Gollum and the Orcs

[Mrs.Underhill]

[Note: I split this discussion off from the thread on whether Sam could have done it. Mrs. U, feel free to change the title if you wish, and if anyone feels that their posts were moved incorrectly, let me know and I'll move em back - VtF]

Gollum was not "redeemed". Gollum was killed by his lust for the Ring. Or the Ring killed him, whichever way you look at it.

Yes, he wasn't redeemed. He died a villain, died in absolute lust for the Ring.
But he could've have been redeemed. That's a tragedy here for all involved: Sam, Frodo *and* Gollum, in the scene on the Stairs. Because at that moment Gollum still had a hope of repentance, but it was gone, because of Sam's disgust with him.

Tolkien didn't say Gollum was redeemed. He meant that Gollum was *redeemable*. There's a difference, and that's what I was saying there.

Yovargas, the main difference in anti-Gollum vs. anti-Orc hostility in the book was in the role Gollum served in the story. Orcs personify evil, badness which exist in everyone of us. They are unreedemable, and could only be killed. They are pure evil.

Gollum represents a different thing. He doesn't represent a punishable pure evil. He represents a fallen soul, fallen to a great temptation and who is as much a victim as a monster. He epithomizes "not throwing a first stone" wisdom, because everyone of us can fall like him, if pushed or tempted beyond the limit. Even Frodo falls in the end. And Boromir falls. We are not meant to hate them for that, or want to just punish them.
Same with Gollum. He is not in the book to be hated. While the readers can certainly feel nothing more for him, it's their prerogative - but it's not the author's intent.

Gollum is conflicted, and his conflict is pivotal to the book. Orcs are not conflicted. While torture of the Gollum's soul makes him one of the main heroes, and a fascinating character on whom actors can really flex their acting muscles. Gollum is a make or break of any production, because he's so important and complex.

And Tolkien did consider the possibility of Gollum repenting and taking a hit for Frodo, if he weren't pushed away on the Stairs. I.e. Gollum would have died the same - he wouldn't be able to live without the Ring, would jump in the volcano with/after it anyway. But he would've died a hero and not a villain in that case, with a hope for his soul.

Impenitence, I agree Sam has a huge heart and he's a softie, and wouldn't hurt a living thing without a need. With a need - he was going to kill Gollum if he could after Shelob's Lair, only the thought of Frodo in danger made him switch gears, from revenge to saving his Master.
While Frodo was ready to kill Gollum only if he presented direct threat to Sam, in Taming of Sméagol. He would only kill GOllum to stop him killing Sam, and that's what he meant.
And Frodo also had that dark undercurrent dynamic going on with Gollum, which was about the Ring and domination. But it's hard to blame him for that as that was the Ring's influence.

But if Frodo woke up on the Stairs - the things would've been very different.
Yes, Sam would be averse to hurting Gollum without need. But he wasn't averse to despising Gollum with that undercurrent of conceit which Frodo also had in the beginning, in his talk with Gandalf in Shadow of the Past.
And that conceit was gone after Choices. And that allowed Sam to show mercy on Mt.Doom - because he wasn't afraid or too disgusted to understand Gollum then.

[vison]

See, here's the thing: the Orcs are "pure evil". I have always believed that the Orcs were a terrible mistake on Tolkien's part. What were they? Why were they utterly unredeemable? Why were they created? I get the impression they could feel hunger and thirst and probably pain - in other words, they could suffer.

It's horrible, to create a being that is hopeless. A race of beings.

I hated the Orcs and I will always hate them, for that reason.

I think Gollum was worse than an Orc. An Orc apparently had no choice but to be Evil.

[Mrs.Underhill]

See, here's the thing: the Orcs are "pure evil". I have always believed that the Orcs were a terrible mistake on Tolkien's part.

I agree with that. Tolkien struggled with them a lot later, trying to explain how the mythology could encorporate unreedemable creatures. It is so unfair - to give such a victory to Morgoth in allowing him to create a race of beings for whom Eru would be forever lost.

I think his main mistake was in making them a living, biological race at all. Because as a metaphore Orcs work very well - they represent the evil, dark part which can exist in everyone of us, but extracted and personified. Orcs are Cruelty, Hate, Darkness made alive and walking around. To kill an Orc is not equivalent to killing a human being with such traits - it's to metaphorically kill those traits, stop this threat, prevent it from harming innocents.
Orcs are fairy tale archetypes of monsters which are out to get you, to kill your family or yourself, to destroy your world.
Nazis were not Orcs - but they carried Orcs inside them, and those Orcs inside them could and should have been killed. It wasn't about killing each and everyone of German soldiers. It was about stopping them destroying the world around them, stopping their evil and their threat.

Also, note how Haradrim and Easterlings get sympathy in the book. They are not Orcs, not Evil personified, they are just doing Evil's job at the moment.

I'm not sure I'm explaining it clearly - but that's what I see in them. As the real living beings they fail, but as a metaphore of evil *inside* of real living beings they work. You can kill evil inside a man without killing a man.

As for hating Gollum more than Orcs - well, that's a point of view a reader is entitled to, Gollum is made very disgusting after all, even though the only murder he did in his 500 years, which was directly mentioned, was the murder of Déagol, and he spent hundreds of years after that just being extremely disgusting, unpleasant and miserable, and killing Orcs or small animals for food, which good guys did too, on regular basis.
But that's not a point of view of the author of the book, and not the message in the book. That's a POV of Sam before Choices, we could say. Or POV of Frodo before the Quest. So of course siding with Sam not Frodo here would come logically from this. But the key here is still Gollum, and how we see him in the story - and that would reflect on the meanings each of us derive from the book.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[the only murder he did in his 500 years, which was directly mentioned, was the murder of Déagol, and he spent hundreds of years after that just being extremely disgusting, unpleasant and miserable, and killing Orcs or small animals for food, which good guys did too, on regular basis.

And babies. He ate babies, too, as I think vison pointed out earlier in the thread. I think that counts as "murder" too, doesn't it?

[Mrs.Underhill]

And babies. He ate babies, too, as I think vison pointed out earlier in the thread. I think that counts as "murder" too, doesn't it?

Which babies did he eat, where? "Little Orcs" from Hobbit? I don't think, in light of the further learning of Tolkien mythology, that those could have possible be Orc babies, as Orcs don't babies or women, or shouldn't have, at least, otherwise they would totally fail as metaphorical Evil, and Tolkien was struggling to keep them as such a metaphore even without giving them families.
Those "little Orcs" would mean a little breed like Snaga and such.
And if animal babies are meant, well, all of us who are not vegetarians from birth committed countless similar offences.

[ArathornJax]

In the chapter Shadows of the Past, Gandalf in relating his tracking of Gollum says:

"The wood was full of the rumor of him, dreadful tales even among beasts and birds. The Woodmen said that there was some new terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood. It climbed trees to find nests, it crept into holes to find the young, it slipped through windows to find cradles."

So, if the tale of the Woodmen is true, Gollum did steal their babies to eat them, thus committing more murders.

[Primula Baggins]

That's one of the creepiest passages in the whole book.

[Mrs.Underhill]

"...it slipped through windows to find cradles."

Yikes! I never noticed that part and just remember it being about animals' young. Or maybe it wasn't in translation that I read... Yes, if those tales are true that makes Gollum look much worse.
Then again we don't know for sure. We know that he didn't commit anymore murders in his community, after Déagol. He was kicked out for lesser offences.
And he never talked about babies in his ramblings, not even to himself - about bird's young, about worms and such he always talked, and about Shelob and Sauron he mumbled too, and those trysts would be as despicable and hard to admit to himself as killing of babies. So I don't know, and being a supporter of habeas corpus, give him the benefit of the doubt.

[ArathornJax]

I also think in Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbits this was a close second because of what it implies:

"Sam scrambling below the outfall of the lake, smelling and touching the unfamiliar plants and trees, forgetful for the moment of Mordor, was reminded suddenly of their ever-present peril. He stumbled on a ring still scorched by fire, and in the midst of it he found a pile of charred and broken bones and skulls. The swift growth of the wild with briar and eglantine and trailing clematis was already drawing a view over this place of dreadful feast and slaughter, but is was not ancient. He hurried back to his companions, but he said nothing, the bones were best left in peace and not pawed and routed by Gollum."

I've always wondered if this was an Orc feast on some captured Ithilien Rangers or other captives they had, or was it by the Haradrim with prisoners they had captured? The text implies cannibalism here, and I would assume the breaking of bones to get to the marrow . . . again, not a pleasant thought, but not as gross as abducting babies from cradles and eating them. I do believe the text does imply that Gollum would have no qualms about eating the marrow from the bones of any human type being found in Middle Earth. A new thought I had not thought of; I wonder when Gollum tried to touch the dead in the Marshes if he was hungry and was willing to get to the corpses to get their bones and marrow? Ok, enough creepiness for a while for me.

[Mrs.Underhill]

I've always wondered if this was an Orc feast on some captured Ithilien Rangers or other captives they had, or was it by the Haradrim with prisoners they had captured? The text implies cannibalism here, and I would assume the breaking of bones to get to the marrow . . . again, not a pleasant thought, but not as gross as abducting babies from cradles and eating them. I do believe the text does imply that Gollum would have no qualms about eating the marrow from the bones either.

I don't think we were meant to think of Haradrim as cannibals, or that they burned their prisoners.
I took it as being the remains of Orcs' feast, 100%. And yep, Sam implied that Gollum wouldn't hesitate to eat the dead bodies.
Actually, Gollum said that to Hobbits himself in Dead Marshes, that he tried to eat the bodies in the Marshes, but couldn't get to them. So that's where Sam got that idea - that Gollum might try to eat those remains too.
Still, eating the dead is disgusting but it's not really a crime like murder.

I'd say Gollum was a coward and would never take on someone who might've hit him back. So he preyed on the young, and on the creatures harmless to him - like fish or worms, and on the dead - and maybe on Shelob's rejects too. And he was scared of the Big folk, so I wonder whether he just tried to get babies from craddles and got chased all over the place by Woodmen or whether he actually accomplished that.

[solicitr]

I think it was a bit racist of Tolkien to sneakily imply a criticism of cannibalism- which whether by Orcs or Haradrim was merely an expression of their cultural traditions and just as valid as - indeed, much more valid than- our Eurocentric white-supremacist assumptions.

[Primula Baggins]

Please don't bring that stuff here, soli.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

Now I have always considered orcs redeemable. Difficult verging on impossible perhaps but the possibility was there. In their conversations there are moral judgments.
The thing is we look on orcs through the vision of the inhabitants of Middle-earth and inded to them the orcs were a nightmare to be eliminated at every turn. I have no doubt that they had mates and children and that the Elves and Aragorn would kill the orc chidren when they found them. There have been many such periods of cultural conflict in our own real life human history.
Note that I am not saying that orcs were not intrinsically evil within the stories, merely that they were not beyond hope.

[Mrs.Underhill]

I have no doubt that they had mates and children and that the Elves and Aragorn would kill the orc chidren when they found them. There have been many such periods of cultural conflict in our own real life human history.

I know many see Orcs like that, not as a metaphore of Evil in each one of us, i.e. not as externalized internal evil, but as a metaphore of agressors, of "the other" being demonized by those currently suffering from their agression.
Tolkien muddles it even more by suggesting in one of his letters that Orcs should be drawn as the worst and most feared Mongolian types, to tap into the genetic memory of Europe being invaded by Mongols from the East. As he was creating a mythology for England, and those invaders would be processed in the "cauldron of myth" in the Dark Ages of England and made into the fairy tale monsters.

We had the similar thing happen in Russian old myths/fairy tales about... how do you translate them... mighty super-warriors fighting, say, the NightingGale the Ruffian who was clearly a caricature on Mongol/Chengiz Khan invaders enslaving Russia in 13th century.

However, even if that's the origin of a mythical monster this is just an archetype, a mythical monster, now.

And I strongly disagree with viewing Orcs as the metaphore of demonized agressor nation. It's easy to see them like this but then it makes a lot of what our heroes did morally reprehensible, while the whole Quest was about trying to do what's morally right.

Killing any nation's babies would never be morally right. Killing someone who doesn't present direct threat to you (babies do not present a threat)isn't morally right! That's the whole point with Gollum in the book! And Saruman and Grima also get a chance, even though they blow it. Because if someone's redeemable, someone should get a chance of redemption, however unlikely. That's such an important part of the book! Singling the "redeemable" Orcs out in this context just doesn't make sense.

And would you imagine Aragorn and Co killing Dunland's children, or Haradrim's children, and being fine with that? If Orcs were just the agressor nation, if they had hope for redemption, then killing their babies would be absolutely bad and wrong thing to do.
Like going after each Nazi soldier during WW2 and killing his entire family. Aragorn wouldn't do that. Good guys don't do that and remain good guys.
We had agressor nations in the book: Haradrim, Easterlings, Pirates of Umbar, Dunland people. They weren't demonized, they were fundamentally different from Orcs and treated differently. They got mercy, they got fair deals in the end, they were mourned. Therefore Orcs were not a metaphore of the agressor nation in the book, not the example of how our heroes would treat an agressor nation.

I believe that's why there's no mention of Orc children or women in any of Tolkien's writings (I read Letters and most of HoME - but please correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I'm missing something?). Because they are simply not there. Orcs spawn. Orcs get cloned. Or whatever. PJ's version would actually do for me.

Still, Tolkien really wrote himself into the corner with Orcs. Because he also made Frodo say "The Darkness can't create anything new, it can only mock and destroy. Orcs have to eat and drink, they eat and drink nasty stuff, but not poison". So if they eat and drink, what about procreation? But if they were indeed twisted Elves, than Elves didn't procreate much, frankly... Only some of Elves would marry, and those who marry would usually have one child and then lose sexual interest in each other. But again, it is also said (in some places...) that they were made in mockery of Elves, not made from Elves. Just like Trolls were clearly not made from Ents - they had very different nature. But were made in mockery of Ents.

Ok, I give up, maybe we need a separate thread for it.
I just prefer to go with Orcs being externalized metaphores of inner evil because then the book makes moral sense, and it's the most important for me. But I can see how it can be taken differently, with LotR becoming xenophobic rasist piece instead, and some people really see it like this - their right, because those undertones are also in there.

[yovargas]

yovargas, the main difference in anti-Gollum vs. anti-Orc hostility in the book was in the role Gollum served in the story. Orcs personify evil, badness which exist in everyone of us. They are unreedemable, and could only be killed. They are pure evil.

I'm fine with that interpretation, but that is something that we as outsiders looking in can make a case for. Sam, in the story, can't be thought of as treating orcs that way because they're metaphors. Within the world, to Sam, they're perfectly real and, of course, he treats them accordingly.

[Mrs.Underhill]

I'm fine with that interpretation, but that is something that we as outsiders looking in can make a case for. Sam, in the story, can't be thought of as treating orcs that way because they're metaphors. Within the world, to Sam, they're perfectly real and, of course, he treats them accordingly.

Oh, sure! It's a myth which has archetypes walking around and threatening our heroes. Sam, or Aragorn, etc., kill them in the mythical world - while in our world the mythical action would translate into, say, killing a crazed soldier pointing a gun at you and your loved ones (like Melanie in Gone with the Wind), or knocking that soldier on the head, taking the gun away and making him captive, or somehow talking reason to the soldier and making him drop the gun by himself.
All those scenarios would defeat the inner Orc acting up in that soldier. But in the myth we have the satisfaction of a hero defeating the actual manifestation of that inner Orc.

And I see Gollum as having a huge inner Orc inside, nurtured over the centuries with help of the Ring. And Gollum was so much consumed by his inner Orc he would be unable to be free of it. But he still had a chance of killing that inner Orc along with his entire self, to choose to fight it, to die redeemed if not to live redeemed.

P.S. ToshoftheWuffingas, also wanted to say that I absolutely didn't mean you or other posters here when I said that some see LotR as a rasist piece. But I know a lot of those who do, especially in Russia, as there are several authors there who wrote a lot of fanfic-like angry (and dull, IMHO) books attacking Tolkien morality from this point of view. And who made money and fame on that, with copyright violation of course, but over there - who cares.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

No offence taken Mrs U. I think the point I was making and I have made it elsewhere is that the various societies that Tolkien described; none of them were Utopian. He described Elessar as an autarch. The Rohirrim hunted the Druadan like beasts. Gandalf threatened Gollum with torture. In my view he tried to portray how different people given their circumstances and culture might behave and he wasn't making special pleading for them. I find a tendency to idealise certain people and cultures in Middle-earth and I think the Professor was a lot more subtle than that.

[Impenitent]

Tosh, you've given me pause for thought! thank you.

Mrs U's position mirrors my own almost perfectly, so I have nothing further to add.

[River]

I also think in Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbits this was a close second because of what it implies:

"Sam scrambling below the outfall of the lake, smelling and touching the unfamiliar plants and trees, forgetful for the moment of Mordor, was reminded suddenly of their ever-present peril. He stumbled on a ring still scorched by fire, and in the midst of it he found a pile of charred and broken bones and skulls. The swift growth of the wild with briar and eglantine and trailing clematis was already drawing a view over this place of dreadful feast and slaughter, but is was not ancient. He hurried back to his companions, but he said nothing, the bones were best left in peace and not pawed and routed by Gollum."

I've always wondered if this was an Orc feast on some captured Ithilien Rangers or other captives they had, or was it by the Haradrim with prisoners they had captured? The text implies cannibalism here, and I would assume the breaking of bones to get to the marrow . . . again, not a pleasant thought, but not as gross as abducting babies from cradles and eating them. I do believe the text does imply that Gollum would have no qualms about eating the marrow from the bones of any human type being found in Middle Earth. A new thought I had not thought of; I wonder when Gollum tried to touch the dead in the Marshes if he was hungry and was willing to get to the corpses to get their bones and marrow? Ok, enough creepiness for a while for me.

I never read that passage as human remains.

I've encountered bits of animal skeleton out in the wilderness. Finding bones is creepy period, and faced with that one gets a deep, visceral desire to just leave it be. Even if you know it was just nature's course, that the predator does as a predator does, or that the animals of the forest and plains get old and die just like humans do. So to me, Sam just discovered that someone in Ithilien had never heard of the Leave No Trace ethic and left their left-overs behind. Or maybe they got interrupted by Rangers. Or something. Never even crossed my mind that the bones were human though.

Alternative: IIRC, the Southrons and Easterlings cremate their dead. Perhaps Sam encountered a funeral pyre?

As far as the cradles go...that too is creepy. But I wonder if Tolkien really meant that as fact or just reported rumor? The damndest things happen to the friends of friends, you know. Or maybe Gollum really did eat babies. We don't know. It's ambiguous. I think it was meant to be.

[Impenitent]

As far as the cradles go...that too is creepy. But I wonder if Tolkien really meant that as fact or just reported rumor? The damndest things happen to the friends of friends, you know. Or maybe Gollum really did eat babies. We don't know. It's ambiguous. I think it was meant to be.

Agree. Dark rumour, and we don't know how much truth is in it. It's meant to make us shiver, and it does.