NO! You don't say! Only good guys (ha) want dry footsies? You mean orcs don't want to go wading around in floodwater? Wow! Who'da Thunk?
Khazar, years ago I used to frequent a Tolkien-themed online chatroom where most of the people treated LOTR as though it were a religious text. They would come up with silly dogmas that made no sense in Tolkien's Middle-earth, complete with mantras such as:
Without the white, the black would not exist.
The black is needed so you can see the light better.
Eru allows evil to exist to emphasis the good.
According to these fanatics:
The Nazgul could not heal anyone, or if they managed to try really hard and come up with some healing potion, it would never work as well as aletheas.
Every goblet in Mordor contained poison, even if it was given to an ally of Mordor (makes you wonder).
Even though Tolkien described the Witch-king as having "demonic strength" at the time of the Ring War, all nine Nazgul were basically powerless. When Khamul lit a candle using his magic powers, there were endless debates in the chat program on the impossibility of the action. Strange, how the King managed to break down an iron gate with the power of his will. Some would get by this by saying, "Well, maybe he was powerful, but the other eight were weak."
The Nazgul were in a state of perpetual rot, their bodies and their garments forever putrefying. The logical question would be, "How, after over 4500 years, was there anything left?" Or "How did they manage to keep their rusting armor attached to their bodies?"
A kiss from a Nazgul's lips was automatic Black Breath, whether the one being kissed puckered up or not.
Sauron was a giant Cyclops with a large red eye for a head and a body made of pure shadow. One woman even made an animated image of this Cyclops Sauron doing an Irish jig. (Adding on to an expanding this concept, Elfhild and I parodied the Cyclops in a chapter of The Circles, "The Hamlet by the Wharf.")
Tolkien's writings were squeaky clean without even a hint of sex (despite the fact he writes about several rapes, near rapes, has human women being raped by orcs, has orcs being bred with animals to create hideous monsters, etc.).
Mordor is always inferior to the West, even though Mordor's forces outnumber the West by unbelievable odds. The only thing that ever saves the West is an act of intervention by the Powers. The theories of these fanatics weakened the whole framework of Tolkien’s stories, thus defeating the whole purpose of both human strength and bravery and divine intervention.
They always touted the phrase "Evil is barren," but that never explained why most of the Gondorians seemed to be either infertile or asexual, and the orcs kept multiplying. Seriously, at that rate, without an act of intervention, the orcs would have crowded the planet like rats and mankind would have become extinct by the end of the Fourth Age.
There was a lot more, including endless discussions, arguing, bickering and debate, but fortunately through the years I have managed to forget the bulk of it. Always remember, though, if a character is evil beyond imagination, he hates himself so much and feels so guilty that he develops masochistic tendencies. This explains the reason why villians enjoy slopping through flooded cities, dirt and filth. They probably are so overcome with guilt that they must attone by periodically flagellating themselves (or having others do it).
