Uruks and Détente

By BryanC (Lorebrary Editor)

In the final episode of season two of the Lord of the Rings, Adar loses his gamble that he could get the Uruks to live peacefully with the elves in Middle-Earth. It’s an interesting storyline throughout the show's first two seasons, and it did spark some interesting debate among viewers and in the Lorehounds community. Could Orcs be Uruks and not be part of this monolith idea that all Orcs are evil? Adar hoped for détente (relaxed diplomatic relations) in some short moments of the show, not a hot war with the elves.

The Lord of the Rings movies and books show that Orcs are Sauron’s army on his path to hegemony in Middle Earth. In our world history, many saw Communists as a monolith against all free people. Between the two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, there were proxy wars, one hot war in Korea, and détente. We can see Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford building a détente with the Soviets and the Chinese to improve ties, prevent hot wars, and play China and the Soviet Union against one another. With relaxed diplomatic relations, the U.S. could also reach out to dissidents and work to get them to the West or even promote them to undermine the system from within. However, détente split the Republican Party. Conservatives hated this approach, and it was one reason they began to support Ronald Reagan for the 1976 Republican nomination against President Ford, in essence, trying to primary out a sitting president. Ford won, but he was weakened by the fight going into the general election against Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Adar was looking for détente, especially when he held Nenya and saw the battle over Eregion, a hot war taking so many lives. He offered better relations to Elrond and Galadriel at multiple “summits” at camp and the mountainside. They had differences but shared some elf heritage, and Adar wanted his family to live peacefully. But this path split their leaders as Adar and Sauron fought to control their people. Sauron wanted a hot war to dominate the world, not one of better relations with elves so that both people could live peacefully. Sauron wanted monolith thinking to control the Orcs against the elves.

This détente was not a viable option for the elves, either. They saw the Uruks/Orcs as a monolith, just Orcs who were tools of evil. Galadriel never had a chance to take Adar’s offer as the Orcs and Sauron intervened. It would have been an interesting storyline if the showrunners decided to go this route. The showrunners planned to kill Adar in season one, but consultant Simon Tolkien (JRR Tolkien’s grandson) wanted to keep Adar for another season. He saw the potential, as well.

We movie watchers and book readers know the ultimate end here. However, it would have been a unique “what if” if Adar had lived and gotten the elves to agree to détente. He would have to face a bitter civil war within his people. Would Adar come out weakened from fighting Sauron so that he would lose his leadership down the road? Could Adar overcome Sauron’s domination of propaganda and the power of suggestion that gives Sauron such a huge advantage? Could writers see a weakened Sauron that would take him longer to create the one ring and build his army? Would two Orc factions fighting an internal war help the elves take Sauron down sooner?

The story timeline that lasts thousands of years could fit a stage of détente and internal war, but it was not meant to be.