Fundamentally you’ve got to understand about me that I’m adherent to the “orcs became orcs by choice” theory. And everything else goes from there
Like listen it could be SO GOOD. Tolkien’s understanding of what “good” and “evil” and “innocent” and “fallen” are is so so deeply Christian/Catholic and I thought we didn’t like that on this website?? (tr*dc*th Tolkien fandom don’t interact) So why is barely anyone applying transformative fandom to his elves vs orcs lore?? Like what if during the Cuivienen era a few elves just made their way to Utumno and asked for protection, simply bc they saw the fires in the darkness and went “sweet, civilization!”? And Melkor said “sure” and gave them big muscles and cool claws and tusks so that they could defend themselves better in the wilderness? There is so much here listen--
It can be about rejecting conventional views of what is “ugly” or “savage” and seeing beauty in the big beefy form of an orc. It can be about rejecting forced Christianization. It can be about choosing to slide downwards into the community of the Othered Lil Nas stripper pole into hell style. It can be about embracing nuance and really thinking about why certain groups of people make certain decisions in the course of statecraft and culture and civilization instead of staying beholden to a false good vs evil dichotomy. It can be about reading the Silm as propaganda and really getting into why the elves and men would not understand what orcs are about and choose to pass them off as homogenously evil. It can be about asking tough questions about why some people are Othered anyway. It could be about ditching the boring ass “orcs are redeemable bc they were once elves” nonsense and settling at “orcs are redeemable NO MATTER WHAT”! It could be about rad transhumanism themes. There is an untapped goldmine here just listen---
