How old IS Gorbag, anyway?

[Bruce N H]

Hi all,

I was just listening to session 266 from a couple of weeks ago. Even though we're still somewhere around the ankles of Caradhras, we looked ahead briefly to The Choices of Master Samwise, and Gorbag's statement about the Nazgul: "But He likes 'em; they're His favourites nowadays, so it's no use grumbling." Corey's suggestion was "nowadays" meant after the Nazgul upgrade post-Ford-of-Bruinen. But I have an alternative suggestion. If we accept the orc origin story that they are corrupt and twisted elves going way back to those captured by Morgoth near Cuivienen, orcs could be immortal like the elves. Sure, Morgoth and Sauron use them as cannon-fodder, so mostly they get killed off, but there could be some really old ones kicking around. Maybe Gorbag's memories go back over 4200 years, and he fondly remembers the good old days when orcs were Sauron's top servants, before those upstart Nazgul showed up in SA 2251, and so "nowadays" refers to all of the Third Age.

BTW, we do have one other data point for the long memories of orcs. Back in the Hobbit the goblins of the Misty Mountains immediately recognized and were terrified of Beater and Biter. Either little orc children have bedtime stories with picture books of famous enemy swords, or there were goblins with memories going back to the First Age who recognized them from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

- BTW, one possible variation on this would be if orcs had some sort of Borg-like hive mind, and so the memories of ancient orcs are preserved in modern orcs. But even then Gorbag could be referring back to some collective memory of the good old days before the Nazgul came along.

Bruce / Bricktales

 

[Jim Deutch]

I have long thought these points to be evidence that Orcs are immortal, like Elves. It is not widely accepted, though.

 

[Odola]

I have long thought these points to be evidence that Orcs are immortal, like Elves. It is not widely accepted, though.

I personally am more convinced by those points than by later Tolkien's backtracking which just contadict them without bothering to explain them away.

[Also if orcs were corrupted men then crossing them with other humans would not be such a crime of Saruman that it is described as in LOTR - as all humans are more or less corrupted - and always capable of redemption if not bereft of their mortality.
Also if crossing orcs with men by Saruman removed their sun-aversion, which it did, then making orc from men would not have resulted in sun-averse orc. But we know that Dark Elves are at least subliminally sun-averse.]