Maybe Aragorn followed a strategy to not care about agents created in certain blackmail-like conditions, so that Sauron wouldn’t be able to get Aragorn to do anything just by creating sufficient numbers of orcs that wanted that thing.
Wow, cue sinister violin riffs as a scrolling footnote reminds me of the 3/5-of-a-person census rule for slaves in US history. 0⁄5 as proposed for Aragorn might have been considered as an alternative that led to a compromise.
As far as I recall, wIthin the world of LotR orcs are defined to be creatures of evil. Quite literally, the only good orc is a dead orc. Even if someone in that world compassionately regards the orcs as victims of the powers that created them by perverting the nature of the Elves, still they are evil, and always and everywhere it is praiseworthy to kill one, regardless of what the orcs have to say for themselves.
A world in which good people owe orcs any sort of rights or fair treatment is not the world of LotR, but a different world borrowing some of the same names. Indeed, orcs appear to be but more or less intelligent tools, guided by the mind of Sauron and of little use without it, and I think one could make a case that to kill an orc has exactly the same lack of moral significance as to destroy an enemy drone in the real world.
There were other gods than Sauron (and Morgoth before him). The Maiar and Valar could probably have un-corrupted them, if they had deigned to bother to try instead of just accepting the gradual decline of the Good in Middle Earth. Maybe when the last of the elves got to Valinor they could have persuaded them to do so.
You think that the Will of Melkor could be potentially un-corrupted? Though all evil in Arda is his doing, bitterness, greed, excessive heat, piercing cold, avaricious orcs, other creatures that lust for blood or power, and even darker things than this, that is not enough to despair of him? Aye, you don’t yet realize what Morgoth is. He is pride and cruelty and rage. Morgoth’s spirit cannot change, because it presumes the only worthwhile fact is its own continued self-expression. His cruelty wishes to wrench all that’s beautiful and true in the world into darker purposes, to turn good intentions to bad ends. And his rage, oh, his rage is a starless cry of cosmic dismay that all the evils of the world are undone one by one.
Tell me not of the turning of Melkor, even now he is chained up on the other side of night, yet still whispering his will throughout Middle-Earth, and plotting to break the Gates and return again to destroy the Sun and the Moon and all living things. You are telling me that same guy who wants to tear down all the universe in supreme envy can be turned to work for Good?
This is Morgoth we are talking about, not Anakin Skywalker.
P.S. I take your point; but the Maiar and Valar do act indirectly in Middle-Earth, though creation is over as are the wars against Sauron and Ar-Pharazon. They do not just accept the the gradual decline of the world.
I will never relinquish my Sword of Fandom +10. :)
Well, Nancy, Melkor was imprisoned once before by the Valar. They thought he had been rehabilitated and were mistaken; he destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor.
He will return in the end for Ragnorok called Dagor Dagorath. You are right, the outcomes cannot be known by us. I assume he will be vanquished totally, but Eru’s creation is incomplete. Something unexpected may yet happen.
Aragorn was totally worse than Sauron, unless you value orc lives as negative (they certainly didn’t). It’s mere addition.
Maybe Aragorn followed a strategy to not care about agents created in certain blackmail-like conditions, so that Sauron wouldn’t be able to get Aragorn to do anything just by creating sufficient numbers of orcs that wanted that thing.
Wow, cue sinister violin riffs as a scrolling footnote reminds me of the 3/5-of-a-person census rule for slaves in US history. 0⁄5 as proposed for Aragorn might have been considered as an alternative that led to a compromise.
As far as I recall, wIthin the world of LotR orcs are defined to be creatures of evil. Quite literally, the only good orc is a dead orc. Even if someone in that world compassionately regards the orcs as victims of the powers that created them by perverting the nature of the Elves, still they are evil, and always and everywhere it is praiseworthy to kill one, regardless of what the orcs have to say for themselves.
A world in which good people owe orcs any sort of rights or fair treatment is not the world of LotR, but a different world borrowing some of the same names. Indeed, orcs appear to be but more or less intelligent tools, guided by the mind of Sauron and of little use without it, and I think one could make a case that to kill an orc has exactly the same lack of moral significance as to destroy an enemy drone in the real world.
There were other gods than Sauron (and Morgoth before him). The Maiar and Valar could probably have un-corrupted them, if they had deigned to bother to try instead of just accepting the gradual decline of the Good in Middle Earth. Maybe when the last of the elves got to Valinor they could have persuaded them to do so.
You think that the Will of Melkor could be potentially un-corrupted? Though all evil in Arda is his doing, bitterness, greed, excessive heat, piercing cold, avaricious orcs, other creatures that lust for blood or power, and even darker things than this, that is not enough to despair of him? Aye, you don’t yet realize what Morgoth is. He is pride and cruelty and rage. Morgoth’s spirit cannot change, because it presumes the only worthwhile fact is its own continued self-expression. His cruelty wishes to wrench all that’s beautiful and true in the world into darker purposes, to turn good intentions to bad ends. And his rage, oh, his rage is a starless cry of cosmic dismay that all the evils of the world are undone one by one.
Tell me not of the turning of Melkor, even now he is chained up on the other side of night, yet still whispering his will throughout Middle-Earth, and plotting to break the Gates and return again to destroy the Sun and the Moon and all living things. You are telling me that same guy who wants to tear down all the universe in supreme envy can be turned to work for Good?
This is Morgoth we are talking about, not Anakin Skywalker.
P.S. I take your point; but the Maiar and Valar do act indirectly in Middle-Earth, though creation is over as are the wars against Sauron and Ar-Pharazon. They do not just accept the the gradual decline of the world.
I will never relinquish my Sword of Fandom +10. :)
Is Melkor explicitly described as unredeemable?
As I recall, Eru’s creation is incomplete, and we cannot know all the outcomes.
Well, Nancy, Melkor was imprisoned once before by the Valar. They thought he had been rehabilitated and were mistaken; he destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor.
He will return in the end for Ragnorok called Dagor Dagorath. You are right, the outcomes cannot be known by us. I assume he will be vanquished totally, but Eru’s creation is incomplete. Something unexpected may yet happen.