XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm   
      
   On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:03:21 -0500, Steve Morrison wrote:   
   >   
   > I've recently kept coming across a purported quote from Tolkien,   
   > and I'm not sure whether it's authentic (though I suspect it   
   > isn't). The quote is this:   
   >   
   >    We were all orcs in the Great War.   
   >   
   > I can't find any source for it (I'm sure it isn't anywhere in   
   > /Letters/). But I can't think of any way to prove Tolkien didn't   
   > say it, either.   
      
   I agree with you.  It doesn't sound like something Tolkien would say,   
   and it *does* contradict in spirit other things he has said. It   
   *does* sound like the way some nameless subeditor would "punch up" a   
   quote from an interview with Tolkien.   
      
   But there's no way to prove Tolkien didn't say or write it.  You   
   could, I suppose, challenge the person making the quote to provide a   
   cite.   
      
   > The closest I can come is to note that it   
   > conflicts with what he wrote to Christopher in Letter 71:   
   >   
   >    Yes, I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in   
   >    'realistic' fiction: your vigorous words well describe the   
   >    tribe; only in real life they are on both sides, of course.   
   >    For 'romance' has grown out of 'allegory', and its wars are   
   >    still derived from the 'inner war' of allegory in which good   
   >    is on one side and various modes of badness on the other. In   
   >    real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a   
   >    motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally   
   >    honest men, and angels. But it does make some difference who   
   >    are your captains and whether they are orc-like per se!   
   >   
   > In fact, I suspect the quote is some distorted version of this   
   > passage. But Tolkien did say contradictory things in his letters,   
   > so this isn't conclusive. My other reason for skepticism is that   
   > I've only started coming across this quotation in recent years; if   
   > it came from any authenticated source, it would almost have to be   
   > a recently published one, and what would that be?   
   >   
   > So does anyone know anything that I don't?   
      
   I have an electronic copy of /Letters/ (typed by myself, years ago   
   when I had more time on my hands).  I searched for "orclike",   
   "orcish", and "orkish" and came up empty.  The only occurrence of   
   "orc-like" was the one you cited in Letter 71.   
      
   I had a dim memory of his criticizing some wartime measures in   
   Britain as being behaviour one would expect of Orcs; but though there   
   were many occurrences of "behaviour" none was relevant.   
      
   Then I started searching for "orc".  Of all that I found, only your   
   quote from Letter 71 and this one from Letter 66 seemed relevant:   
      
   "For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall   
   (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed   
   new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs. Not that in   
   real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out   
   with a great many Orcs on our side. .... Well, there you are: a   
   hobbit amongst the Urukhai."   
      
   --   
   Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA   
                                     http://OakRoadSystems.com   
   Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)   
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