A Sense of History: Straight Road
The next in a series of articles about ships passing to and from the West, Simon uses "The Fall of Númenor" to attempt to arrive at Tolkien's reading of the exordium to "Beowulf."
For: “The afterlives of orcs”
Whispered in quiet moments, the coarse hushed voices of orcish comrades speak of a gentler fate in the afterlife.
They say that when the hröa dies, the pain of brutal orcish life ends, the veil of shadow lifts, and cruel corruption unravels.
The white fiery purity at the core of every orc burns away the layers of tragedy and the fëa takes flight.
No one knows if the orcish fëa soars to the Halls of Mandos or runs wild in the green fields of Yavanna.
What is known is that there is freedom. Freedom and hope.