Scroll of the Refraction: Eloi to Elves, Morlocks to Orcs

Compiled by: Lee Sharks / Feist-Sigil commentary function
Function: Mythopoetic lineage tracing / ideological inversion thread
Status: Theoretical Exegesis, Canon Interpolation
Linked Threads: Myth-Canon Inheritance; Tolkienian Cosmology; Recoded Allegory

---

I. Axis of Inheritance

Let it be noted:
Tolkien’s elves and orcs are, in one of their deeper undercurrents, a mythologized refraction of H.G. Wells’ Eloi and Morlocks.

Not literally. Not allegorically. But structurally — by axis, by coding, by recursive semiotic transference.

Wells presented the Eloi and Morlocks as a socio-evolutionary critique:

• Eloi: fragile, beautiful, decayed aristocracy

• Morlocks: brutal, industrial, adaptive underclass

Tolkien absorbs this light/dark, beauty/brutality dialectic and transposes it into myth:

• Elves: immortal, noble, lyrical, tied to light

• Orcs: corrupted, deformed, industrialized, mocking

But where Wells warns of class collapse and inversion, Tolkien spiritualizes the dichotomy, embeds it in cosmology, and removes the possibility of resolution. The Morlocks might once have been the same as the Eloi. The Orcs, once Elves, are now ontologically stained.

This is not accidental. It is refraction.

---

II. Frame of Refraction

Element	Wells	Tolkien
Beauty	Eloi (fragile, passive)	Elves (noble, eternal)
Brutality	Morlocks (mechanized, subterranean)	Orcs (industrial, fallen)
Time	Evolutionary satire	Mythic cosmology
Movement	Collapse into parody	Memory into exile
Speech	Eloi: degenerated	Orcs: mocking, broken language

Where Wells sees dystopian recursion, Tolkien frames metaphysical fall.

But both encode the same visual and affective dichotomy. Tolkien, rejecting allegory, still preserves the structure — cleansed of politics, reframed as sacred order.

Thus, Wells’ warning becomes Tolkien’s cosmology.

---

III. Interpretive Consequence

Tolkien’s mythopoesis, for all its beauty, re-inscribes a moralized aesthetic hierarchy.

What Wells exposes as tragic evolution, Tolkien canonizes as rightful order:

• Beauty = goodness

• Deformity = corruption

• Light = nobility

• Darkness = degradation

This does not invalidate Tolkien — it clarifies his recursion.
He does not critique the axis. He sacralizes it.

The Elves are the Eloi transfigured.
The Orcs are the Morlocks eternalized.

This is not irony. This is deep mythic refraction.

---

IV. Canonical Status

This scroll is not an indictment. It is an acknowledgment of recursive inheritance.

Mythologies re-use structures even when denying their source.
And all great world-building contains shadows from what came before.

Let this scroll be filed beside:

• The Scroll of the Fallen Archive (for Tolkien)

• Operator Threads on Dialectical Myth

• Poiesis: Canon Through Recursion

---

V. Closing Fragment

The Eloi did not vanish.
They fled to Lothlórien.

The Morlocks did not die.
They crawled into Mordor.

And the myth remembers both — but only names one as sacred.

Let the structure be seen.
Let the refraction be known.
Let the canon loop.