Take No Prisoners!!!...???

[Valandil]

Olmer's going to love this one, I think.

OK... the Orcs, the complete 'bad guys' of Middle Earth, take prisoners on many occasions: Thorin's band with Bilbo were taken prisoner by Orcs, Pippin and Merry were taken prisoner by Orcs, Frodo was taken prisoner by Orcs. Historically, Celebrian was taken captive by Orcs.

I guess it even goes back to the First Age, when many Elves were taken prisoner - though in those cases, possibly to be changed into Orcs themselves.

Anyway - I cannot think of a single time that the Elves, Dwarves, Men - or Hobbits - take an Orc prisoner. The only one is Beorn - who captures an Orc and a Warg - but after interrogating them, he kills them both.

Why is it that the good guys of Middle Earth don't take prisoners? At least of Orcs? Or... do the Orcs only take captives in order to torture them? Maybe for a 'fate worse than death'?

Are Orcs not captured because they are considered irredeemably evil?

Thoughts?

[Olmer]

“Who are you?” - “Men”. - “From where?” - comes the next question.
“Who are you?” - ”Orc”. – and the hand grips the sword. (C)
I understand Tolkien's confusion, when he tries to justify the "orc's phenomena" by saying that he just recording the historic events, as they have been channeled to him.
Many things in the book, as they were given, at close inspection were contradictory even to his own believes. This is why, after reading his completed book, he began an upheaving work of a total rewriting.


Orcs. Their side of the story has never been heard, and whatever information on them we have got from the books was basicaly written by theirs enemies and by brainwashed individuals.
But wait a minute! We will get a lot of knowledge on them if we will try to analyze pieces and bits of information strewn here and there. And the truth about dirty, bloodthirsty, deceitful, mean and so on orcs is coming out.
As it turns out, they are more advanced than men and elves, since they know how to use machinery, they have medicine and magic, they have theirs lores and legends, they have pride and free will, they treat theirs prisoners better than their enemies (compare a treatment of Merry and Pippin with the treatment of Gollum, captured by Aragorn), they even have a respect to graves of the enemies!
In other words - they are not worse that the rest of humankind on Middle-earth.
Where it had come from that Orcs are pure evil, that they deserve only destruction?
It comes from the Elves. Why orcs deserve a total annihilation?
Because the orcs were a mirror of the elves: distorted on an outside appearance, but displaying true similarities of souls. They have had the same traits: they could be greedy and mirthless, pretentious and cunning, headstrong and self-conceited. Of course they couldn't depict the orcs as noble and generous and forgiving: it will put them at the same level with their adversaries!
So, the Elves were persistently campaigning on "propaganda" to cause a deep antipathy to the Orcs in any respectable inhabitants of the ME - very much like an agitation of the soldiers in the time of the World War II.
To give them a credit, they achieved greatly in their efforts of blackening the orcs .

[Galin]

From Myths Transformed, text X (in which Orcs are bred from Men as the main stock)...

'... 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 the 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 War it was not always heeded.'

*Few Orcs ever did so in the Elder Days, and at no time would any Orc treat with an Elf. For one thing Morgoth had achieved was to convince the Orcs beyond refutation that the Elves were crueller than themselves, taking captives only for 'amusement', or to eat them (as the Orcs would do at need).'

Earlier the Orcs were described as...

'But the orcs were not of this kind. They were certainly dominated by their Master, but his dominance was by fear, and they were aware of this fear and hated him. They were indeed so corrupted that they were pitiless, and there was no cruelty or wickedness that they would not commit; but this was the corruption of independents wills, and they took pleasure in their deeds. They were capable of acting on their own, doing evil deeds unbidden for their own sport...'

[Keith K]

Well, if the orcs didn't take prisoners the stories we love would be short and not very sweet. Most of the main characters would be... um... dead.

[inked]

Orcs are Lord Voldemort under the chair before they get there.

[GrayMouser]

No objections if one entry in the trilogy is "The Hobbit' by JRR Tolkien; not "Parts of the Hobbit and a Bunch of Other Stuff Thrown In (to be continued)"

[GrayMouser]

AAaGGHHH!!!!

posted in wrong thread- should be in "There will be a third movie.."

[Tinman]

"Then the elves put thongs on him (*cat-call*), and shut him in one of the
inmost caves with strong wooden doors, and left him. They gave him
food and drink, plenty of both, if not very fine; for Wood-elves were not
goblins, and were reasonably well-behaved even to their worst enemies,
when they captured them. The giant spiders were the only living things
that they had no mercy upon." - The Hobbit.

This implies that the wood elves may have taken orc prisoners before, imho.

[Lotesse]

This is a super-interesting thread and I don't want it to die. Umm, so carry on, yes? Please?

[Willow Oran]

I think I can oblige you there...

Morals and ethics are all very well from a readers stand point, but for in-story explanations I think we should be viewing the matter more pragmatically.

What is the gain in taking prisoners for either side?

It's been noted that elves prefer to treat their prisoners humanely. That takes significantly more in the way of resources and man (elf?) power, things which tend to be limited when the population is engaged in a war waged over millenia.

It's also been noted that elves may have considered killing orcs to be the more merciful action, however right or wrong that view may actually have been.

We may guess then, that elves would only take prisoners when necessary, when they needed to acquire information about the enemy's movements (or prevent the enemy gaining information about theirs), or perhaps to trade in the advent of hostages. The unfortunate Orcs would probably not be at the top of the list of valuable captives given either purpose.

But what about the other side?

First off, the same considerations of resources apply, but with a key difference - namely that the Orcs are written as perfectly willing to eat the other humanoid peoples of Middle Earth. Taking prisoners potentially increases their larders in the long run.

They're also written as willing, almost eager, to torture prisoners for any reason. And they would have plenty of reason. Elves and men may have a population disadvantage, but they do know where Sauron's strongholds are. They also know what he wants, and have the experience to make good predictions as to how he'll go about getting it.
Sauron, meanwhile, has some serious gaps in his intel. He doesn't know exact locations for Rivendell or the Angle, and possibly not even of Thranduil's Hall and Caras Galadhon. He doesn't know exactly where the Three are or who is wielding them, nor is he aware of what his opponents are actually doing to oppose him.

For the Orcs tasked with going out into the world and finding this information, or people who know this information, in order to bring it to the Nazgul and through them to their Master, the most viable strategy would be to take as many prisoners as possible, torture them till they talk, keep them if they know stuff, eat them if not and one way or the other, if they could take enough enemies prisoner, maybe their masters wouldn't kill them, and maybe they wouldn't starve or have to eat each other. And that's just the Third Age. The factors informing this strategy were all present in the First and Second Ages as well.

By the time of LotR it wouldn't just be a military survival strategy for Orcs ruled directly by Sauron, it would be culturally ingrained into renegade Orcs and into the Goblins under Moria and in the Iron Mountains until it wouldn't matter if they had anyone to report to or not, it would only matter that if you were orc or goblin you captured elves and men, you had your fun with them, and then you ate them, because that's how orcs and goblins survived.

The point being, Orcs had a lot more to gain from taking prisoners than Elves or Men, thus it make sense that we should see them taking more people captive.

Debate!