Remove ads

Relics of the Third Age: A Lord of the Rings Quest

Reader mode
[X] Kill the Orcs, Continue Working with Gondor

Even if the bind option was a fun option i still would smack it down. Remember people, unless the author goes wildly into dumb bashing/non canon territory we would just get smacked down by an annoyed illuvattar who wants to move on the the next age already, long before getting to minas morgul. He's done it before and he'll do it again.
 
crusaderking01 said:
[X] Kill the Orcs, Continue Working with Gondor

Even if the bind option was a fun option i still would smack it down. Remember people, unless the author goes wildly into dumb bashing/non canon territory we would just get smacked down by an annoyed illuvattar who wants to move on the the next age already, long before getting to minas morgul. He's done it before and he'll do it again.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That makes no sense to me. Some minor villainous force from a past age becoming the big bad of the next has precedent in LotR. If Illuvatar didn't nuke Sauron because he was annoyed one of Melkors creatures would become the Dark Lord of the Second and Third ages after the War of Wrath he won't nuke Arphazel and that Ring either.
 
[X] Kill the Orcs, Continue Working with Gondor

Yeah, "dark magic slavery" is a big "no no".

Also, we now have a quest to trow a nazghul sword at Mount Doom
 
Chronic said:
That makes no sense to me. Some minor villainous force from a past age becoming the big bad of the next has precedent in LotR. If Illuvatar didn't nuke Sauron because he was annoyed one of Melkors creatures would become the Dark Lord of the Second and Third ages after the War of Wrath he won't nuke Arphazel and that Ring either.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We even saw Tolkien play with the idea of there being some surviving remnants when he was brainstorming a sequel for Lord of the Rings (though he wound up dropping the idea pretty quickly in favor of keeping the happy ending). Aside from the downfall of Numenor, divine nuking just isn't how Illuvatar operates; he usually prefers a bit more of a subtle touch or going through indirect agents. Really, considering Gandalf saved Arphazel from the ruins of Barad Dur, the most likely response if Arphazel became too much of a problem would be sending Gandalf back to Middle Earth to sort her out.
 
[X] Bind the Orcs, Continue Working with Gondor
:V...What? Taking over the orcs instead of fighting them to death is reasonable. If us BLACK NUMENOREANS can tidy up and become nice and upstanding people, so can they. Feed them, and use as auxiliaries against hostile orcs, instead of useless raiders. No real reason to attack the Gondorians though, no matter how much our girl despises them for ruining the beauty of a soul-flinching horror castle.
 
The idea that poor Gandalf would have to trek all the way back to Mordor to give Arphazel a stern talking to is almost enough to get me to change my vote. Not actually though, I don't think I'd enjoy the series of escalations that would lead to that intervention.
 
Kir the Wizard said:
:V...What? Taking over the orcs instead of fighting them to death is reasonable. If us BLACK NUMENOREANS can tidy up and become nice and upstanding people, so can they. Feed them, and use as auxiliaries against hostile orcs, instead of useless raiders. No real reason to attack the Gondorians though, no matter how much our girl despises them for ruining the beauty of a soul-flinching horror castle.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'd be chill with communicating with the orcs if we had failed to get any Gondorean support, but it's pretty clear that at this gate any peaceful contact with the Orcs would be burning bridges with Faramir and Eowyn. Plus, betraying allies is never a good idea.

This is something that can be philosophically or theologically troubling in Tolkein. If the Orcs were once elves who were altered with the magic of Morgoth, are they basically constantly under magical influence? Does the destruction of the One Ring and the end of Sauron mean they are no longer under that influence? Are they like this because the power of evil continues to grip their minds; or are they like this because they have lived their entire existence this way and can't bring themselves to change even when the power leaves their minds?

Either way, binding them with an evil sword is a bad move.
 
Yeah, the only attempt I'll make at convincing people is that Orcs are, in fact, a sapient race that has the desire to live their lives. You hear orcs complain about how much they dislike just being weapons against Gondor. Despite how crude their work was, they were capable craftsmen. In spite of how brutal it looked their medics were actually pretty decent as well if you lived long enough for them to arrive cx.

Just because we bind them doesn't mean we have to be evil. And to be blunt, if we don't take them under our wing, their only path forward is slow but sure species annihilation before the race of man. The way I see it is if we can be a Black Numenorian who was on the dark side, why can't we reach out and grasp the Orcs, grant them the chance to be more than what they were forced to be?
 
ErraticWizard said:
Yeah, the only attempt I'll make at convincing people is that Orcs are, in fact, a sapient race that has the desire to live their lives. You hear orcs complain about how much they dislike just being weapons against Gondor. Despite how crude their work was, they were capable craftsmen. In spite of how brutal it looked their medics were actually pretty decent as well if you lived long enough for them to arrive cx.

Just because we bind them doesn't mean we have to be evil. And to be blunt, if we don't take them under our wing, their only path forward is slow but sure species annihilation before the race of man. The way I see it is if we can be a Black Numenorian who was on the dark side, why can't we reach out and grasp the Orcs, grant them the chance to be more than what they were forced to be?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's a contested theological question as far as I recall, with Tolkien himself changing his view on the humanity of Orcs. We're not going to settle the argument here.

I would lay out some points why the argument for binding Orcs based on their humanity is misguided in this particular circumstance.

1. The choice as presented is to kill the orcs or bind them and betray Tirndis. The narrative makes it very clear that there will be some form of conflict with the Gondorians if we bind the orcs to our will, despite the votes to try and work it out. We aren't choosing whether to spare some or orcs or kill them. We are choosing whether to kill orcs or kill Gondorian rangers.
2. One might ask why Gondorian ranger's lives are more valuable than Orcish ones? I would suggest this is a question of real politic. Nurn has established diplomatic relations with Gondor and have been treated with respect and offered help. Nurn needed the help from Gondor because orcs were raiding its villages.
3. Yes we now have a magic sword which allows us to control Orcs and therefore establish favourable relations with them... Read that sentences again. At best that's using superior force to coerce them into working with us and at worst it's explicitly evil mind control which is not in Arphazel's control (the sword took all of 30 seconds to suggest enslaving the surviving Gondorians despite knowing to approach Arphazel with the greater good narrative) If there is an opportunity normalise relations with the Orcs, binding them to Arphazel's will is not a good start (and they are so easy to bind Shadows of War is a testament to that)

I find it a great shame how orcs are treated in Tolkien's works. Considering the central theme of Lord of The Rings is the power of pity, how taking pity on Gollum saved the world and how both Saruman and Sauron got chances at redemption in their stories. As far as I know the question of an orc seeking peace or being shown consideration as an enemy combatant able to make choices just never came up.

This is not the right time and our protagonist does not have the right tools to fix that problem. Whether fixing that problem is within the scope of the quest is obviously not for me to answer. Other works have approached it but I'd say that theme is definitely optional within the LOTR universe.
 
legomithras said:
It's a contested theological question as far as I recall, with Tolkien himself changing his view on the humanity of Orcs. We're not going to settle the argument here.

I would lay out some points why the argument for binding Orcs based on their humanity is misguided in this particular circumstance.

1. The choice as presented is to kill the orcs or bind them and betray Tirndis. The narrative makes it very clear that there will be some form of conflict with the Gondorians if we bind the orcs to our will, despite the votes to try and work it out. We aren't choosing whether to spare some or orcs or kill them. We are choosing whether to kill orcs or kill Gondorian rangers.
2. One might ask why Gondorian ranger's lives are more valuable than Orcish ones? I would suggest this is a question of real politic. Nurn has established diplomatic relations with Gondor and have been treated with respect and offered help. Nurn needed the help from Gondor because orcs were raiding its villages.
3. Yes we now have a magic sword which allows us to control Orcs and therefore establish favourable relations with them... Read that sentences again. At best that's using superior force to coerce them into working with us and at worst it's explicitly evil mind control which is not in Arphazel's control (the sword took all of 30 seconds to suggest enslaving the surviving Gondorians despite knowing to approach Arphazel with the greater good narrative) If there is an opportunity normalise relations with the Orcs, binding them to Arphazel's will is not a good start (and they are so easy to bind Shadows of War is a testament to that)

I find it a great shame how orcs are treated in Tolkien's works. Considering the central theme of Lord of The Rings is the power of pity, how taking pity on Gollum saved the world and how both Saruman and Sauron got chances at redemption in their stories. As far as I know the question of an orc seeking peace or being shown consideration as an enemy combatant able to make choices just never came up.

This is not the right time and our protagonist does not have the right tools to fix that problem. Whether fixing that problem is within the scope of the quest is obviously not for me to answer. Other works have approached it but I'd say that theme is definitely optional within the LOTR universe.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Whether the Orcs are fully sapient and capable of redemption or soulless monsters was one of those things Tolkien never really settled on, because he wasn't completely happy with either answer. He didn't like the idea of things with human-level intelligence that were pure evil from the start and could never change, but if they were capable of redemption the fact that all his heroes slaughtered them by the dozens was a problem. It's still kind of a problem in fantasy, which is why a lot of more modern takes either commit to making conflicts more grey by not making Orcs or other species inherently evil and having other things drive them into conflict with the protagonist races, or by making their Orcs into far less human of a species.

As far as this quest goes, I'll probably use Tolkien's ambivalence to play a little bit of Schrodinger's Orcs. If people want to pursue a path of trying to redeem and reform Orcs, then they can be redeemed. If we just want to kill the evil monster men, then they're all inherently evil and incapable of change.
 
If we want to try to redeem the orcs we can do that later. Not in the middle of a battle. Let's not betray our new allies at literally the first chance.
 
F4OAXB said:
If we want to try to redeem the orcs we can do that later. Not in the middle of a battle. Let's not betray our new allies at literally the first chance.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not to mention using a Nazgul's blade to bind sentient beings to our will is literally just continuing an existing cycle of oppression and violence.

But yeah loyalty is a virtue, and we shouldn't betray allies. Compassion and Pity are also virtues, and ones that can hopefully be exercised in future.
 
XD Being clear I knew i'd lose this vote pretty dang handily. But you can't blame me for trying :p Atleast we agreed to pickup the sword. I'm curious if we can bind it or otherwise re-use it in the forging of a new blade given I doubt voters wanna listen to it rant.
 
ErraticWizard said:
XD Being clear I knew i'd lose this vote pretty dang handily. But you can't blame me for trying :p Atleast we agreed to pickup the sword. I'm curious if we can bind it or otherwise re-use it in the forging of a new blade given I doubt voters wanna listen to it rant.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, I hate Gondor as much as the next princess in Mordor, but I'm realistic enough to realize Gondor is doing us a solid, might as well return the favor.

Also quite frankly, imitating Sauron is why Mordor is like this, so if we want revenge, we need to be smart about it.
 
Chengar Qordath said:
Whether the Orcs are fully sapient and capable of redemption or soulless monsters was one of those things Tolkien never really settled on, because he wasn't completely happy with either answer. He didn't like the idea of things with human-level intelligence that were pure evil from the start and could never change, but if they were capable of redemption the fact that all his heroes slaughtered them by the dozens was a problem. It's still kind of a problem in fantasy, which is why a lot of more modern takes either commit to making conflicts more grey by not making Orcs or other species inherently evil and having other things drive them into conflict with the protagonist races, or by making their Orcs into far less human of a species.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, by modern fantasy standards they didn't even slaughter them as much!
And, anyway, they were at war, and, even if you take way the Dark Lords, socially the orcs are tribals-to-feudals that see raiding as a legitimate business... So, no worse than ASOIAF Iroborn, for instance. :whistle::ninja:
 
[X] Kill the Orcs, Continue Working with Gondor

tempting... but no let's not restart the cycle
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top