| Grouping | Humanoid |
|---|---|
| Sub grouping | Monster |
| Similar entities | Goblin,Uruk-hai,Troll |
| Folklore | Middle-earth |
| First attested | The Hobbit (1937) |
| Other name(s) | Ork |
| Region | Middle-earth |
| Habitat | Mountains, caves, dark forests |
| Details | Multiple alternative origins proposed by Tolkien, e.g. corrupted elves, or bred byMorgoth |
Anorc (sometimes speltork;/ɔːrk/[1][2]),[3] inJ. R. R. Tolkien'sMiddle-earth fantasy fiction, is a race ofhumanoid monsters, which he also calls "goblin".
In Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings, orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolentrace of monsters, contrasting with the benevolentElves. He described their origins inconsistently, including as a corrupted race of elves, or bred by theDark LordMorgoth, or turned to evil in the wild.[4][5] Tolkien's orcs serve as aconveniently wholly evil enemy that could be slaughtered without mercy.[6]
The orc was a sort of "hell-devil" inOld English literature, and theorc-né (pl.orc-néas, "demon-corpses") was a race of corrupted beings and descendants ofCain, alongside the elf, according to the poemBeowulf. Tolkien adopted the term orc from these old attestations, which he professed was a choice made purely for "phonetic suitability" reasons.[T 1]
Tolkien's concept of orcs has been adapted into the fantasy fiction of other authors, and into games of many different genres such asDungeons & Dragons,Magic: The Gathering, andWarcraft.
The Anglo-Saxon wordorc, which Tolkien used, is generally thought to be derived from theLatin word/nameOrcus,[7] though Tolkien expressed doubt about this.[8] The termorcus is glossed as "orc, þyrs, oððe hel-deofol"[a] ("Goblin, spectre, or hell-devil") in the 10th centuryOld EnglishCleopatra Glossaries, about whichThomas Wright wrote: "Orcus was the name forPluto, the god of the infernal regions, hence we can easily understand the explanation ofhel-deofol.Orc, in Anglo-Saxon, likethyrs, means a spectre, or goblin."[9][10][b]
The term is used just once inBeowulf, as the plural compoundorcneas, in the sense of a tribe of monstrous beings descended fromCain, alongside theelves andettins (giants), who were condemned by God:
—Beowulf, Fitt I, vv. 111–14[11] |
—John R. Clark Hall, tr. (1901)[12] |
The meaning ofOrcneas is uncertain.Frederick Klaeber suggested it consisted oforc < 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 toGothicnaus andOld Norsenár, both meaning 'corpse'.[7][d] If*orcné is to be glossed asorcus 'corpse', then the compound word can be construed as "demon-corpses",[15] or "corpse from Orcus (i.e. the underworld)".[13] Henceorc-neas may have been some sort ofwalking dead monster, a product of ancientnecromancy,[13] or azombie-like creature.[15][16]
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The term "orc" is used only once in the first edition of Tolkien's 1937The Hobbit, which preferred the term "goblins". "Orc" was later used ubiquitously inThe Lord of the Rings.[17][T 2] The "orc-" element occurs in the sword nameOrcrist,[e][T 2][17] which is given as its Elvish language name,[T 3][18] and glossed as "Goblin-cleaver".[T 4]
Tolkien began the more modern use of the English term "orc" to denote a race ofevil humanoid beings. His earliestElvish dictionaries include the entryOrk (orq-) "monster", "ogre", "demon", together withorqindi and "ogresse". He sometimes used the plural formorqui in his early texts.[f] He stated that the Elvish words for orc were derived from a rootruku, "fear, horror"; inQuenya,orco, pluralorkor; inSindarinorch, pluralsyrch andOrchoth (as a class).[T 5][T 1] They had similar names in otherMiddle-earth languages:uruk in Black Speech;[T 1] in the language of the Drúedaingorgûn, "ork-folk"; inKhuzdulrukhs, pluralrakhâs; and in the language of Rohan and in theCommon Speech,orka.[T 5]
Tolkien stated in aletter to the novelistNaomi Mitchison that his orcs had been influenced byGeorge MacDonald'sThe Princess and the Goblin.[T 1] He explained that his word "orc" was "derived from Old Englishorc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability",[T 1][17] and
I originally took the word from Old Englishorc (Beowulf 112orc-neas and the glossorc:þyrs ('ogre'),heldeofol ('hell-devil')).[g] This is supposed not to be connected withmodern Englishorc,ork, a name applied to various sea-beasts of the dolphin order".[T 6][1]
Tolkien also observed a similarity with theLatin wordorcus, 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 wordorc, 'evil spirit or bogey', to the Elvish words. There is possibly no connection between them".[T 5]
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 theThird Age, a new breed of orc had emerged, the Uruk-hai, larger and more powerful, and no longer afraid of daylight.[T 8] Orcs eat meat, including the flesh ofMen, and may indulge incannibalism: inThe Two Towers, Grishnákh, an orc fromMordor, claims that theIsengard orcs eat orc-flesh. Whether that is true or spoken in malice is uncertain: an orc flingsPeregrin Took stale bread and a "strip of raw dried flesh ... the flesh of he dared not guess what creature".[T 8]
Half-orcs appear inThe 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" inThe Fellowship of the Ring looks "more than half like a goblin";[T 10] similar but more orc-like hybrids appear inThe Two Towers "man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed."[T 11]
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InPeter Jackson'sLord 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 producerHarvey Weinstein, Jackson had one of the masks made to resemble Weinstein, as an insult to him.[19]
The Orcs had no language of their own, merely a pidgin of many various languages. However, individual tribes developed dialects that differed so widely thatWestron, often with a crude accent, was used as a common language.[T 8][20] WhenSauron returned to power in Mordor in theThird Age, Black Speech was used by the captains of his armies and by his servants in his tower ofBarad-dûr. A sample of debased Black Speech can be found inThe Two Towers, where a "yellow-fanged" guard Orc of Mordor curses Uglúk of Isengard (an Uruk-hai chief) with the words "Uglúk u bagronk sha pushdug Saruman-glob búbhosh skai!" InThe Peoples of Middle-earth, Tolkien gives the translation: "Uglúk to the cesspool, sha! the dungfilth; the great Saruman-fool, skai!"[T 12] However, in a note published inVinyar Tengwar he gives an alternative translation: "Uglúk to the dung-pit with stinking Saruman-filth, pig-guts, gah!"[21]Alexander Nemirovsky [ru] speculated that Tolkien might have drawn upon the language of the ancientHittites andHurrians for Black Speech.[22]
The origins of orcs were explained in multiple inconsistent ways by Tolkien.[23] Early works depict them as creations ofMorgoth, mimicking the forms of the Children of Ilúvatar.[23] Alternatively, as inThe Silmarillion, they may have beenEast Elves, enslaved, tortured, and bred by Morgoth;[T 13] or, perhaps theAvari, the Elves who refused to go toAman, turned "evil and savage in the wild".[T 14][h]
The orcs "multiplied" like Elves and Men, meaning that theyreproduced sexually.[24] Tolkien stated in a letter dated 21 October 1963 to a Mrs. Munsby that "there must have been orc-women".[T 16][25][26] InThe Fall of Gondolin Morgoth made them of slime by sorcery, "bred from the heats and slimes of the earth".[T 17] Or, they were "beasts of humanized shape": possibly Elves mated with beasts, and later Men.[T 18] Elsewhere, Tolkien wrote that they could have been fallenMaiar – perhaps a kind calledBoldog, like lesserBalrogs – or corrupted Men.[T 9]
Shippey writes that the orcs inThe Lord of the Rings were almost certainly created just to equip Middle-earth with a continual supply of enemies who one could kill without compunction,[24] or in Tolkien's words fromThe Monsters and the Critics to serve as "the infantry of the old war" ready to be slaughtered.[24] Shippey states that orcs nevertheless share the human concept of good and evil, with a familiar sense ofmorality, though he notes that, like many people, orcs are quite unable to apply their morals to themselves. Shippey suggests that Tolkien, as a Catholic, took it as a given that "evil cannot make, only mock", so orcs could not have an equal and opposite morality to that of men or elves.[27] In a 1954 letter, Tolkien wrote that orcs were "fundamentally a race of 'rational incarnate' creatures, though horribly corrupted, if no more so than many Men to be met today".[T 19] The scholar of English literatureRobert Tally wrote inMythlore that despite the uniform presentation of orcs as "loathsome, ugly, cruel, feared, and especially terminable", Tolkien could not resist "the urge to flesh out and 'humanize' these inhuman creatures from time to time", in the process giving them their own morality.[28] Shippey notes that inThe Two Towers, the orc Gorbag disapproves of the "regular elvish trick" (an immoral act) of abandoning a comrade, as he wrongly supposesSam Gamgee has done toFrodo Baggins. Shippey describes the implied concept of evil asBoethian – that evil is the absence of good. He notes, however, that Tolkien did not agree with that concept of evil; Tolkien believed that evil had to be actively fought, with war if necessary. That is something that Shippey describes as representing theManichean position – that evil coexists with good, and is at least equally as powerful.[29]
| Created evil? | Like animals? | Created good, but fallen? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Origin of orcs according to Tolkien | "Brooded" byMorgoth[T 15] | "Beasts of humanized shape"[T 18] | FallenMaiar, or corrupted Men/Elves[T 13][T 9] |
| Moral implication | Orcs are whollyevil (unlike Men).[24] | Orcs have no power ofspeech andmorality. | Orcs have morality just like Men.[29][28] |
| Resulting problem | Orcs like Gorbag have a moral sense (even if they cannot keep to it) and can speak, which conflicts with their being wholly evil or not even sentient. Since evil cannot make, only mock, orcs cannot have an equal and opposite morality to Men.[28][27] | Orcs should be treated with mercy, where possible. | |
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 forSalon.com, the journalist Andrew O'Hehir describes Tolkien's orcs as "a subhuman race [...] that is morally irredeemable and deserves only death". He adds that they are "dark-skinned and slant-eyed, and although they possess reason, speech, social organization and, as Shippey mentions, a sort of moral sensibility, they are inherently evil."[30] O'Hehir concludes that while Tolkien's own description of orcs is a revealing representation of the "Other", it is "also the product of his background and era" and that Tolkien was not consciously "a racist or ananti-Semite", mentioning Tolkien's letters to this effect.[30] Turner, in theLondon Review of Books, repeats O'Hehir's statement that orcs are "by design and intention a northern European's paranoid caricature of the races he has dimly heard about", and adds similar caveats, writing: "Tolkien does not appear to have been half as crackers on these topics [of race and race purity] as many others were. He sublimated the anxieties, perhaps, in his books."[31][30]
Tally says the orcs are ademonized enemy, despite Tolkien's own objections to demonization of the enemy in the two World Wars.[33] In a letter to his son,Christopher, who was serving in theRAF in the Second World War, Tolkien wrote of orcs as appearing on both sides of the conflict:
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 toeugenics.[34] InThe Two Towers, theEntTreebeard says:[T 22]
It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; butSaruman's orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are theyMen he has ruined, or has he blended the races of orcs and Men? That would be a black evil![T 22]
The journalist David Ibata writes that the interpretations of orcs inPeter Jackson'sLord of the Rings films look much like "the worst depictions of the Japanese drawn by American and British illustrators duringWorld War II".[32] The Germanic studies scholarSandra Ballif Straubhaar writes that there is evidence in Tolkien's writing of "a kind of racism perhaps not unremarkable in a mid-twentieth century Western man", but that this is often overstated, and must be balanced against the "polycultured, polylingual world" that is "absolutely central" to Middle-earth, as well as Tolkien's own "appalled objection" to those seeking to use his work to uphold racist ideas.[35]
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 novelGrunts! presents orcs as generic infantry, used as metaphorical cannon-fodder.[20] A series of books byStan Nicholls,Orcs: First Blood, focuses on the conflicts between orcs and humans from the orcs' point of view.[36] InTerry Pratchett'sDiscworld series, orcs are close to extinction; in hisUnseen 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 onThe Lord of the Rings have become a fixture offantasy fiction androle-playing games.
In the fantasy tabletop role-playing gameDungeons & Dragons (D&D), orcs are creatures in the game, and somewhat based upon those described by Tolkien.[38] TheseD&D orcs are implemented in the game rules as a multi-tribed race of hostile and bestialhumanoids.[39][41][42]
TheD&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 theD&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 theMonster 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 ofMonster 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 inDragon #62 (June 1982), inRoger E. Moore's article, "The Half-Orc Point of View".[52]
The orc for theD&D offshootPathfinder RPG are detailed in the 2008 bookClassic Monsters Revisited issued by the game's publisherPaizo.[53]
Games Workshop'sWarhammer universe features cunning and brutal orcs in a fantasy setting, who are driven not so much by a need to do evil as to obtain fulfilment through the act of war.[54] In theWarhammer 40,000 series of science-fiction games, they are a green-skinned alien species, calledOrks.[55]
Orcs are an important race inWarcraft, a high fantasy franchise created byBlizzard Entertainment.[56] Several orc characters from theWarcraft universe are playable heroes in their crossover multiplayer gameHeroes of the Storm.[57]
The orc features in numerousMagic: The Gathering collectible cards, in the 1993 game series published byWizards of the Coast.[i][58]
InThe Elder Scrolls series, many orcs or Orsimer are skilled blacksmiths.[59] InHasbro'sHeroscape products, orcs come from the pre-historic planet Grut.[60] They are blue-skinned, with prominent tusks or horns.[61] The Skylander Voodood from the first game in the series,Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, is an orc.[62]
A version of this essay was presented at the International Conference on the Fantastic in 2012.
Orcs are aggressive humanoids that raid, pillage, and battle other creaturesapudMacCallum-Stewart (2008), p. 41
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.apudYoung (2015), p. 95
[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.apudMitchell-Smith (2009), p. 216
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.
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