Sympathy for the Orcs

On 29 August, the second season of the fantasy series "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" premiered on Amazon. The streaming giant immediately released the first three episodes of the show, and fans quickly raised many questions.

To be frank, questions already arose during the first season—a number of plot twists and characters were hard to explain by anything other than adapting the project to current agendas. Black elves and dwarves, replacing male hobbits with females—these changes barely influenced the plot and seemed quite forced. However, the story of Sauron creating the Rings of Power and the One Ring, as described in the appendices to "The Lord of the Rings" and in "The Silmarillion," more or less followed the literary canon.

Yet, from the first episode of the second season, the liberties taken with the interpretation of the world created by J.R.R. Tolkien became more apparent and misplaced. This time, it was not the gender or racial reshuffling of the characters that sparked questions and discontent, but the orcs—the most unequivocal race in Middle-earth. Professor Tolkien, who introduced orcs into global culture through books, films in the fantasy genre, and gaming universes like Warcraft, characterised these creatures quite clearly: a malicious, barbaric people who served the Dark Lord. Orcs, ugly, cruel, and aggressive monsters, always served the Darkness, forming the backbone of the armies of both Morgoth and his successor, Sauron.

Indeed, other authors have portrayed this fictional race differently, but this is Middle-earth, the cornerstone work of the entire fantasy genre, and ambiguous interpretations of these creatures are entirely out of place here. Nevertheless, in the first three episodes of "The Rings of Power," orcs first refuse to serve Sauron and even kill one of his incarnations because "they just want to be free." Then one of the orc leaders tells his lord, the dark elf Adar, that orcs "no longer want to fight because they have a home where they feel safe, and let it remain that way." This is followed by a "melodramatic" scene in which a pacifist orc embraces his wife, who is nursing a small orc child. This doesn’t quite align with the image of "absolute evil" described by Tolkien, does it?

But such an image of orcs, who also have "their own truth," fits perfectly into the modern leftist ideology we witness daily—from student strikes and mass protests in Europe and the US in support of the Hamas movement and Palestinian terrorists to the Pope's openly pro-Russian calls for reconciliation and some Western analysts in the media arguing that Russian military aggression should not be viewed entirely negatively. Because, as they say, "in any conflict, both sides are always to blame."

An unobjective view of absolute evil, attempts to portray aggressors and monsters as victims of circumstances and oppression, fits not only into the leftist (essentially communist) ideology but also into the worldview of the so-called "Russian World"—after all, Putin and his associates constantly try to whitewash the dictatorial regimes of North Korea or Iran, presenting them as advocates of a "just world order" and anti-globalists. This perspective did not emerge in Russia during the genocidal war they launched against democratic Ukraine. The roots of aggressive revanchism, the glorification of war criminals, and fervent anti-globalism have been evident not only in the official state ideology of modern Russia since the 1990s but also in the books of Russian fantasy writers.

For example, the popular 1990s trilogy "Ring of Darkness" by the writer Nick Perumov, a loose continuation of "The Lord of the Rings," significantly blurs the black-and-white Christian ethics of Tolkien's original work. Although the main characters of the book are still hobbits and dwarves (distant descendants of Tolkien's heroes), their main antagonist is a character who can no longer be called absolute evil. The new Dark Lord of Middle-earth is a representative of the human race, a descendant of Boromir, who creates a military coalition of peoples and races defeated in the War of the Ring. His motivation is not only to reclaim the throne of Gondor but also to rid Middle-earth of "elvish dictatorship" and give the peoples of the world the right to self-determination.

Another Russian writer, the scientist-paleontologist Kirill Yeskov, went even further, writing the novel "The Last Ringbearer" in the early 2000s, based on the concept that history is written only by the victors. In his novel, the events of the War of the Ring are described from the perspective of the inhabitants of Mordor—a developed industrial state led by the wise and progressive ruler Sauron. This prosperous state opposes the medieval archaic Gondor and Rohan, as well as the elves, who in the novel are agents of regression, dictatorship, and rampant racial chauvinism. In the novel's antagonists—elves, wizards, and humans opposing orcs and Mordorians, who are clearly modelled after Asians and Arabs—Americans and Europeans with their colonial policies are easily recognisable.

What would Tolkien, who witnessed two World Wars, say about "The Rings of Power" series, created as "inspired by" his universe? The answer is unequivocal. The professor saw real evil too closely and understood too well that trying to explain, understand, or sympathise with the aggressor is the path to defeat. Here's what he wrote in the preface to the second edition of "The Lord of the Rings":

"One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead."

What other new "revelations" await Middle-earth fans and viewers of "The Rings of Power" by the end of the season, we will only find out in October, when all the episodes of the show are released. But what the policy of "sympathy for the orcs" can lead to, we can see right now—in the dramatic reports from the theatres of war in Ukraine or the Middle East.

And when you recall the Russian war crimes in Bucha, Irpin, and other cities of Ukraine, the daily bombings and destruction of civilian infrastructure, the killing of children and women by Russian artillery and airstrikes, it is no longer surprising that Ukrainians refer to Russians as "orcs."

And now, knowing about the war crimes of the Russian "orcs," try to feel sympathy for them...