Eric Scheske is the Editor of Gilbert! The Magazine of G.K. Chesterton.
Before Middle Earth’s Third Age, Tolkien tells us in his lesser-known work, The Silmarillion, there were the Second and First Ages. And before those Ages there was the timeless time when there was only God, Illuvatar. He created the Ainur, demiurgic or angelic-type beings. He then began to create the World through music, and sent some of the Ainur (called “Valar”) to rule and mold it in accordance with the music and prepare it for the coming of the First Children of Illuvatar, the Elves.
But the greatest of the Valar, Melkor (later known as Morgoth), claimed the world for himself. The other Valar fought him and continued to prepare the world for the coming of the Elves, but Melkor fought back and destroyed their work. They “built lands and Melkor destroyed them; valleys they delved and Melkor raised them up; mountains they carved and Melkor threw them down; seas they hollowed and Melkor spilled them; and naught might have peace or come to lasting growth, for as surely as the Valar began a labour so would Melkor undo it or corrupt it.”
In preparation for his war with the other Valar, Melkor built a vast underground fortress known as Utumno, and gathered about him lesser Valar (including Gorthaur the Cruel, who would later be known as Sauron, and others that became known as Balrogs) whom he convinced to turn away from Illuvatar’s design as well.
When Illuvatar finally awakened the Elves and they started their trek Westward toward the Valar, Melkor captured some of them and, through “slow arts of cruelty,” corrupted them and used them to create Orcs. This twisted act of creation, Tolkien tells us, may have been “the vilest deed of Melkor, and the most hateful to Illuvatar.”
Destroying the works of the Valar was despicable, but apparently was not as hateful as producing Orcs. The huge assortment of other foul deeds that Morgoth would commit until finally destroyed at the end of the First Age — the slaughter of hosts of Elves and Men; the killing of the trees of light (the precursors to the sun and moon); even the corruption of Sauron, the evil being that would torment Middle Earth’s Second and Third Ages — were not as great as Melkor’s creation of the Orcs.
It’s an interesting slant. Orcs were definitely dangerous, but in many ways they were more of a nuisance than anything. They weakened in daylight; they were stupid; they were smaller and weaker than men. Even the breed of super-Orcs, the Uruk-hai, that Sauron later bred weren’t as strong or tall as men. Boromir slayed twenty of them by himself when defending Pippin and Merry.
But Tolkien still says the breeding of the Orcs was the most hateful to Illuvatar.
I can only speculate on Tolkien’s reason for writing this, of course, but I suspect Melkor’s making of the Orcs was most contemptible because it involved an act of perverse creation. Melkor couldn’t create ex nihilo like Illuvatar, but he could engage in an analogous act of creation, like our artists act analogously to God the Creator when they make works of art.
The act of creation is the greatest power bestowed by God. Chesterton, wrote Thomas Peters in The Christian Imagination, “considered the arts to reflect the very essence of human nature as endowed by God the Creator. Here is what G.K. meant when he wrote, ‘I cannot feel myself that art has any dignity higher than the indwelling and divine dignity of human nature.’ … We are imaginative and creative creatures, said Chesterton, because we are made in the image of the great Creator of all.”
By corollary, if the creative power is our greatest gift, its abuse is our greatest sin. Hence Melkor’s creation of the Orcs was considered by Illuvatar to be his vilest deed.
It’s a lesson some of our modern artists should absorb. The ability to create is the highest gift and consequently must be guarded with the greatest care. When we write, we must endeavor to write poetically. When we paint, we should try to paint beautifully. Those who do the opposite, who abuse the creative ability to create perversion, commit the vilest of deeds.
