The «Lord of the Rings» series showed a pacifist orc saying goodbye to his wife and baby — Tolkien fans are going crazy

Amazon’s «Cute» orc family in the «Lord of the Rings» series has caused a flurry of controversy and discontent online.

Against the background of ordinary (bloodthirsty and cruel) orcs, one pacifist soldier stands out, who does not want to take part in the war. In one of the scenes of the series, he says goodbye to his family with regret — and this is, by the way, the first time that a female orc with a baby is shown in an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works.

Tolkien SPECIFICALLY wrote the orcs to be irredeemably evil, they are born from evil to serve evil. Trying to make them out to be a marginalized group is beyond stupid

This is like spitting on Tolkien’s writing and legacy https://t.co/Aiv7lEur2C

— Rock solid (@ShitpostRock) August 31, 2024

Critics again began to talk about violating the canon and disrespecting Tolkien’s detailed history — but some suggest that there was no technical violation of the book’s history, as Tolkien himself was unsure of the true nature of orcs. At the same time, the tone of both Peter Jackson’s trilogies is changing, where orcs are cruel soldiers without the ability to empathize. The appearance of an innocent orc baby calls into question the evil inherent in the orc race — and it is obvious from the scene that the mother loves him and receives love in return.

Initially, according to Tolkien, orcs — were mindless puppets who had no real language and were only able to repeat words. The writer believed that they could have been created by Morgoth (Sauron’s tutor), and then depicted them as «a corrupted offshoot of the elves», tortured to madness. Tolkien himself struggled with the idea that evil could create new life and seemed to dislike the idea that orcs were descended from corrupted elves, as this would lead to some discrepancies, such as their lack of immortality.

In his later years, Tolkien took a more nuanced view of orcs, often comparing them to humans — he put conversations in their mouths that were like living things and gave them the ability to make decisions. The writer died without finally defining the nature of the orcs, and left it to his fans to discuss their origins.

As for Jackson’s trilogy, it addresses Tolkien’s discrepancies in the scene with Saruman, who explains to the orcs that they are —descendants of elves who were tortured and corrupted (similar words are mentioned by the new Galadriel in her conversation with Adar), and later shows an orc-human hybrid emerging from the earth. At the same time, «cute» nuance in Jackson’s films is absent — orcs remain incorrigible.

As for the orc families, for example, in the «Hobbit» Gollum tells how he caught and ate the «little goblin imp»; the orc Bolg, who inherited the leadership position from his father Azog, was also depicted here. Tolkien also wrote that the orcs «reproduced in the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar», that is, as elves and men.

Based on the materials Forbes.com