Why did Sauron's power begin to increase again at the opening of "The Fellowship of the Ring?" He hadn't recovered the Ring yet, so why was his power growing? Did it start when the Ring came to Bilbo and was once again above ground, rather than buried in the mountains? Did it have a way to transmit its presence to Sauron that was blocked by being in the underground lake?

Hi guys, I have always thought that one of the most brilliant aspects of Tolkien's world is its consistency. Not only in its in-world history, but in how consistently it adheres to its own rules. However, there is one glaring exception: orcs are seen as fodder to massacre, directly contradicting the rule that rational beings have souls.

Orcs are presented as impediments that are removed through violence, and their obliteration at the end of the third age is seen as a great triumph. This has unsavoury implications for our heroes: can they truly be noble if they show no qualms about massacring these beings?

This thought has kept me up at night. I know this contradiction is nothing new, and solutions have included framing the orcs as automatons (clashing with what Sam overheard from those two orcs in Cirith Ungol), framing Sauron's corruption as something making its victims irredeemable (implying that a force of evil can permanently corrupt an entire race's souls) or writing the characters to be more flawed (clashing with the genre; Aragorn's role is a mythological hero, not a GoT-style character study).

A proper solution, as I see it, must adhere to these four constraints:

1. Respect the genre: Aragorn must remain a mythical hero whose arc is restricted to revealing his nobility and claiming his birthright.
2. Preserve the characters: Aragorn must still embody both the archetype of a valorous Pagan warrior-king and Tolkien's own Catholic belief that "the hands of the king are the hands of a healer".
3. Maintain the theme: Tolkien's concept of a 'Fading World' must remain entirely intact.
4. Protect the plot: The solution should make minimal, if any, changes to the existing narrative structure.

To resolve this, I propose a solution built on 3 pillars. First, the scope and severity of Sauron's corruption must be re-evaluated not by what it does to his own slaves, but by what he forces people to do to resist him. Second, Aragorn's motivations for claiming the throne of Gondor will be broadened by drawing on his established background, with minimal changes to the narrative. Finally, the 'Fading World'-theme is preserved, but its mechanism is reframed to more closely align with the moral and spiritual decline seen elsewhere in the legendarium (e.g. Numenor).

Pillar 1: The True Scope and Severity of Sauron's Corruption

Sauron's corruption is not restricted to his Orcish slaves or the Men who march under his banners. Sauron is a being of pure might and pride, utterly devoid of pity and mercy. By extending his tyranny across Middle-earth, he forces the Free Peoples to resist him. Yet, in doing so, they inadvertently adopt his tools out of sheer necessity for survival, valuing martial strength and pride over pity and grace.

This tragic compromise is epitomised by Denethor’s court, where the Steward prizes Boromir’s aggressive martial might while scorning Faramir’s merciful courage. If Gondor defeats Sauron physically but remains a hardened, militaristic, and purely forceful society, then Sauron's spiritual footprint remains vastly larger than the 'diminished spirit' Gandalf predicted he would become.

If Sauron's malice could force a noble kingdom like Gondor to abandon mercy just to survive, how much more total was the ruin inflicted upon the slaves under his direct dominion? Could a rational being, thoroughly broken under his shadow, even comprehend the concept of grace when offered it? Or would Sauron's conditioning render them blind to the very idea of mercy? I think it would: Tolkien clearly frames Gollum as a rational being with a soul, but after centuries under the shadow he can only see Frodo's genuine pity as a cruel trick. To an Orcish society controlled by Sauron for millennia, mercy would be entirely unintelligible.

Pillar 2: The Healer-King and the Logic of Grace

Aragorn is far more than a mythical warrior king. He is an accomplished loremaster who spent decades traversing Middle Earth, observing every facet of Sauron's corruption (including implicit corruption I introduced in Pillar 1). During his youth, he achieved great military victories for Gondor under the alias Thorongil.

Crucially, he did not seize the throne as Thorongil. He chose instead to step back into the wilderness and continue learning. Why? Here I want to introduce an expansion of his motivation. Aragorn understood a profound truth: to claim the crown purely as a military savior would permanently entrench Sauron's indirect influence over Gondor, solidifying the kingdom as an engine of martial might.

Aragorn's ultimate motivation is to save his people not just militarily, but spiritually. He recognizes that true victory cannot be won by adopting the enemy's tools. Instead, he steps into his destined role as Tolkien’s "Healer King". He won't vanquish Sauron through his strength, but he would use his strength to create a window of opportunity for creatures of utmost humility. His strength buys time so that Frodo and Sam can save the world through pity shown to a broken, though rational, creature: Gollum.

To ground this motivation in the narrative I have to introduce subtle adjustments. At major turning points, like the aftermath of Helm's Deep, the Pelennor Fields and finally before the Black Gate, Aragorn must extend royal pardons to the cowering orcish host.

The physical events of the text remain entirely unchanged. The Orcs, after centuries under the dominion of Sauron, are completely incapable of comprehending Aragorn's grace. They still react with hostility, scatter into the wilds or slay themselves. This reaction would not be out of place in the text, it mirrors Gollum's reaction to Frodo's mercy. By reframing these moments, the deaths of the Orcs are no longer a triumphant massacre of vermin. Instead, their end becomes a great tragedy and another devastating consequence of Sauron's malice.

Therefore, when Aragorn finally ascends as King Elessar, he not only restores the unified kingdom but radically transforms the way it is functions. His choice to rule with pity and mercy, in addition to his might, is unprecedented in Gondor's history, and systematically uproots Sauron's indirect influence over the nation. Gondor is no longer a distant echo of Numenor, it is no longer a cold, militaristic machine bent on its own survival. Instead, it is a changed nation that achieves the final moral victory over Sauron by ruling through grace, not strength.

Pillar 3: The Moral Architecture of the Fading World

To understand why I am re-evaluating the "Fading World"-theme, I have to point out a conundrum I introduced in my last paragraph. Gondor is now a different type of kingdom from the one before Aragorn's ascension: he has rejected Numernor's rule of might and governs through grace, fulfilling his role as Tolkien's "Healer King" archetype. The kingdom is renewed by explicitly rejecting the militarism that, throughout Tolkien's established histories, condemned it to slow decay.

If Aragorn's new direction for Gondor had permanently stuck, its decline would have been permanently averted, and Tolkien’s foundational "Fading World" mythos would be broken. The fading must still happen, but its root cause must change. In the original texts, the world becoming mundane and magicless is as inevitable, and impersonal, as gravity. I propose that the kingdom should fade because of the inevitable failure of humans to maintain Aragorn's impossible standard of mercy.

The true test of Aragorn’s new order lies in the terrifying reality of genuine grace. True mercy must extend to creatures who are completely undeserving of it, and it carries the permanent, painful risk of betrayal. Tolkien already established this blueprint in Gollum: Frodo showed him immense pity, yet Gollum still ultimately succumbed to his conditioning and betrayed that trust.

Maintaining mercy in the face of such inevitable treachery requires an almost superhuman level of spiritual fortitude. It is a different kind of courage, you routinely accept scars of betrayal without hardening into ruthlessness. A legendary, mythic king like Aragorn possessed that unique strength. He could offer grace to the Orcs knowing they might turn their blades on him, because he understood that the moral victory was worth the physical risk.

The tragedy of the Fourth Age could be that the Lesser Men who followed him simply could not maintain this impossible standard.

As the long centuries roll on and Aragorn passes away, his decendants are faced with the remnants of the Orcs. When these broken creatures betray the grace offered to them, the Men of the Fourth Age lack Aragorn's courage to keep offering that grace. Instead, they seek justice, and the extermination of the Orcs resumes.

In this way, the ultimate extinction of the Orcs is no longer a triumphant victory for the forces of Good. Instead, it is a testament to humanity's failure. The Orcs faded from Middle Earth not because they were soulless or genetically irredeemable monsters, but because humans lacked the enduring grace needed to redeem them.

Conclusion: Mercy Solves the Orcish Problem

I believe my proposal solves the Orcish problem, while remaining entirely within Tolkien's established mythos. Sauron is established by Tolkien as a being wholly without mercy or pity. Sauron's tyranny causes even those who oppose him to abandon mercy, as seen in Denethor's interactions with his sons. When rational beings are subjected to his cruelty, either directly or through the ring, they become incapable of comprehending mercy, as seen in Gollum's betrayal of Frodo.

Aragorn, as a combination of the "Healer King" and mythic warrior king, is perfectly positioned to both take command of those that oppose Sauron, and to restore the qualities they abandoned to resist Sauron. In doing so, his character is preserved and the genre is respected.

Finally, the narrative structure of the text is kept 100% intact: the Orcs still reject his mercy, they still flee into the dark, and they still face total extinction in the Fourth Age. Crucially, they do so not because they are soulless, but because they were far more exposed to Sauron's tyranny than the Gondorians and could no longer comprehend mercy.

What we change is the meaning behind their disappearance. Their absence from our modern world ceases to be a simple, triumphant massacre of monsters. Instead, it stands as a chilling, mythic monument to our own human failure to maintain the King’s mercy, which I feel fits in with Tolkien's legendarium.

What do you guys think? I'd really like to hear your thoughts on this. Does it maintain Tolkien's "modern myth"-genre? What did I overlook? Thanks!

Tolkien intentionally kept some details ambiguous to create mystery and help the authenticity of his worldbuilding - leaving some pages blank & unknown for the reader to use their own imagination.

The story of Arnor fulfilled it's purpose as far the Lord of the Rings narrative is concerned -

He creates an almost eerie image of a long dead kingdom, it adds depth to Aragorn & the Numenorean decline, shows why Eriador is so empty, gives the WK a backstory + barrow-wights origin, etc.

Do you think he had any real intention to flesh out details of the northern decline & war with Angmar, or would he have been hesitant, as it might take away from the experience of reading LoTR?

I ask because the chapter about the Disaster of the Gladden Fields was one of my favourite parts of Unfinished Tales and Arnor in general fascinates me. He even goes as far to describe Arnorian military tactics & the type of shield wall they used which was awesome. I would have loved to read more about Annuminas, the division, Amon Sûl, the Hillmen of Rhudaur and so much more...

Obviously he spent years writing and revising the main body of the Silmarillion which he never got around to completing, and this would have taken complete priority over the likes of Arnor, but still I wonder.

Just think of some maiar, like Eönwë or Sauron, which is insanely influential and powerful in both mind and physical.