Posted: June 14, 1999 at 04:48:14: by Martin Read
: Treebeard said the Trolls were made in mockery of the Ents, not bred from them. Many people seem to confuse this definitive remark with the Elvish origin of Orcs surmise from THE SILMARILLION, inferring that he meant the Trolls were originally Ents. Stone Trolls were demonstrably not Ents -- Ents don't turn to stone. Other types of Trolls Tolkien felt had been bred from Men.I think you are perhaps missing a vital point here: the distinction between the physical body and the spirit in Tolkien's work. Illuvatar gave "true life" and spirit to his own creations: Elves and Men (& possibly the Great Eagles etc.) and also to the creations of Aule and Yavanna. The difficulty for Morgoth was that Illuvatar was unlikely to do the same for his creations. I think it is clear from the account of Aule's creation of the Dwarves' physical bodies that the creation of a creature's body (of stone or any other material base) was quite within Morgoth's capability. Therefore, whence came the spirits which inhabited Morgoth's creatures; one origin would be a lesser Maiar, though from Tolkien's view of the numbers of the Balrogs, it would seem that Morgoth didn't have an overly large supply of these. I think this origin is perhaps valid for Glaurung and perhaps the "Father of Werewolves" but not for such lesser creatures such as orcs and trolls. The most likely explanation for the origin of these creatures is the warping of other pre-existing races. This could involve the warping of body and spirit together, or the imprisoning of a warped soul in a body of Morgoth's making. In short the fact that a troll's body turns to stone and an ent's does not is not a proof that the "Soul" inhabiting the troll was not of ultimately entish origin.
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