Origins of Races

This is another revival of an old discussion, broadened out a bit.
For example we know Morgoth first breed orcs, although whether from elves or men is less clear. But what about Uruk-Hai? Were they an invention of Saruman which he shared with Sauron? Saruman seems to have mainly Uruk-Hai and few of the more traditional orcs, whilst Sauron seems to have more of the small orcs than Uruk-hai. (And were hobbits ever used for the basis of orcs? Given Frodo and Sam can be mistaken for orcs they must come in small sizes too).
And what of hobbits? When did they diverge from men? And which men?
And although we cannot say if he counts as member of a race or not what about Bombadil? (We really need GB for that bit of the discussion as he is the Lore Master supreme when it comes to pagan imagery in Tolkien and Lewis).
So what do you think? Who came from where and when?

I thought Sauron had some sort of Uruks as well?

Didn't Sauron create the Uruks and Saruman simply copied Saruman , not the other way round?

Finding out which is sort of the point of the thread!
The first Uruks you meet in the book are Sarumans, and they meet a group of orcs from Mordor, and they aren't Uruks. Plus Gandalfs makes a point of saying that Saruman's orcs can move in sunlight and at great speed, implying this is something new.

The films certainley suggest that the Uruks are a perversion of Sarumans making, although I haven't read the books recently enough to know if this is born out in the text. After all Sarumans fall is characterised by an imitation of Sauron ( the caverns and machines and smelting as opposed to the trees and nature of Isengard before.), and creating his own army would be part of this!

The Hobbit origin caught my attention as I have been reading through a PT thread that has recently been revivied on this topic and I think there is no definitive mention of Hobbits being descended from men, or any of the other races, but being a race in thier own right!

Not that I pretend to have any of the lore knowledge of others!

I'll leave the loremastering to Eldo, but I'm sure if Tolkien doesn't come right out and say it he does strongly hint hobbits are an offshoot of men.
I was reading the Treebeard bit about the Ent-wives and was suprised to read their last known location was in the Brown Lands, just south of Mirkwood at the time of the Last Alliance. I'm not sure but I think that's about the same time the proto Rohirrim were there and at least the Stoors out of the hobbits.

Does Tolkien use the names Uruk and Uruk-hai as two different types of orcs- or are they interchangeable? I always imagined, and it was probably the film that gave me this impression, that the Uruk-hai were advanced uruks turned into Saruman's elite. Is this right, or completely wrong?

The Hai bit basically means 'better'. The same is applied to troll, Olog, and trolls that don't turn to stone in sunlight, Olog-Hai. So Uruks are just orcs, and Uruk-hai, better orcs, presumably as they are bigger, stronger and can withstand exposure to sunlight.

Okay, after checking the LOTR prologue I give on the hobbit origins

It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than elves,or even than dwarves

Ah yes but which men? They knew the ancestors of the Rohirrim, or at least the Stoors did, as they share common words and language structure. Merry immediately recognizes words he knows when in Rohan and is surprised when the Rohirrim know of Hobbits.
But as the old Rohirrim word for hobbit is just and early form of hobbit, it would seem they had already diverged from men into a group distinct enough to get their own name, so hobbits must be older in their divergence.

Well I think that is where the great debate comes s I believe this is something that is never made clear! At least we can agree they are related to men as opposed to elves (due to pointy ears ) or dwarves (due to beards) as has been suggested elsewhere!

I'm not 100% sure but I don't think Tolkien describes pointy ears on hobbits, elves he wrote somewhere had leaf shaped ears, but if hobbits came from men no reason for them to have the pointy ears of the films at all.

Haven't found anything on the Uruks yet, Gandalf only says that Saruman is mustering a force in rivalry of Sauron, not that he is breeding them!

Men is a very similar race to Elves mind you- considering they can intermarry and produce offspring's, so maybe hobbits just came from some intermarrying legend. So they are basically just a branch of pygmy humans whose origins has been lost to knowledge.

I always liked the idea that someone decided to create the Hobbits, like for example another Valar, maybe even Eru himself, as a race to join Middle-Earth with the dwarfs, elves and men. But Tolkien gives some pretty clear hints that Hobbits descend from men, but even so, it's a nice little theory!

Saradoc wrote:Men is a very similar race to Elves mind you- considering they can intermarry and produce offspring's,

Key question biologically is could those kids have kids? If so elves and men are just different breeds of the same species, which makes the immortality and journey across the sea hugely unfair on mortal men!

Ah yes but Death was originally a Gift from Illuvatar. It was only Morgoth then later Sauron who implanted the idea it was a Doom and a bad thing.

Kafria wrote:

Saradoc wrote:Men is a very similar race to Elves mind you- considering they can intermarry and produce offspring's,

Key question biologically is could those kids have kids? If so elves and men are just different breeds of the same species, which makes the immortality and journey across the sea hugely unfair on mortal men!

Well they had some sort of children, not sure the exact details, but Aragorn and Arwen definitely had a son; he appears briefly in the movie too, not sure how much info there is on Tolkien's main text on him.

Not as sure on this one either, but Beren and Luthien had a son right? Not sure really on that one....anyway, generally men have to put up with a lot from women...so...nothing new there!

anyway, generally men have to put up with a lot from women...so...nothing new there!

only fair retribution from all the oppresion women have had to put up with!

"only fair retribution from all the oppresion women have had to put up with!"-Kafria

Well I for one have never oppressed a women, and I have tried!!

(2 pages in and this far off topic already. We really are hopeless )

Right to get back on topic!

"Beren and Luthien had a son right" - Saradoc

If memory serves Arwen is off that line. As is Galadriel, who is Arwens grandmother (on her mothers side I think).
And I should check this first, sure Eldo will correct me if I am wrong, but Elronds brother was the first King of Numenor. Elrond choose to be elven, Elros human. Aragorn therefore is descended from Elronds brother. And is a distant relative of Arwen, (which means Arwen is only 2 generations away from Aragorns great-great-great-something Grandfather, who would have been Arwens uncle!- which is a bit weird).
So there doesn't seem to be a problem having offspring. Elronds line got a choice, elf or human, I don't think Tolkien says anywhere if this applied to the offspring of Aragorn and Arwen or whether they were born human and mortal.
It does raise some interesting questions though- when Elros choose human did he physically alter to look like a human or did he stay the same? If he stayed the same would his children inherit any elvish qualities? It is implied so from comments made about the Prince of Dol Amroth, he is human but has an elvish air about him Legolas spots right away.

edit add- Wondering if its a sex thing. I think all the cases of Elf/human mating recorded and producing half-elven are male father, female mother. Perhaps you need to have female elf to bear the child to term to get a full elf. And a human female impregnated by an elf would still produce a mortal child, but with an elvish air. It might explain the Prince of Dol Amroth and his people who Legolas hints are as they are because not all the elves set sail from the south haven. Maybe there were only male elves left (women and children first and all that!)

Pettytyrant101 wrote:It does raise some interesting questions though- when Elros choose human did he physically alter to look like a human or did he stay the same? If he stayed the same would his children inherit any elvish qualities? It is implied so from comments made about the Prince of Dol Amroth, he is human but has an elvish air about him Legolas spots right away.

If I recall correctly Tolkien emphasized that the choice had more to do with the final destination of their souls (human souls leave Arda - the world - after death, whereas even Elves who are killed will still be stuck in the world and ultimately re-bodied) rather than any physical changes. Assuming that my memory is correct (and it might not be), Elros and Elrond were pretty much the same physically and in terms of their potential for long life, and that's part of the reason why Elros lived for decades longer than even the longest-lived of his descendants. This is getting into really confusing History of Middle-earth territory though, and I don't have those books with me on campus.

Wondering if its a sex thing. I think all the cases of Elf/human mating recorded and producing half-elven are male father, female mother.

I believe that a male father and a female mother is the most common state of affairs for species that reproduce sexually.

Perhaps you need to have female elf to bear the child to term to get a full elf. And a human female impregnated by an elf would still produce a mortal child, but with an elvish air. It might explain the Prince of Dol Amroth and his people who Legolas hints are as they are because not all the elves set sail from the south haven. Maybe there were only male elves left (women and children first and all that!)

We don't really know what the "natural" fate of the children of mixed human/Elven parentage is because there were so few confirmed cases. (Tolkien mentioned a Gondorian legend of a nobleman taking an Elvish wife who was the foremother of the Princes of Dol Amroth, but this isn't truly confirmed in story). The only part-Elves who were not given a choice by the Valar were Dior and his two sons, and they were all killed prematurely. Thus we don't know if they would have been indistinguishable from full elves or not.

Also, on the topic of gender in human/Elven relationships, I wrote a somewhat lengthy post about this on another forum a while back, which might interest you. You can read the whole thread at this link. NB My username on that site is temporarily "Rhaegar Targaryen" in anticipation of the new series based on A Song of Ice and Fire; normally it's some variation of Eldorion though.

Eldorion wrote:I looked through the Letters (which I probably should have done in the first place last night) and found a couple of interesting references by way of the extremely helpful index. One quote I found quite interesting in light of my idea about human attraction to Elves. From Letter 153:

Elves and men are represented as biologically akin in this 'history', because Elves are certain aspects of Men and their talents and desires, incarnated in my little world. They have certain freedoms and powers we should like to have, and the beauty and peril and sorrow of the possession of these things is exhibited in them. . . .

Given this I could certainly see a general attraction to or fascination with Elves arising, certainly more likely than amonst Elves, whose feelings towards Men might be seen in some of their names for them, translated as Followers, Sickly, Strangers, Self-cursed, Heavy-handed, and Night-fearers, among others (The Silmarillion, "Of Men"). Luthien and Idril (and also Arwen, though she was not pure elf) would seem to be exceptions to the general rule. On the other hand, negative feelings can go the other way, as evidenced by the attitudes of the Rohirrim and even, to a lesser extent, Gondorians (in TLotR). These human attidues were probably due to ignorance though.

Another quote, this one from Letter 131, might give an "out-of-universe" explanation:

The contact of Men and Elves already foreshadows the history of the later Ages, and a recurrent theme is the idea that in Men (as they now are) there is a strand of 'blood' and inheritance, derived from the Elves, and that the art and poetry of Men is largely dependent on it, or modified by it. There are thus two marriages of mortal and elf - both later coalescing in the kindred of Earendil, represented by Elrond the Half-Elven who appears in all the stories, even The Hobbit.

I see the idea of an Elvish influence on Men not only taking place through cultural contact but also through the descendants of the Half-Elven. Aragorn certainly has abilities (notably healing) that most Men do not have. Since descent seems to generally be patrilineal in Middle-earth, for an Elvish "strain" to be preserved in Men it would be preferable, if not necessary, for the male in the relationship to be human.

I don't know which - if either - of these hypotheses is correct, though I suppose it would be possible for both to be correct when considering the issue from different angles (in-universe and out-of-universe).

Saradoc wrote:Does Tolkien use the names Uruk and Uruk-hai as two different types of orcs- or are they interchangeable? I always imagined, and it was probably the film that gave me this impression, that the Uruk-hai were advanced uruks turned into Saruman's elite. Is this right, or completely wrong?

Uruk and Uruk-hai are used synonymously throughout Tolkien's writings. In Appendix A to TLotR, Tolkien says that "In the last years of Denethor I the race of uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor, and in 2475 they swept across Ithilien and took Osgiliath." Uruks were just a specific type of orc, larger and stronger than others. Saruman's "innovation", as it were, was to cross-breed orcs and humans. It is stated in some of Tolkien's unpublished notes (that eventually found their way into the tenth volume of The History of Middle-earth) that Morgoth also cross-bred orcs and humans, but Saruman was the only one doing that at the end of the Third Age.

On a linguistic note (though Tolkien's languages are not my specialty) Appendix F to TLotR tells us that uruk is a Black Speech word that is related to the Sindarin word for orcs. I have heard from people whom I trust and respect that more recently published material states that Uruk-hai means "Uruk-folk" or "orc-folk", but I haven't read it myself.

"I believe that a male father and a female mother is the most common state of affairs for species that reproduce sexually."- Eldo

Umm thats what I get for writing posts at what is in this part of Forumshire very late at night, or early in the morning depending which way you are coming at it.
Obviously what I meant to say was a human father and an elf mother. I can't think of any unions the other way round that produced immortals. Offhand anyway.

On the uruk-hai meaning orc-folk Ive heard that one too, seems a bit odd when applied to the trolls though- troll-folk? If it implies with orcs a breeding with men does that mean the same with trolls- a bit harder to imagine given they seem to be derived from rock.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Obviously what I meant to say was a human father and an elf mother. I can't think of any unions the other way round that produced immortals. Offhand anyway.

I was just giving you a hard time, Petty. I've made the same observation as you, however, which was what the long quoted post was about.

On the uruk-hai meaning orc-folk Ive heard that one too, seems a bit odd when applied to the trolls though- troll-folk? If it implies with orcs a breeding with men does that mean the same with trolls- a bit harder to imagine given they seem to be derived from rock.

Like I said, languages are not something I'm good in. I don't think the -hai suffix necessarily implies breeding with men, however. Uruks/Uruk-hai had existed since well before Saruman's interbreeding experiments. Those experiments created half-orcs, not uruks.

It seems Saruman's breeding produced everything from humans who were a bit orclike- the squint-eyed southerner at Bree- to orcs who were a bit humanlike -Ugluk perhaps?
Mordor seems to have mainly Snaga (slave) orcs however, with the Uruks more in positions of command, such as those at the Tower of Cirith Ungol.
I still think Hai implies 'better' in some fashion, even if stripped of any submeaning to do with breeding with Men. When Gandalf speaks of Saruman's army he notes its uniqueness over other orc armies, it can move in sunlight and at great speed. And the orcs which join Sarumans Uruk-Hai, orcs from Mordor, are far weaker and tire more easily.
And as I mentioned earlier the Olog-Hai are trolls who don't turn to stone in sunlight, an improvement on the originals who have a serious drawback as a useful force. Whereas trolls such as those in TH are just Olog.