Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-69.147.195.21-20171014174309/@comment-26149161-20171015132044

Yes. The text is quite clear in that the 'ingenious" devices were developed later--if they even remained canon, and were not removed as a goofy and obsolete statement. What Tolkien is saying, in any case, is that the Orcs or those with orc-blood and orc-minds later invented explosive weaponry such as guns. He is *not* saying that Orcs had these things in the Misty Mountains during the War of the Ring. If they had them anywhere, it would be in Mordor.

"Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far. "

Ithilion, Discussions Moderator (Auta i lómë)