Why Did Some of the Elves Choose to Become Orcs? (Melkor’s Trap)

Comments · 88

• TH

  @thelostrealmsss · 3 months ago · pinned

  Art Credits / Illustrations by:<br>-Ted Nasmith<br>-John Howe<br>-Elena Kukanova<br>-Jenny Dolfen<br>-Anke Eißmann<br>-Kip Rasmussen<br>-Emy_art_<br>-Angus McBride<br>-Roger Garland<br>-Ian Miller<br>-Patrick Woodroffe<br>-Stefan Koidl<br>-Gellert (Gellert05)<br>-Gierva<br>-Damian<br>-Choedawn<br>-Sandro Botticelli

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• TO

  @tomardans4258 · 3 months ago

  Rings of Power was written by Orcs.

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• KU

  @kurisu1204 · 3 months ago

  Misleading title unfortunately. They chose to stay but never chose to become orcs.

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• MI

  @michellebeckham5310 · 3 months ago

  It&apos;s too bad Tolkien was at odds with his original concept of how orcs and other monsters came to be but it works best. Orcs are part of what is known as Morgoths ring. The dark lord put himself into the world and it&apos;s beings.

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• BR

  @Bruh-pp2bh · 3 months ago (edited)

  This is how rings of power should have reminded us why it&apos;s okay to sympathize to a certain extent uruks/orcs not &quot;oh pls don&apos;t kill orc baby and orc wife pls&quot; it&apos;s like no they&apos;re evil incarnate but remind us why it is kinda sad too through reminders

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• RO

  @ronniewestherly3435 · 3 months ago

  You would think eru would have done something to show them they could still be saved Or at least put them down &nbsp;by un making them so they wouldn&apos;t &nbsp;suffer.You would think to they would have &nbsp;turned on morgoth because of what &nbsp;he did &nbsp;to them.

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• PU

  @PublicTrust-f7h · 3 months ago

  Tolkien later said orcs weren’t elves at all. He changed his mind and never really settled the origins or orcs other than that they were not elves.

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• JA

  @JasonCook-r8v · 3 months ago (edited)

  What did Melkor turn captured Men &amp; Dwarves into?<br>Especially when Orcs-Goblins were the opposite (weakness) of Elves. Quality into mass quantity.

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• P0

  @p0pc0rn8parad0x · 3 months ago

  The thumbnail looks like Eminem! I was so confused for a minute

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• SP

  @speechka009 · 3 months ago

  This is a great elaboration on the book. I very much enjoyed listening and this brings about the sad truth of our world and the seemingly infinite cycle that ruins all that is true, good and beautiful. The tunnels of torture, psychological warfare and inhuman brutality that awaits the beautiful children of God. I will nit detail the current, most recent events since it is indeed, … redundant to do so. All those who read, know history, not “false history” but do their part to learn the human story, are drawn into Tolkiens great tale, as it lays out with perfect artfulness our own story.

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• AD

  @AdrielOutspoken · 3 months ago

  Awesome content !

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• BE

  @BeteBlanc · 3 months ago

  There&apos;s something buried in this analysis that nags at me. Something on a metaphysical level.<br><br>A question your analysis brings up is, what is an elf? Is it the spirit, the body, or the combo? Within this rests a question, where do Orc souls go? Do they leave the world as human souls, do they remain, or do they somehow just stop being?<br><br>If orcs are fundamentally derived from something bound to Arda, then the limit of Orc existence makes sense. Making an Orc means basically convincing a spirit to leave it&apos;s original form and accept the broken one. To make it want the broken one.<br><br>This isn&apos;t necessarily a plot hole. The vast majority of elves don&apos;t return. If it&apos;s the act of choosing the form and accepting the burden of longevity again, that makes an elf, then I think it still makes sense.<br><br>Freeing an Orc soul doesn&apos;t then translate into the opportunity to be better. It would mean they exist in some from bound to Arda, but so fundamentally broken as to never make it possible to seek a proper recovery. I think the question that hangs over &quot;orcs were elves once&quot; is trying to figure out what&apos;s going on with Orc souls. If they die and leave the world, they seem to have been moved to the Human category. Which seems a bit odd, but could still fall under the concept of corrupting. But if they remain as elf spirits do then the explanation has to factor that in. Being an elf means being willing to endure the burden of the gift of the elves. Coming back into the world mean recovering to the point the spirit is willing to endure that again. Most elves don&apos;t even do that. So I don&apos;t think it steps into a possibility of redemption for Orc souls. Further I think it lends itself to a dark reflection of what we see in the elves. Middle Earth is moving to exclusively be for those with the gift of men. If both the Elves and Orcs must leave then in a dark way it makes sense.<br><br>Tolkien seems to have set up some of these things and left hints of the same in others. So imagine the opposite of humans coveting the Undying Lands. Elves that have been convinced to covet the gift of men. But these souls cannot remain in the mortal world of Middle Earth. Lost in the Unseen. Essentially as formless as Sauron. Having been convinced to make a choice they can&apos;t unmake perhaps that bars them from Mandos. The Orcs sort of seem to become themselves part of Morgoths Ring, no?<br><br>If the orcs face the same sort of existential limits of the elves. They are bound to the world. Then it would makes sense that both have to leave, but would both struggle in different ways to remain. Sort of also explains why it requires the elves to &quot;help&quot; the orcs leave. There&apos;s always this weird question about why the Orcs can&apos;t just be redeemed and live along side men. But when you consider that it might be that the Orcs fundamentally are tied to the gift of the elves rather than the gift of men. And that elves must all eventually leave, then cleaning up the mess of the orcs takes on a different shape. They&apos;re sort of elves that haven&apos;t just rejected or postponed leaving, they&apos;ve actively engaged in rejecting their nature and trying to remain. Sort of like an elf version of Ring Wraiths.

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