Orcs, Trolls & Dragons DON'T Have Souls (or Free Will) Theory - Building a World

Some of the many monsters were unconscionably evil in Middle-earth, yet did they have any free will? I don’t believe so, at least not with this theory… Thank you all for watching, let me know your thoughts on this in the comments below! As always, a great thanks to the online artists whose visual works made this video possible! If you are one of the artists, please let me know and I will post your name and a link to your work in this description!

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[happyhammer]

I like this theory. It makes mans evil more insidious because they choose to do it. This seems to be an element that Tolkien considered exploring in the abandoned Lord of the Rings sequel.

[leonardosilva]

We know that Melkor have the ability of "not allowing" a soul to leave its body, he did it to Hurin, so I think that could explain why the elves didn't leave their tortured twisted bodies

[jamessapp]

After listening to The Silmarillion, I remember hearing that Melkor got weaker as time moved on because he gave more and his power to his creatures. (or something like that). Maybe for the creatures like dragons and trolls he imputed a small part of himself into them, and so became weaker and weaker.

[glennross]

I think each creature he created was given a small part of Morgoths soul energy to create a temporary soul as such while the creature lived.

[rafaelgustavo]

They are the "Morgoth's Ingredient" in motion.

[cherechesalexdaniel]

I do think that they don’t have free wills in the sense that they are unable to chose to be good or perform selfless acts but i don’t think they are just some drones for Morgoth or Sauron to control. I think they do have thoughts of their own but those thoughts are always evil.

[marionbaggins]

Man, this Theory is interesting, Mellon...That beautiful quote from Tolkien still hits me all these time later!!!
Thanks for this Theory concerning the souls of the Evil Creatures in Arda, Until Could Sauron be Redeemed...Marion Baggins Out...Got my 24th Birthday in less then 24 Hours!!!

[samsmith]

This all makes sense and is how I also understand the lore but Amazon definitely didn’t get the memo.

[saschaeisenhut]

Hi!
I think there might be a jump in editing at 1:42. One moment you are talking about Melkor looking for the Flame Imperishable in the void, the next you're seemingly finishing a thought about Aule and the Dwarves.

So, maybe I'm putting my lack of knowledge about the LORE on display here but: Do you need a soul in Middle Earth to have free will?
Maybe these beings lack a soul, but also have free will?
And maybe Melkor not being able to "create" living beings on his own "just" means, he could not come up with something all by himself.
I mean: the orcs are twisted an mutilated elves, the trolls are a mockery of ents and the dragons (and maybe fell beasts?) are a mockery of the eagles. So without something to twist and mock in the first place, it seems like Morgoth could not have come up with any living being on his own. There are no creatures in Middle Earth that he created without a "blueprint" to twist.
And being made in the twisted image of these "good" creatures for the specific purpose of being the opposite of them, could they have been anything but destructive and evil (whether it's part of their nature or "nurturing" provided by Morgoth), despite having free will (otherwise)?

[Kieranisonly]

For the dragons I think Melkor bread corrupted creatures with similar draconic forms with a few of his mara servants merging this spawn with his malice which would explain their evil nature, powers and intelligence giving them a kind of mockery of the soul.

[istari]

I disagree with the idea that none of these creatures had no free will. While they would not have souls, they often exhibited behavior that showed they were making their own decisions even though they were still ultimately subject to their inherently evil natures.

[benjaminmcclelland]

This seems like the type of thing that was heavily influenced by tolkiens catholic theology and I'm sure there are some good insights in Aquinas or augustine

[andrewpulda]

Like Sauron later with the one ring, Melkor/Morgoth put part of his essence not only into the land (Morgoth's ring) but into these evil beings to give them "life". Thus their lives/wills were not their own but Morgoth's and later Sauron's to command. In the case of elves/orcs the torcher/twisting of elves was exactly this. As Melkor forced his will and essence into the elves bodies it drove their own souls out leaving only the flesh. This is why killing orcs is not "immoral" as they have no soul and are purely creatures of evil. I also believe that these evil being would/could have been made by Morgoth using corpses of the beings he was perverting. Dead Entwives being turned into trolls etc. So in short we are in agreement.

[davidjunker]

I think trolls, orcs and dragons have souls and free will…just not a lot of career options.

[dvklaveren]

In many dualist/monist systems, the world begins in a singularity and within that singularity, good is created. But good cannot reach everywhere and so all the things that good is not, become its negative image.

In the monist perspective that I suspect Tolkien would prefer, this negative image is only an illusion or an echo of the positive image. Like moonlight is actually only sunlight reflected by the lunar body, or a shadow is only an abstract relationship between the source of light and some obstruction. It does not exist by itself, for itself.

In the same way, I think that the flame imperishable projects the qualities that orcs, dragons and trolls possess, like shadows cast upon a wall. Where the flame is charity, the shadow is indebtedness. Where the flame is both love and pain that affirms love, the shadow is pain that denies love and is hatred.

In that way, I think we can explain how the various servants of evil can have personality, but not the flame imperishable. The flame offers many positive freedoms and negative freedoms, and if you seek to create something new without the flame, you have to violate both your own negative freedoms and other's positive freedoms, which means the new creation will never be truly free.

[James]

Always enjoy your vids my man. God Bless you!

[michaelshelton]

When it comes to orcs being "corrupted" or "twisted" into orcs, I think that refers to their souls, as much as, if not more than their physical bodies being corrupted. Sort of like how human souls are tortured and corrupted into demons on Supernatural. So if their souls were corrupted to the point of serving Morgoth, they would not choose to unhouse themselves. They had gone over to the dark side.

[redrobin]

First of all, thank you for this content. I enjoy it very much. I think that the key to this are the Maiar who followed Melkor. It is said in Valaquenta that the Maiar were the poeple of the Ainur, their number was not known to the elves and the few were named by the elves. Tolkien refers to the Ainur as the spirits and he also says that the Melkor was breading beasts with the evil spirits to create dragons and balrogs. Making Maiar number vague and not defined can suggest that there were many unnamed Maiar that joined with Melkor in his efforts. We also know that the fallen Ainur get bound to their fixed corporal body type and cannot shapeshift once they fall to the darkness. I think it is safe to say that all elite servants of Melkor were the Maiar spirits. This explains the agency, the corruption and the powers of these entities.

[Gigas]

Dooms and curses carry incredible weight in Tolkien's works. Whether the first orcs retained the fia of the elves that were used in their creation or not, I believe their offspring were animated and driven by a curse, a cursed existence tied to the dark lord that will command them. What Morgoth did to those elves used to make the first orcs was a curse that manifested in all their offspring, and the doom of the last dark lord in Arda was the doom of those cursed beings.

[logansfury]

Regarding trolls, didn't Gandalf explain in the Hobbit that if caught in the sunlight, they "returned to the stone from which they were made"? Would have to check the book for a verbatim quote but I believe that is very close.