Could an Orc Be Redeemed? Tolkien's 40-Year Dilemma
Could an Orc be redeemed? Why couldn't Tolkien answer his own question? This deep dive into Tolkien's legendarium examines the Orcs—the enemy his war story needed you to kill without guilt, and the one his Catholic theology forbade him from ever condemning. Writing to Peter Hastings in 1954, Tolkien began to call Orcs irredeemably bad, then stopped himself mid-sentence. For forty years he tried to escape the trap: corrupted Elves, corrupted Men, mindless beasts, puppets of Morgoth—every origin fixed one problem and broke another. We trace Shagrat and Gorbag, the Myths Transformed essays…
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