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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8266536" data-attributes="member: 82106">OK, I don't know what changes there were in The Hobbit between 1937 and about 1969 when I read it (and I doubt I was reading a 1937 edition). OTOH the material which eventually formed Quenta Silmarillion was already extensive and had gone through a number of reworkings even before 1937. Certainly the origins and nature of orcs was a part of his world building that was long established, as their role in late First Age events is pretty much set from the start.Tolkien himself is hard to classify. He seems to have been quite anti-racist and anti-fascist, yet you can draw a rather racist picture from Middle Earth, with its &quot;geography of morality&quot; (West -&gt; Good, East -&gt; Evil), etc. He even addressed this in a few places himself, and explicitly rejected any theory of racial or inherent ideological superiority, stating that &quot;there are orcs on all sides&quot; WRT the moral dimension of WWII (while also being very clearly anti-Nazi).Even so, he DID equate orcs to a sort of exaggerated version of Mongols, which is not exactly PC by modern standards. Still, I would accept a version of the Third Age under which goblins/orcs, having been released from the bondage of Sauron 1000's of years previously, have asserted their own moral nature. Maybe they're hard to get along with, but they CAN form part of a multi-racial society, albeit perhaps a more warlike part.I'd also note that the Dwarves don't exactly come off as saints either, nor the Elves, at least in the later versions of The Hobbit.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8266536, member: 82106"] OK, I don't know what changes there were in The Hobbit between 1937 and about 1969 when I read it (and I doubt I was reading a 1937 edition). OTOH the material which eventually formed Quenta Silmarillion was already extensive and had gone through a number of reworkings even before 1937. Certainly the origins and nature of orcs was a part of his world building that was long established, as their role in late First Age events is pretty much set from the start. Tolkien himself is hard to classify. He seems to have been quite anti-racist and anti-fascist, yet you can draw a rather racist picture from Middle Earth, with its "geography of morality" (West -> Good, East -> Evil), etc. He even addressed this in a few places himself, and explicitly rejected any theory of racial or inherent ideological superiority, stating that "there are orcs on all sides" WRT the moral dimension of WWII (while also being very clearly anti-Nazi). Even so, he DID equate orcs to a sort of exaggerated version of Mongols, which is not exactly PC by modern standards. Still, I would accept a version of the Third Age under which goblins/orcs, having been released from the bondage of Sauron 1000's of years previously, have asserted their own moral nature. Maybe they're hard to get along with, but they CAN form part of a multi-racial society, albeit perhaps a more warlike part. I'd also note that the Dwarves don't exactly come off as saints either, nor the Elves, at least in the later versions of The Hobbit. [/QUOTE]

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