Orc

An orc (sometimes spelt ork; /ɔːrk/^[1][2]),^[3] in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, is a race of humanoid monsters, which he also calls "goblin".

In Tolkien's

The Anglo-Saxon word orc, which Tolkien used, is generally thought to be derived from the Latin word/name Orcus,^[7] though Tolkien expressed doubt about this.^[8] The term orcus is glossed as "orc, þyrs, oððe hel-deofol"^[a] ("Goblin, spectre, or hell-devil") in the 10th century Old English Cleopatra Glossaries, about which Thomas Wright wrote: "Orcus was the name for Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, hence we can easily understand the explanation of hel-deofol. Orc, in Anglo-Saxon, like thyrs, means a spectre, or goblin."^[9][10][b]

The term is used just once in Beowulf, as the plural compound orcneas, in the sense of a tribe of monstrous beings descended from Cain, alongside the elves and ettins (giants), who were condemned by God:

The meaning of Orcneas is uncertain. Frederick Klaeber suggested it consisted of orc < L. orcus "the underworld" + neas "corpses", to which the translation "evil spirits" failed to do justice.^[13][c] It is generally supposed to contain an element -né, cognate to Gothic naus and Old Norse nár, both meaning 'corpse'.^[7][d] If *orcné is to be glossed as orcus 'corpse', then the compound word can be construed as "demon-corpses",^[15] or "corpse from Orcus (i.e. the underworld)".^[13] Hence orc-neas may have been some sort of walking dead monster, a product of ancient necromancy,^[13] or a zombie-like creature.^[15][16]

The term "orc" is used only once in the first edition of Tolkien's 1937

Stated etymology

Tolkien began the more modern use of the English term "orc" to denote a race of

Elvish dictionaries include the entry Ork (orq-) "monster", "ogre", "demon", together with orqindi and "ogresse". He sometimes used the plural form orqui in his early texts.^[f] He stated that the Elvish words for orc were derived from a root ruku, "fear, horror"; in Quenya, orco, plural orkor; in Sindarin orch, plurals yrch and Orchoth (as a class).^{[T 5][T 1]} They had similar names in other Middle-earth languages: uruk in Black Speech;^{[T 1]} in the language of the Drúedain gorgûn, "ork-folk"; in Khuzdul rukhs, plural rakhâs; and in the language of Rohan and in the Common Speech, orka.^{[T 5]}

Tolkien stated in a letter to the novelist Naomi Mitchison that his orcs had been influenced by George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.^{[T 1]} He explained that his word "orc" was "derived from Old English orc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability",^{[T 1][17]} and

I originally took the word from Old English orc (Beowulf 112 orc-neas and the gloss orc: þyrs ('ogre'), heldeofol ('hell-devil')).^[g] This is supposed not to be connected with modern English orc, ork, a name applied to various sea-beasts of the dolphin order".^{[T 6][1]}

Tolkien also observed a similarity with the Latin word orcus, noting that "the word used in translation of Q[uenya] urko, S[indarin] orch is Orc. But that is because of the similarity of the ancient English word orc, 'evil spirit or bogey', to the Elvish words. There is possibly no connection between them".^{[T 5]}

Description

Orcs are of human shape, and of varying size.^{[T 7]} They are depicted as ugly and filthy, with a taste for human flesh. They are fanged, bow-legged and long-armed. Most are small and avoid daylight.^{[T 8]}

By the

Peregrin Took stale bread and a "strip of raw dried flesh ... the flesh of he dared not guess what creature".^{[T 8]}

Half-orcs appear in The Lord of the Rings, created by interbreeding of orcs and Men;[T 9] they were able to go in sunlight.^{[T 8]} The "sly Southerner" in The Fellowship of the Ring looks "more than half like a goblin";^{[T 10]} similar but more orc-like hybrids appear in The Two Towers "man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed."^{[T 11]}

Peter Jackson had an orc modelled on the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein after a disagreement.^[19]

In

Lord of the Rings films, the actors playing orcs are made up with masks designed to make them look evil. After a disagreement with the film producer Harvey Weinstein, Jackson had one of the masks made to resemble Weinstein, as an insult to him.^[19]

Orkish language

Further information: Black Speech

The Orcs had no language of their own, merely a pidgin of many various languages. However, individual tribes developed dialects that differed so widely that

The origins of orcs were explained in multiple inconsistent ways by Tolkien.

Writers including Andrew O'Hehir and the literary critic Jenny Turner have likened Tolkien's descriptions of orcs to racial stereotypes.^[30][31][32] In a private letter, Tolkien describes orcs as:^{[T 20]}

squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.^{[T 20]}

Writing for

Yes, I think the orcs as real a creation as anything in 'realistic' fiction ... only in real life they are on both sides, of course. For 'romance' has grown out of 'allegory', and its wars are still derived from the 'inner war' of allegory in which good is on one side and various modes of badness on the other. In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley alliance of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, and angels.[T 21]

Scholars of English literature William N. Rogers II and Michael R. Underwood note that a widespread element of late 19th century Western culture was fear of moral decline and degeneration; this led to eugenics.^[34] In The Two Towers, the Ent Treebeard says:^{[T 22]}

It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but

Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!^{[T 22]}

As a response to the type-casting of orcs as generic evil characters or antagonists, some novels portray events from the point of view of the orcs, or make them more sympathetic characters. Mary Gentle's 1992 novel Grunts! presents orcs as generic infantry, used as metaphorical cannon-fodder.^[20] A series of books by Stan Nicholls, Orcs: First Blood, focuses on the conflicts between orcs and humans from the orcs' point of view.^[36] In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, orcs are close to extinction; in his Unseen Academicals, it is said that "When the Evil Emperor wanted fighters he got some of the Igors to turn goblins into orcs" to be used as weapons in a Great War, "encouraged" by whips and beatings.^[37]

Orcs based on The Lord of the Rings have become a fixture of fantasy fiction and role-playing games.

In the fantasy tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), orcs are creatures in the game, and somewhat based upon those described by Tolkien.^[38] These D&D orcs are implemented in the game rules as a multi-tribed race of hostile and bestial humanoids.^[39][41][42]

The D&D orcs are endowed with muscular frames, large canine teeth like boar's tusks, and snouts rather than human-like noses.^[42][40] While a pug-nose ("flat-nosed"^{[T 20]}) was attributable to Tolkien's written correspondence, the pig-headed (pig-faced^[43]) look was imparted on the orc by the D&D original edition (1974).^[44] It was later modified from bald-headed to hairy in subsequent editions.^[44] In the third version of the game the orc became gray-skinned,^[45][46][47] even though a complicated color-palleted description of a (non-gray) orc had been implemented in the Monster Manual for the first edition (1977).^[48] Newer versions seem to have dropped references to skin-color.^[40]

Early versions of the game introduced the "half-orc" as race.^[49] The orc was described in the first edition of Monster Manual (op. cit.), as a fiercely competitive bully, a tribal creature often dwelling and building underground;^[50] in newer editions, orcs (though still described as sometimes inhabiting cavern complexes) had been shifted to become more prone to non-subterranean habitation as well, adapting captured villages into communities, for instance.^[51][40] The mythology and attitudes of the orcs are described in detail in Dragon #62 (June 1982), in Roger E. Moore's article, "The Half-Orc Point of View".^[52]

The orc for the D&D offshoot

References

Primary

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Carpenter 2023, #144 to Naomi Mitchison 25 April 1954
2. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1937, p. 149, n9
3. ^ Tolkien 1937, p. 62, n4
4. ^ Tolkien 1937, ch. 4 "Over Hill and Under Hill"
5. ^ ^{a b c} Tolkien 1994, Appendix C "Elvish names for the Orcs", pp. 289–391
6. ISBN 978-0-00-720907-1
   .
7. ^ Tolkien 1955 book 6, ch. 1, "The Tower of Cirith Ungol"
8. ^ ^{a b c d e} Tolkien 1954, Book 3, ch. 3 "The Uruk-hai"
9. ^ ^{a b c} Tolkien 1993, "Myths transformed", text X
10. ^ Tolkien 1954a, Book 1, ch. 11 "A Knife in the Dark"
11. ^ Tolkien 1954, Book 3, ch. 9 "Flotsam and Jetsam"
12. ^ Tolkien 1996, Part One: the Prologue and Appendices to The Lord of the Rings. Draft of Appendix F.
13. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1977, p. 50
14. ^ Tolkien 1977, pp. 93–94
15. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1984b, "The Tale of Tinúviel"
16. ^ Tolkien (1963). Letter dated 21 October 1963 to Ms. Munsby, cited in Gee, Henry. "The Science of Middle-earth: Sex and the Single Orc". TheOneRing.net. Retrieved 29 May 2009.
17. ^ Tolkien 1984b, p. 159
18. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1993, "Myths transformed", text VIII
19. ^ Carpenter 2023, letter 153 to Peter Hastings, draft, September 1954
20. ^ ^{a b c} Carpenter 2023, #210
21. ^ Carpenter 2023, #71
22. ^ ^{a b} Tolkien 1954, Book 3, Ch. 4, "Treebeard"

Secondary

1. ^
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2. ^ Lobdell 1975, p. 171.
3. Cambridge Dictionary
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4. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 362, 438 (chapter 5, note 14).
5. ISBN 978-0-4159-6942-0
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6. ^ Shippey 2005, p. 265.
7. ^
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8. ^ Carpenter 2023, #290a
9. ^ Wright, Thomas (1873). A second volume of vocabularies. privately printed. p. 63.
10. ISBN 0-19-811164-9
    ), Gloss #698: orcus   orc (Épinal); orci   orc (Erfurt).
11. ^ Klaeber 1950, p. 5.
12. ^ Klaeber 1950, p. 25
13. ^ ^{a b c} Klaeber 1950, p. 183: "orcneas: 'evil spirits' does not bring out all the meaning. Orcneas is compounded of orc (from the Lat. orcus "the underworld" or Hades) and neas "corpses". Necromancy was practised among the ancient Germani and was familiar among the pagan Norsemen who revived it in England when they invaded".
14. ^ Brehaut, Patricia Kathleen (1961). Moot passages in Beowulf (Thesis). Stanford, California: Stanford University. p. 8.
15. ^ ^{a b} Shippey 2001, p. 88.
16. ISBN 978-0-3850-6213-8
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17. ^
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18. ^ Kemball-Cook, Jessica (February 1977). "Three Notes on Names in Tolkien and Lewis". Mythprint. 15 (2): 2.
19. ^ ^{a b} Oladipo, Gloria (5 October 2021). "Lord of the Rings orc was modeled after Harvey Weinstein, Elijah Wood reveals". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
20. ^
    New York Review of Science Fiction
    . Retrieved 7 March 2020. A version of this essay was presented at the International Conference on the Fantastic in 2012.
21. Hostetter, Carl F. (November 1992). "Ugluk to the Dung-pit". Vinyar Tengwar (26). Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
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22. ^ Fauskanger, Helge K. "Orkish and the Black Speech – base language for base purposes". Ardalambion. University of Bergen. Retrieved 21 April 2023.
23. ^
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24. ^ ^{a b c d} Shippey 2005, p. 265
25. ISBN 978-2-9539896-4-9
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26. ^ Stuart 2022, p. 133.
27. ^ ^{a b} Shippey 2005, pp. 362, 438 (chapter 5, note 14)
28. ^ ^{a b c} Tally, Robert T. Jr. (2010). "Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien's Inhuman Creatures". Mythlore. 29 (1). article 3.
29. ^ ^{a b} Shippey 2001, pp. 131–133.
30. ^ ^{a b c d} O'Hehir, Andrew (6 June 2001). "A curiously very great book". Salon.com. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
31. ^ ^{a b} Turner, Jenny (15 November 2001). "Reasons for Liking Tolkien". London Review of Books. 23 (22).
32. ^
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33. ISSN 2076-0787
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34. ISBN 978-0-313-30845-1
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35. ISBN 978-0-8131-2301-1
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36. ^ "Stan Nicholls". Fantasticfiction.co.uk. Retrieved 21 February 2009.
37. ISBN 978-0-3856-0934-0
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38. ^ "'Orc' (from Orcus) is another term for an ogre or ogre-like creature. Being useful fodder for the ranks of bad guys, monsters similar to Tolkien's orcs are also in both games." Gygax, Gary (March 1985). "On the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien on the D&D and AD&D games". The Dragon. No. 95. pp. 12–13.
39. ISBN 0-7869-1552-8. Orcs are aggressive humanoids that raid, pillage, and battle other creatures apud MacCallum-Stewart (2008)
    , p. 41
40. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7869-6561-8
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41. ^ "Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herd, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them".^[40] quoted by Young (2015), p. 96.
42. ^ ^{a b c d} Mohr, Joseph (7 December 2019). "Orcs in Dungeons and Dragons". Old School Role Playing. Archived from the original on 31 December 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
43. ISBN 978-1-5081-7624-4
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44. ^ ^{a b c} Mitchell-Smith (2009), p. 219.
45. ISBN 0-7869-1552-8. orcs... look like primitive humans with gray skin, coarse hair, stooped postures, low foreheads, and porcine faces with prominent lower canines... they have lupine ears. apud Young (2015)
    , p. 95
46. ISBN 0-7869-2893-X. [The Creature] looks like a primitive human with gray skin and coarse hair. It has a stooped posture, low forehead, and a piglike face with prominent lower canines that resemble a boar's tusks. apud Mitchell-Smith (2009)
    , p. 216
47. ^ And the "Gray orc" introduced as a race.^[42]
48. ^ Gygax, Gary (December 1977). Monster Manual (1 ed.). TSR. p. 76. Orcs appear particularly disgusting because their coloration ― brown or brownish green with bluish sheen ― highlights their pinkish snouts and ears. Their bristly hair is dark brown or black, sometimes with tan patches.
49. ^ Either the D&D first edition^[42] or Advanced D&D,^[44]
50. ^ Gygax, Gary (1977) Monster Manual, TSR. Also Young (2015), p. 97, citing this and subsequent editions of MM.
51. ^ Young (2015), p. 97.
52. ^ Moore, Roger E. "The Half-Orc Point of View." Dragon #62 (TSR, June 1982).
53. ^ Baur, Wolfgang, Jason Bulmahn, Joshua J. Frost, James Jacobs, Nicolas Logue, Mike McArtor, James L. Sutter, Greg A. Vaughan, Jeremy Walker. Classic Monsters Revisited (Paizo, 2008) pages 52–57.
54. ^ Priestley, Rick; Thornton, Jake (2000). Warhammer Fantasy Battles Army Book: Orcs & Goblins (6th ed.). Games Workshop: Nottingham. pp. 10–11.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
55. ^ Sanders, Rob. "Xenos: Seven Alien Species With A Shot At Conquering the 40k Galaxy". Rob Sanders Speculative Fiction. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
56. ^ MacCallum-Stewart (2008), pp. 39–62.
57. ^ "Another orc enters the Heroes of the Storm battleground". Destructoid. 6 October 2016. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
58. ^ Vessenes, Ted (8 February 2002). "Lessons of the Past". The One Ring. Retrieved 28 October 2021.
59. ^ Stewart, Charlie (14 September 2020). "Why the Orcs Could Have a Huge Role in The Elder Scrolls 6". GameRant. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
60. ^ "Blade Gruts". Hasbro.com. Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
61. ^ "Heavy Gruts". Hasbro.com. Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2017.
62. ^ Ronaghan, Neal. "Skylanders Giants Character Guide Magic Element Characters From Spyro's Adventure". Nintendo World Report. Retrieved 7 July 2022.

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Orcs.

• 9 milestones in orcs history. Wired magazine article
• RPG.NET Article about Orcs