Comments by "Bruce Tucker" (@brucetucker4847) on "Rings Of Power - The Ultimate Insult To Tolkien" video.

Agreed on the others but not on Gandalf. Gandalf is one of several Christ figures in the legendarium, the whole point of his character is that he's an immortal Maia with immense powers but he has voluntarily taken a human form with all that implies - pain, hunger fatigue, and to a degree vulnerability - so he can fully understand and empathize with the people he has been sent to help. of all the Maiar we encounter in all the stories, Gandalf is the most human, even if he is immortal and commands superhuman powers. The orcs in LotR are also somewhat humanized; they think more or less like people, just sadistic and evil people. They are more subject to Sauron's will than humans are - but they hate and resent that. But like most foot soldiers in most wars, orcs like Shagrat and Gorbag mostly want the war to be over so they can just live their own lives. (Of course, being orcs, their own lives involve robbing, murdering, and torturing people, but for their own benefit, not for Sauron's.) But that's not to say they ARE human by any means.
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@Scroooge That's not how they are portrayed in the books. They hate being subject to Sauron but they can't resist his will. Of course they are still evil; they want to be free to live their own lives, but the lives they want to live are murder, robbery, and destruction on their own terms, not as slaves of Sauron's.
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@laurentguyot3362 Tolkien said they bred just like humans did. None of the ones we get to know in the books ever even once mentions a family, though, so I'm guessing from a social perspective their reproduction isn't like normal humans - I always figured they had some sort of brooding center where the female orcs are kept pregnant all the time and maybe a visit as a stud is a reward Sauron gives the orcs who serve him well.
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@Chamdar17 They are meant to be the worst of humanity, just like Elves were meant in many respects (but not always) to be the best of humanity. IIRC he said he based the orcs on the worst people he encountered in his war service - the sort of person who resents authority above them but brutalizes anyone subordinate to them and actually enjoys war as long as it's other people getting blown apart or gassed.
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@SpicyTrifongo "pretty sure Tolkien says they were normal humans and elves corrupted by the last for war and dark energy." Hey never says that explicitly in any of the stories, he has characters in the stories say they have heard that that is where orcs came from, or have the narrator mention that there are rumors to that effect. In his writings about the mythos he said he was troubled and somewhat stumped by the origin of the orcs, because if they were created by Melkor out of nothing they couldn't be real living things and could only be his automatons, which they clearly aren't in the stories, but if they were men or elves corrupted by Morgoth then they would still have the souls of men and elves and would always have the possibility, however remote, of redemption. Morgoth can neither create life on his own or remove or change the essential nature and ultimate fate of the Children of Illuvatar.
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@paulalarsen7697 They do experience camaraderie, if only rarely. However they hate pretty much everyone else including other orcs who aren't their close comrades.
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@paulalarsen7697 They did procreate according to Tolkien. In fact Saruman's great innovation with his Uruk-hai was making them breed with humans to produce half-orcs who were more intelligent and more able to stand full sunlight. Tolkien never discussed orcs' private lives or what their females or young were like, though.
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@SpicyTrifongo Goebbels must have really missed his children between the time he murdered them and his own suicide.
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@mnomadvfx Beater and biter!
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