Q: How Did Sauron Create the Olog-hai?
ANSWER: This is actually a two-part question. The other part is why didn’t Melkor think to breed the Olog-hai. But let us start with a citation from The Lord of the Rings, which is the only passage that mentions the Olog-hai:
Trolls. Troll has been used to translate the Sindarin Torog. In their beginning far back in the twilight of the Elder Days, these were creatures of dull and lumpish nature and had no more language than beasts. But Sauron had made use of them, teaching them what little they could learn, and increasing their wits with wickedness. Trolls therefore took such language as they could master from the Orcs; and in the Westlands the Stone-trolls spoke a debased form of the Common Speech.
But at the end of the Third Age a troll-race not before seen appeared in southern Mirkwood and in the mountain borders of Mordor. Olog-hai they were called in the Black Speech. That Sauron bred them none doubted, though from what stock was not known. Some held that they were not Trolls but giant Orcs; but the Olog-hai were in fashion of body and mind quite unlike even the largest of Orc-kind, whom they far surpassed in size and power. Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race, strong, agile, fierce and cunning, but harder than stone. Unlike the older race of the Twilight they could endure the Sun, so long as the will of Sauron held sway over them. They spoke little, and the only tongue that they knew was the Black Speech of Barad-dûr.
Because of this passage and the adventure in The Hobbit most readers believe that all trolls turned to stone in sunlight — or, rather, that all trolls were made of stone until the Olog-hai appeared. That is not the case. There were several different types of trolls, and only the stone-trolls actually turned to stone when exposed to the sun.
In The Silmarillion Hurin killed 70 trolls in the rearguard action he fought for Turgon at the end of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Hurin fought all day long. It could be argued that Morgoth’s will enabled the trolls to endure sunlight but that is a vague expression. Orcs could endure (and fight in) sunlight but they hated the sun.
In The Return of the King Pippin slays a green-scaled hill-troll of Mordor. Again, that battle was fought under the sun. In The Peoples of Middle-earth Christopher Tolkien quotes a brief bit of text that was excised from the description of the Olog-hai. It stated specifically that the stone-trolls could not be bred with Orcs.
As for why Melkor would not have bred the Olog-hai, he and Sauron probably had very different strategies for their breeding programs. In one of the essays published in Morgoth’s Ring Tolkien notes that Sauron was probably in charge of the breeding programs while Melkor was held in captivity in Aman anyway. But Melkor wanted to dominate all wills directly. Sauron used subtrefuge (especially in the Second Age) and proxy servants (especially in the Third Age). Hence, though his ultimate goal was to master all of Middle-earth’s inhabitants, he was more tolerant of free will than Melkor (and he was also less powerful than Melkor).
By the time Melkor was defeated in the War of Wrath he had become so diminished in his personal strength that Tolkien notes Sauron at the end of the Second Age was stronger than Melkor was at the end of the First Age. Logic suggests that Tolkien may have allowed for some independence to creep into Melkor’s creatures by the end of the First Age (especially the dragons — witness the cunning of Glaurung, for example) not only because they would be more interesting adversaries for his heroic characters but also to help explain how they could have survived Melkor’s fall. Then again, bereft of Melkor’s will, the dragons and other great monsters might have only barely survived for thousands of years, just very gradually developing their own independence until Smaug was capable of acting on his own against the Dwarves of Erebor. (But then The Return of the King does mention that dragons attacked the Dwarves in the Ered Mithrin, so this is probably over-thinking the issue.)
But how would they have bred all these creatures? In my opinion, magic. Or, rather, they would have used their native Ainurian powers to alter the substance of the creatures they were breeding. We would call it genetic engineering. As for whether Peter Jackson’s pod-based transformation of Orcs into Uruk-hai is a plausible extrapolation of the Melkorian/Sauronian monster-breeding processes, I suppose it’s as good a guess as any. I just assume that because Tolkien consistently speaks of “breeding” these creatures that some sort of gestational process must have occurred. He may have felt that the transformations occurred in the womb (which, from a Christian point-of-view — and very probably many other points-of-view — is an abominable practice).
Even the Noldor never engaged in genetic engineering, so far as we know. But let’s not dwell upon the ethics of genetic engineering. I think all can agree that Melkor and Sauron were hardly ethical by our standards.
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I have a question do you think that Snow-trolls actually exist? It would be quite probable (otherwise the comparison of Helm Hammerhand to one would be, well pointless). I heard a theory that Sauron’s association with fire (of ocurse whether he was spirit of fire is debatable) would gave him also ability to manipulate passions and emotions to some degree, just like Narya Ring of Fire would kindle hearts, so it leads to conclusion that Sauron would be able to influence his servants in err these matters of corporal lust increasing fertility (and would help him start unholy unions crossbreeding creatures and your idea of magically manipulating creatures in the wombs would be even more plausible). It is not coincidence that orcs breed faster when shadow grows don’t you think?
I think the snow-troll anecdote concerning Helm was probably more like a kenning or a nickname. But there is no reason why someone running a game in Middle-earth cannot say there were snow-trolls.
“He would go out by himself, clad in white, and stalk like a snow troll into the camps of his enemies and slay many men with his hands. It was believed that if he bore no weapon no weapon would bite on him.”
Well it doesn’t look like a nickname but rather a methaphor, comparison decribing his actions, whether the snow-trolls would be creatures who knowns (there are Hill-trolls, cave-trolls, stone-trolls, mountain-trolls so why not those who adapted to cold of the far North even fitting when to think that Morgoth’s kingdom was in the North and he ruled cold and ice).
“He would go out by himself, clad in white, and stalk like a snow troll into the camps of his enemies and slay many men with his hands. It was believed that if he bore no weapon no weapon would bite on him.”
Well it doesn’t look like a nickname but rather a methaphor, comparison decribing his actions, whether the snow-trolls would be creatures who knows (there are Hill-trolls, cave-trolls, stone-trolls, mountain-trolls so why not those who adapted to cold of the far North even fitting when to think that Morgoth’s kingdom was in the North and he ruled cold and ice).
Oh and one other question how much the elves were capable to do with their subcreational powers, they could make illusions apparently (the gift of elvish minstrels) and Songs of Power seems to be a special case, Finrod was able to fight a battle of magical wills thanks to it, but would they be able to affect the nature in similar way? Galadriel put some sort of blessings on the soil of her garden which turned Shire into real paradise and cause the Year of Plenty, Gildor had fruits larger and tastier than those of the best tended gardens of men or hobbits how far hey could affect the natural forces that way? Any guesses?
What I find interesting is the description of Morgoth’s creation of the wolf Carcharoth:
“he chose one from among the whelps of the race of Draugluin; and he fed him with his own hand upon living flesh, and put his power upon him. Swiftly the wolf grew, until he could creep into no den, but lay huge and hungry before the feet of Morgoth. There the fire and anguish of hell entered into him, and he became filled with a devouring spirit, tormented, terrible, and strong”.
Of course Tolkien doesn’t say so explicitly, but I can easily imagine a similar process used for others of Morgoth’s creatures (particularly dragons).