62 Votes in Poll
No because Orcs are still living things
And not all are evil
Zod my friend, you make the most difficult philosophical questions on any fandom, and I love it. Now, on one hand, I am completely opposed to genocide, let alone total racial eradication. But on the other hand, I think the Uruk are genuinely evil.
The major argument that can be made here is that the Uruk have inflicted countless damage to all the Free Peoples. In the First Age, the trillions of the Uruk spread across Belieriend slaughtered tens, likely hundreds, of millions of Men and Elves alike while raiding outposts, towns, and villages. Uruks have been known to raid, massacre, torture, rape, murder, pillage, and mutilate Humans and Elves by their own free will.
In other words, the Uruk are worse when they have freedom. The major examples of this are the Eastern Orcs. We learn of them in the Nature of Middle Earth, where Tolkien goes into incredible detail about these Free Orcs. These Orcs, by their own free will, committed all the aforementioned crimes in mass upon anyone, simply because they could. From this, I think it's safe to assume that the Uruk will always commit atrocities, whether it be in the name of Adar, Sauron, Morgoth, or just for the fun of it.
The Uruk caused inconceivable damage across Bereliand, simply from the buildup of minor skirmishes. They butchered and mutilated Man and Dwarf alike, and tortured Elves with Zeal. They destroyed Nargothrond and Gondolin, places nearly 400 million Elves called home. Cities that were greater than entire countries, nations, and kingdoms. Yes, they did so under Morgoth, and perhaps some regretted it, but considering how, even without a master, they still do horrible things, I think we can assume that they're simply to dangerous to be kept alive, and could threaten farmers, villagers, and even townsman far to much.
And in the SA, they were far, far worse. Already there are the Eastern Orcs, but the Uruk under Sauron conquered and fought against the mightiest Elven civilization save for Lindon itself. and killed untold numbers of men and Dwarves. 2 billion Elves and Men died to the Uruk, and 300 hundred million Dwarves. And those are just the ones we know about. Not the Elves, Men, and Humans who fought at Dagorlad, the hundreds of millions more who died at the feet of Barad-Dur, and the poor souls whose villages, farms, and towns were raided by small parties of Uruk.
And in the TA, they destroyed the greatest Kingdom of Man to exist.
Case in point, the Uruk have committed far too many atrocities to be allowed to contiune to live, while they are also too dangerous to be kept alive. The problem is, if we eradicate the Uruk, we must also eradicate the dozens of races of Easterlings, Haradrim, Khandites and the race of Dunlendings, right? After all, they are smarter, stronger, more athletic, more numerous, and better armored than the Uruk, and will continue to fight for Sauron, and exist in their Khanates, Sultanates, Padishahs, and tribes even after Sauron dies. The Uruk won't.
I voted yes, but, like many who voted in favor of Nagasaki being nuked, I must question the moral ambiguity of my choice.
Simple. No, they would probably die out without direction and continuous effort to reduce their numbers. It isn't clear they actually reproduce en masse without being forced. Left alone, they might be like elves and reproduce too slowly to keep their population from collapsing. Who knows, maybe they would just disappear by slowly integrating into the human population.
Even if we assume that the Orcs are inherently evil and beyond redemption, they shouldn’t be wiped out. All sentient beings have a right to exist. Genocide is never acceptable.
Uh huh.... I'm sure the orcs will appreciate the sentiment went they are pillaging your home and killing your children.
Also genocide is for humans, orcs are a different species it would be extermination.
So you think it wouldn’t be genocide if you wiped out the Dwarves or the Hobbits?
The Orcs aren’t animals. Even just in The Hobbit and LotR we see that they have personality and culture. Mindless animals couldn’t write a banger like “Goblin Town”. They have as much right to exist as anyone.
The Orcs may not be able to conceive of a way to coexist, but the humans can. Even if the humans have to keep an army on the ready to prevent Orc raids, it is better than wiping out an entire culture.
I can teach a parrot to speak and sing, doesn't make it not an animal. Animals can build, use tools, communicate but they are animals. Orcs are pillaging killers, and we are lucky they don't reproduce sexually or who knows what else they would be doing. Why do I have always be on the recieving end? Why do I have to keep rebuilding my home? Why do I have to keep replanting my savaged crops? Why do I have to keep losing my livestock? Why does my family have to keep being killed by Orc raids? I'm not going into Mordor messing up thier lives, they are coming constantly to my home unprovoked and destroying my people. You mess around enough and eventually you'll find out what happens.
Wasn’t Azog the father of Bolg? I think they do reproduce sexually. If they didn’t it would be much easier. Just leave them alone for a generation and they’ll die out.
There is no evidence that anybody went and taught the Orcs to sing. It’s just something they do. They have a culture. It may not be a particularly pleasant culture, but it’s a culture. When they capture Merry and Pippin, and when Frodo and Sam are in Mordor, we hear them talking. They are unpleasant, but it is clear that they each have individual opinions and personalities. They aren’t a monolith.
It should also be noted that, even if Orcs were animals, it is not okay to wipe out an entire animal species. Even if animals are dangerous to humans, we try to conserve them.
I’m also not sure if anybody has ever actually tried to negotiate a peace with the Orcs when Sauron or Morgoth aren’t around to boss them around. It probably wouldn’t be a peace built on mutual trust, but they might be able to negotiate something along the lines of “Orcs stay in Orc lands and Men stay in Men lands and we won’t kill each-other.” It would be an uneasy peace, and both sides would probably violate it at times, but it would be something to try before jumping straight to genocide,
What do you think?