laureljupiter:

hey @corseque, idk if relevant, but I’ve been writing in circles all day about orcs and what we know from the works that were published during Tolkien’s lifetime, what we know from the writing that was published posthumously, how to define “canon” at all in that kind of body of work. But one of the things that IS indisputable “canon”, that shows up in all three LOTR books, is actually orc romance? Orcs have children with humans, and those mixed people are mentioned in every book. They aren’t really treated well or talked about in depth by the story, and afaik they’re all still working for Saruman during the books, but if you want to know whether orcs have souls, the capacity for love, are mindless automatons controlled by whichever Dark Lord, etc, the answer is “You’re asking about that guy who works in the stables in the tavern at Bree? You want to know if his mom is an evil robot controlled by Satan? Hmmm…”