What about the inner life of Orcs? (Not totally vanity, I hope!)

Self

[Iris7]

I am a great fan of the Professor's story of the War of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings is wonderfully written; the last time I read it I found myself reading aloud to myself. The language rings and shimmers.

Professor Tolkien agreed with his many critics that the story was too short. The Professor was correct in this, I believe. Another thousand pages would have rounded out the story nicely. I have a question, important to me that I wish the Professor had answered about Orcs. What were Orcs really like?

Jackson gives his opinion in Towers where Merry and Pippin are captives of the Uruk Hai, and a good scene it is. Mostly, though, I saw Jackson's Orcs as un-understandable, as if they were cardboard demons.

Unlike Jackson's telling of the tale, Orcs do not come out of the mud by Saruman's magic, but are instead creatures made from Elves by Sauron. (Jackson does have Saruman say this to the Orcs, after his scene of the mud birth.) Orcs are born, not made one at a time like machines.

Tolkien uses the word "made" from Elves, as I recall. I do not see this "made" as being assembled like robots, nor grown in vats in some hideous travesty of genetic manipulation, but instead "made" like Gollum was "made", made as he is by the malevolence of Evil and by his own choices, his own sinfulness.

I see that in some important way Orcs remain Elves. They have children, and raise them, they have some sort of community life, some idea of responsibility, duty, even affection for each other, else they would be like scorpions in a shaken bottle, all dead very quickly. I see them as like Gollum, sinned against as well as sinning, in some way conquered by the glamour of evil, the lust for the Ring, and their own weakness and sin, their fallen nature. Orcs have personal and moral responsibility for what they do and are, just like us.

If this is so, what can be reasonably drawn? How can Orc mothers stand to give birth to such children? How can children live without some affection, even love? (Spoken as a Dad.) What is the home life of Orcs like? How do Orc fathers treat their wives and children? Wives husbands? How do Orc children play with each other? What is the Orc's relationship with God? Simple materialism and atheism are Orcs simply Leftists writ large? What about their social life? It cannot be only murder and destruction, else there would be no Orcs!

What do they do for fun? Post on the "Orc Republic"? Watch television? If so, what are the shows like? Follow sports teams? Drink beer? Who gets the everyday work, making, cleaning, keeping track of supplies, the mail, etc.? How is this organized? What, for Heaven's Sake, do Orcs believe in?

[Iris7]

I actually am very interested in this question, and ask it with seriousness. My wife and children don't think I am utterly sane to ask what the inner life of Orcs is like, but they must have an inner life, an understanding of life and their place in it. How can Sauron have extinguished their very souls? The orcs are not wargs, unconscious animals, but something more like us. Not machines of destruction.

Can any of you, fellow Tolkien admirers, help me with this?