Good orcs and bad elves? (Bright Film review)

yes, I know: Film critics have voted this as the worst film (on Netflix) of the year, but if they put it into a series, it could easily become a cult series, and the geeks seem to love it too.

Anyone who read the Simarillion knows that elves can become evil: Unlike men, who have original sin and a weakness to fall, so are granted mercy, the elves are born pure, but if they fall into sin (usually pride or wish for power) they are indeed evil. Think Hellboy 2 (yes, I know: That's Marvel but you get the idea).

But can orcs chose to be good?

In the Tolkien legendarium, the answer is unclear and complicated: Only Illuvatar can create beings: Morgoth can only twist these beings into evil. Think of  brainwashing of kids from their youth, or  taking feral street children to think this is how they should act and other beings are the bad ones, and you get the idea. (Viking Warriors, Brownshirts, Mugabe's green bombers, Ruanda's murderous gangs, the Red Guard of Mao).

Now, combine such ideas with eugenics or genetic engineering and try not to shudder (Jackson, not Tolkien, suggested Saruman did this to make the Uruk Hai).

But what about orcs? Can you reprogram them, or is their "evil" genetic?

Michael Martinez has a few discussions on the question if orcs can ever be redeemed.

LINK:

It’s a bit difficult to rationalize how Orcs could be anything like the “good” races of Middle-earth, but then, the Orcs aren’t really supposed to be anything other than an aspect of the humane. They are a reflection of the worst qualities we find in ourselves. Orcs feel loyalty, express courage, and honor their oaths. But they also live in constant fear, dwell on hatred and contempt, and treat everything with absolute disregard. They are depraved, debased, and extremely selfish.

yes: Tolkien has a letter to his son Christopher pointing this out, and that he was not implying races (e.g. the Germans) were evil, but that some men, including some in the British army, would be seen with orcish traits.

a deeper essay on the orcs is here, with long quotes from Tolkiens letters, and includes this snip from Morgoth's Ring: LINK2

“But even before this wickedness of Morgoth was suspected the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not ‘made’ by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil. They mght have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost. This was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it was not always heeded.

and his essay here discusses if orcs could live peacefully with men and elves, and has no clear answer. but notes:

Orcs probably had only slightly more natural inclination to seek out war than Men; most of the Orcish wars appear to have been started by Morgoth or Sauron, and when left on their own the Orcs seem to have left other peoples largely to themselves.

a long fan discussion here.

and another fan discussion of Tolkien's letter 269:

W.H. Auden asked if the notion of Orcs as an irredeemably wicked race was heretical or not. Tolkien said he lacked sufficient theological understanding to say whether or not his notion of orcs was heretical, but he did state that he felt no obligation to make his story fit with formalized Christian theology. The Lord of the Rings was intended to be consonant with Christian thought and belief. Frodo asserted that the orcs were not evil in origin.[1] We believe that of all humans, though some as individuals or groups appeared unredeemable.

Given that the warlike Mongols settled down when they became Buddhist, and the warlike Visigoths/Lombards/Bulgars/Vikings settled down when they became Christian one suspects a similar pacification program could occur... the main problem being that men, at least, have enough orc like souls (e.g. sociopaths) among them to recruit the orcs for their own purposes.

One other note: My friend in Zimbabwe, a teacher, worked to re educate the freedom fighters after that country's civil war. Part of the training was to reeducate them to find a job, and to find meaning in family, while teaching them they couldn't just point a gun at someone for stealing/rape or just a feeling of power.

This is also something being done in Colombia for the FARC fighters who came "in from the cold" after several amnesties in the past. An ongoing problem... and alas drug money lets these kids stay in the alternative of not becoming civilians but to continue with their murderous ways in gangs etc. So the problem is not just the Mafia/M19/Bloods and Crips, but that these people, mainly young men who were socialized into evil ways, must be "converted" and socialized into good.

Rev Wilkerson....call your office.

Sigh.