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And so these orcs were heading back to their particular
horde having only captured two hobbits, said hobbits
having been manacled together and now being escorted,
with somewhat more prodding than strictly necessary,
back to the orcs' camp. And this outcome was not desired
by all the participants in pretty much all the ways
that a thing can be not desireable by people who are
nonetheless doing it. As regarding the hobbits, they
were as far from where they would have liked to have
been as it was possible to be, literally and figuratively.
Since being hobbits naturally meant that their wants
were both modest and exceedingly particular872,
and in so being were completely predictable. And were
they in their hobbit holes in the Shire the amount of
prodding and manacling was also completely predictable
in the sense that it never happened at all. But the
situation's utter lack of desirability among the orcs
was somewhat more multi-layered. At first glance the
orcs appeared to be in their milieu to the same degree
that the hobbits weren't, except for the unbreakable
risk/reward system which informed much of the orc hierarchy.
And whereas it was a boost to one's standing to bring
back live captives, the utter lack of agression they
showed by being alive made it obvious that they had
posed no risk at all. And so while these particular
orcs had done precisely what was required of them w/r/t
their tasks within the horde, everything about the outcome
of their mission would open them to scorn and ridicule
within the larger social structure, in that the hobbits
by their very unfamiliarity would attract attention
among the orcs, their small size and pitiful weapon-handling
skills would show that their captors had not faced even
the slightest danger, and that any attempt at mitigation
by the orcs by pointing out that the very unfamiliarity
and inoffensiveness of the hobbits indicated that they
were undertaking a uniquely important mission would
be seen as a pathetic after-the-fact attempt to rationalize873
the failure; and so but anyway these orcs would have
no choice but to redeem themselves and relieve their
aggressively bad tempers874 by undertaking
another mission, which they would devoutly hope to be
incredibly hazardous and the importance of which be
damned.
872. Which particular combination of factors, vis.
their simplicity and persnicketiness, put them in a
strange position of being undemanding in a very demanding
way, and vice versa. Which explains why hobbits interacted
so rarely with the other residents of M.E., and they
with the hobbits, but, again, for equal and opposite
reasons.
873. No less pathetic for it being true.
874. Which explains why so many of the denizens of M.E.
interacted so rarely with orcs. And then only once.