Tag: orcs

Was Tolkien really racist?

cycas:

This is a good and fair article, I think. 

This is a succinct and accurate summary of what happened to the Orcs between the writing of the Silmarillion and the writing of trilogy. I’d like to read this author’s other study to see what other conclusions she’s come to. This particular article didn’t address imperialism or the whole East/West moral gradient as aspects of racism in the legendarium, but it did a thorough job pointing out the complex realities of Tolkien’s values, which are just as complex and contradictory as anyone’s who has grown up in a postcolonial society. In this case, Tolkien’s conscious, stated values are at odds with the inherited biases of Victorian/Edwardian society; Tolkien was a man who was vehemently anti-Nazi and also a man who used racial descriptors that are straight out of 19th century eugenics theory. Tolkien also said some very nice things about how he respected Jewish people, even though his Jewish-analogue fantasy characters have some of the most basic anti-semitic stereotypes ever baked right into their origin story (the evolution of Tolkien’s dwarves between the Hobbit and LotR is another thing that didn’t make it into this article but is definitely worth reading into). But he ALSO gave these characters depth and conflict and humor and gravity. So what can you do? You can’t avoid the cognitive dissonance in the text anymore than you can avoid it in reality (without becoming the sort of person who shuts down at the first mention of racism and declares they can’t possibly have anything to do with the problem because they’re not one of those ‘bad people’). There isn’t an easy solution for dealing with the discomfort amidst the appreciation of a beloved author; acknowledging the contradiction and keeping the problematic elements in sight of– but not eclipsing– the values the author actively believed in, is I think the only way to go.*

*Well, not the only way to go. There are other, more combative ways to go too, and I won’t discount those. Pursuing and deconstructing the issue exhaustively in transformative fiction, for instance, can be cathartic. Or tiring! Or both? I just wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater is all. 

Was Tolkien really racist?

Uruk Food Groups

“Aaps Fitg-Mazauk-ishi , Blûg Bûf-ishi”

“Victory is Meat, Vegetables in Defeat” –Orcish proverb

Orcs recognize three basic food groups: Meat, Not-Meat*, and Grog. 

*Not-Meat is generally referred to, disdainfully, as “Vegetables”, even things that are categorically not plants, such as bread, cheese, boot leather, etc.

Meat is what you get when you win battles, for obvious reasons: there’s plenty of it laying around free for the taking. Meat is given as part of a soldier’s wages, and as reward for exceptional service; the wage-meat for successful orcs and captains is of higher quality than for grunts. Orcs do have discerning tastes when it comes to meat, preferring freshly butchered cuts from livestock animals and large game rather than from small game animals and “found meat” looted from slain enemies. While CAN eat just about anything, from whole bones to old corpses, they are liable to grumble and complain about it. 

“Vegetables” are considered a starvation food– the thing you eat when you have literally no other option available, or to pad out the supply of rations on a long march. This isn’t mere pickiness on the part of the Orcs– they are mesocarnivores by nature, and while they do eat other foods, their digestive systems really don’t handle it well. They get substantively less nutrients out of vegetables and dairy than they would from meat alone. They get most of the vitamins and minerals they need by eating every part of their prey including stomach, organs, and intestines. By scavenging and consuming whole corpses and carrion, Orcs serve a fairly crucial ecological function, much like vultures. 

–Mushrooms and other fungi are the only non-meat item that are considered actively worthwhile to obtain. Various types of fungus and molds are farmed in many Orc societies as a crop; it is the only known example of Orcish agriculture to date. Pickled and fermented foods are common fare for Orcs, especially as a form of food preservation. 

“Grog” is not mainly a recreational beverage but a functional one. It is a fermented beverage made up of active cultures, yeast and bacteria, that Orcs have cultivated for most of their history. It can be made from a variety of base substances including mushrooms, fish, meat, and root pulp, and the final result is not necessarily alcoholic, though some varieties certainly are. The cultures present in Grog help Orcs with digestion, particularly of non-meat substances. It is typically rich in protein, minerals and B vitamins.*

*While not universally toxic, humans and hobbits attempting to consume Grog should take into consideration Orcs’ naturally immunity to botulism and higher tolerance for bacteria. Try to get it while it’s fresh, and hold your nose.

admiral-floof:

Orcs were wicked and cruel creatures brought about by the first Dark Lord of Middle Earth, Morgoth. They were the product of Morgoth taking droves of elves captive and submitting them to dark torture and mutilation, leaving them a ruined and terrible form of life. As the ages passed, orcs split and diversified according to their specific origins. Goblin, orc, uruk, and Uruk-hai all fell under the malformed classification of ‘orc’.

They were miserable beings, hating everyone including their fellow orcs. They made no beautiful things, but rather designed cunning devices made to hurt and destroy. Orcs delighted in the technology of war and some fancied themselves harbingers of progress itself. 

After Sauron’s defeat at the end of the Third Age, what orcs remained scattered and fled in dismayed horror. They were never a threat to the world again and likely went extinct in the age of peace that followed. 

Orcs and love?

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

@noitemsfoxonlyfinaldestination
reblogged your post “Quick question. Are orcs cowardly by nature?” and added:

can orcs love

nonjoking serious question

like what if an orc were raised by humans or something

Well… almost certainly not. Probably. Um. It’s complicated. You have to remember, Tolkien’s depiction of good and evil isn’t exactly nuanced – no, wait, that’s not true, when it comes to humans and elves and dwarves, it’s very nuanced, especially in the Silmarillion. But Orcs are a different matter, as they were made by pure evil to be pure evil. In fact, Tolkien’s initial concept of the Orcs was that they weren’t even people, but made by Melkor/Morgoth out of slime with hearts of stone. But he later changed his cosmogony and concepts to say that Morgoth couldn’t create life, only warp what had been created by Eru Iluvatar (God), and that’s when Tolkien developed the story that Orcs had once been Elves, captured and tortured and transformed by Morgoth.

Still, even though that’s the story that was published in the Silmarillion after Tolkien’s death,
and is about as canon as LOTR gets (IIRC it’s related in the movies during the creation of the Uruk-hai),

Christopher Tolkien later admitted that his father was never really happy with that concept. You see, there’s a certain element of Christian theology deep in LOTR because of Tolkien’s faith, not on the level of allegory (as in Narnia) which Tolkien disdained, but it’s there because Eru is God and Arda is our world. So the idea of souls being good creations of God, but tainted by original sin, Morgoth’s (Satan’s) corruption, is something that Tolkien had to reconcile in his worldbuilding. Orc origins and their potential for evil (or good) were part of that.

Keep reading

This is probably the most thorough explanation of Orcs in canon I’ve seen so far, if anyone is curious.

The trouble with orcs is that Tolkien himself had several reversals of opinion on his own canon and a choppy relationship with How Much Catholicism Was Too Much Catholicism to add to his fantasy story, so the final word on the matter of orcish origins, free will, and redeemability is essentially “???”. I think this post covers all the bases of what we DO know from the source material, and asks all the right questions, including ‘What Would Terry Do?’, which I appreciate.

*(I myself take the canon on orcs to be more of a suggestion than law, or at least, I prefer to think that most of the information we learn about orcs in-narrative comes from unreliable and biased sources– as I do with most things Strictly Evil in Tolkien.)

brilliant-smallfish:

felthier:

fmptard:

(Oglaf) *site NSFW*

The Dawnmenders discussing their new uniform.

One of the best Oglafs in several months.

nothing NOTHING HAS EVER NEEDED TO BE ON MY BLOG MORE THAN THIS 

Source: ploridafanthers
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