LOTR: Questions About Middle-Earth That Tolkien Never Answered

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The lore of Middle-earth is so expansive and detailed that it would be easy to presume that Tolkien had the entire world and it's history totally planned out. It certainly seems that way, as he wrote about so many small details and historical events that didn't even make it into the main Lord of the Rings stories but were outlined in other works like The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. There is so much information about Middle-earth that there are entire Tolkien courses offered at some colleges and universities, and Signum University is even famous for having a whole degree program that's concentrated in Tolkien Studies.

Despite all of this, there are still things about Middle-earth that Tolkien never fully fleshed out for the readers, and some things that he himself didn't even know. Because the lore is so complicated there are bound to be a few holes where questions were never answered, but it's surprising that there are so few in all of Tolkien's work. All that said, there are still a few questions that people have about Lord of the Rings and the world of Middle-earth that he never completely answered, and fans have been debating over the answers for a very long time.

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There are multiple theories that Tolkien put forth about how Orcs came to be in Middle-earth, but he died before he was able to give a totally concrete answer to this question. One possible origin is that they were originally Elves who were captured and tortured by Melkor until they were evil and unrecognizable, and another posited that the Orcs were not actually Elves but were entirely created by Melkor or another being. However, the main reason that none of these theories were ever