can choose to leave its hrato (sp?), if life becomes too wearisome.
Being tortured by Melkor, without hope of escape, in my opinion is definitely terrible enough to want to leave this life.
Or at least once they become aware of what Melkor is trying to do, would they not rather leave their hrato behind and roam around as a spirit, than become an evil orc?

So basically, if orcs are corrupted elves, why didn't the elves choose to 'die' before they were turned into orcs?

[Beorn]

Ponti, Elves are immortal, as taken from the Tale of Tinuvel:

He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tinúviel the elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,

[aragil]

Eonwe- Shagrat and Gorbag's conversation used to be my favorite case for Orc longevity before running across the more definite instance of Bolg, and I almost included them in my above post. In addition to referring to the 'good old times' and the 'bad old times before the good old times', Shagrat and Gorbag also say that nobody's been tough enough to deal with Shelob since the great siege, presumably referring to the siege of Barad-dur occuring at the end of the Second Age. The problem is that Gorbag and Shagrat identify themselves as Uruks, and Uruks have only been around since ~TA 2475. Then again, maybe the Uruks were just the same old Orcs that had been heavily trained and painted black. There is also the fact that Tolkien fleshed out the conversation between Gorbag and Shagrat before he called them uruks, and well before he wrote out the timeline that had them appearing in TA 2475. Perhaps he originally intended that the two captains be very old orcs with recollection of the siege, but forgot to omit the dialogue when he made them uruks and decided when uruks appeared.

B the P- Miriel is actually one of the special cases that Tolkien built his hrato-fea essay around. I just read all of this for the first time yesterday, and did not read it with the idea of reporting it back to the boards, so I'm probably not the most qualified person to discuss Tolkien's metaphysics. I don't even know if hrato is the right word or if it's spelled correctly, but nobody's corrected me yet. Anyway, Tolkien's idea was that most of the fea in a newborn individual came from Illuvatar, and that the hrato was inherited from the parents. A young individual would display mostly traits of the parents, because at that stage of life the hrato is dominant. However, as an individual matures, the fea becomes stronger and the individual displays traits that are their own and do not come from the parents. Even so, the fea of the parents helps feed the fea of the offspring, and part of the parents' fea is given to their children. In the case of Miriel and Feanor, so much of her fea was given to her son that she no longer had the strength to live. As a result, she went to the halls of Mandos to wait until her fea had sufficiently recovered. There's a whole bunch of other interesting implications about this and her marriage to Finwe (marriage was held to be a union of hrato as well as fea), but I won't go into that now. My point is that Miriel didn't die simply because she was weary, she died because her fea was depleted to the point that she could no longer hold on to her hrato.

The question then becomes, was Morgoth's (or Sauron's, depending on which version of Orcs you read) mutilation so terrible that it depleted the fea as well as the hrato? Probably in many cases. But you only need a few intitial successes to get your separate breed. If the Dark Powers consigned a couple souls to wander Arda forever as a bye-product of their breeding, then they probably weren't too bothered by it.

[grishnak]

Replying to Imaldris:
Goblins did not come from elves, they are their own race. The elves were tortured in the pits of utumno, and were made into a hideous goblin race. I think that this is a branch from the original goblin race which came from the mountains of the north.

[Beleg Strongbow]

Ít is hard to tell. Because Orcs are always fighting either with themselves or against the enemy. But they don't breed like elves i think?? So i reckong the elves should be able to not die and the orcs die. Also about Mandos taking them in they weren't really by iluvatar were they?? They were bred by melkor?? But it is hard to say. I don't think they would go to Mandos like normal elves.

[Greenwood]

In HoME vol X, Morgoth's Ring, Christopher Tolkien presents his father's writings wrestling with the origin of orcs (pp. 408 - 424). There is far too much material there to be summarized briefly here. I believe most of these writings postdate LOTR and some are even somewhat contradictory since Tolkien was clearly still wrestling with the issue of orcs. In some places Tolkien seems to be suggesting that there may have even been more than one origin of orcs. One passage that seems relevant to the subject under discussion here is: "They could be slain, and they were subject to disease; but apart from these ills they died and were not immortal, even according to the manner of the Quendi; indeed they appear to have been by nature short-lived compared with the span of Men of higher race, such as the Edain." Tolkien goes on to say that "Morgoth had many servants, the oldest and most potent of whom were immortal, belonging in their beginning to the Maiar ....". Tolkien suggests that some of these servants whose job it was to deal with orcs, took on orc shapes and became "Great Orcs or Orc-captains" who were not slain and who had lives far longer than men. (p. 418)

[aragil]

Greenwood, the thing with the 'maia posing as early orcs' is that this is just one of his theories (I better be preaching to the choir here). He had several competing theories, and it doesn't appear that he ever satisfactorily resolved the issue. His last notes seemed to negate the possibility that the Orcs were bred from Men, so they could have been longer lived than what he says elsewhere in that essay. Remember, in his published works we have an Orc (Bolg) living for nearly two centuries (unless the Orcs had developed a method for freezing *****). This would put Bolg at about the same age as Aragorn was when he died of old age. By all indications, Bolg was in the prime of his life when nipped by Beorn, so 170 years (or whatever it was) was not too old for him. Given that we have conflicting information here from the author, shouldn't we do what CT did in publishing the Silmarillion: pick the theory which fits in the best with what we know of Tolkien's universe.

re my earlier points. I did mis-spell 'hrato', but now I've forgotten again how to spell it correctly. Hrondo or Hroa, I think.

[Greenwood]

Aragil

Have no fear. I was just showing some of the range of ideas about the origins of orcs that Tolkien was playing with up to making some orc captains Maiar!

[jks13]

yah they are totally immortall because how then in the Hobbit could they have killed the head goblin and in the LOTR they killed a lot of orcs.

[Roseberry]

Bill - don't forget that the Orcs started out as mutilated elves, but only at the beginning of their creation. That ties into the whole question of how the orcs were propagated, which was a different thread somewhere. But they wouldn't necessarily continue to have the elves' immortality, since they had passed the point of being elves.