#hobbit/orc

[elevensiesexpert]

Merry, to Frodo, lying face-down on bed, regretting being alive: And then I called him dad.

Boromir, to Aragorn, sobbing: And then he called me dad.

[mrkida-art]

Frerin son of Thráin in the green valley of Azanulbizar

[lordbucketofthecaribbean]

How do teachers expect me to finish my homework when I can be doing this instead

(Boromir is a little messy, still figuring out how to draw him)

[cabrinius]

gandalf hiding in a tree and thorwing burning pineonces at you

[ameliathornromance]

Was talking to my dad about my work yesterday (he's my beta reader lol) and he said to me: "the concept of an Orc boyfriend is so weird - like they look disgusting and stupid and if you think about the ones in the LOTR, they must smell awful!"

And I just had to sit there like

I'm not sure how I would have explained that I like a different kind of Orc to the LOTR Orcs, nor did I really know how to explain why people were into Orcs in the first place.

That being said, Azog is the only exception to the Middle Earth Orcs because

Just look at him!!

[cromocotton]

Surprise Attack!

bilbo & dwalin puppy-fighting again, as they have taken up to 🐕⚔🐕

[orkishereemily]

i've been rewatching the hobbit movies since i haven't actually seen them properly since they came out so i just started the desolation of smaug, and i was reminded of this message apparently written in the black speech

i always assumed it was just some random scrawling to look spooky but i decided to look into it, turns out it's actually a fully developed writing system!

was designed by david reeve, who did all the calligraphy and a lot of the art for the movies (and even ROP apparently)

there's even some other samples of it on props that were made for goblin-town!

it's very cool, i never knew about this before :3

[boozy-dwarf]

Let's applaud the super strength of the elves. Their bodies are unusually strong. Considering that the orcs in the hobbit movies have incredible strength and can use ±300 kg stones as weapons...oh my...

Imagine the strength in those muscles :D

[thetownsendsw]

Today marks the premier of #Pathfinder’s Triumph of the Tusk Adventure Path, so I’d like to take a moment to discuss a relevant topic near and dear to my heart.

ORCS!

While Tolkien was drawing on some linguistic antecedents, Orcs in fantasy originate from The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings, where they’re brutish soldiers of various forces of evil.

Initially lacking redeeming quality, Orcs have become a darling of pop culture, their thuggish nature explored from many angles across TTRPGs, video games, comics, novels, and more.

Now, when you picture an Orc, you no doubt imagine something akin to the Warcraft or Warhammer franchises: statuesque, green skinned humanoids with protruding underbites and looming tusks, often locked into a primitive, itinerant lifestyle, eschewing technology beyond what they pillage from other races.

Interestingly, none of this is in Tolkien.

In Tolkien, “Orc” was essentially another word for “Goblin,” or perhaps unusually large Goblins. Far from statuesque, Gollum (a (former?) Hobbit) could easily be confused for one. The Uruk-hai, a new, stronger Orcish offshoot were described as Orcish in appearance but only as tall as a Man, not taller.

Tolkien’s Orcs are described as deformed, but nothing as specific as green skin or tusks is specifically mentioned (Tolkien saved in-depth sensory detail for trees, and occasionally beards).

Far from being savages, Tolkien’s Orcs were–in his grand Romanticist narrative–stand-ins for industrialization. They were destroying the forests to build grand weapons of war, and soot-covered Mordor evoked the smokestacks of 19th century london.

In many ways the conflict of LotR can be interpreted as Tolkien pitting the noble myths and tales he studied up against his real experiences in WWI.

(the thought amuses me of a firmly medieval fantasy setting, except when we zoom in on the Orcish Badlands they’re all shelling each other from the trenches)

But while none of these traits are in Tolkien, there is a source where they are central.

The Green Martians, or Tharks, first appeared in A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published in All-Story Magazine from Feb-July 1912, well before any of the kids Tolkien decided to tell a fairy tale to were born.

The Tharks are described as 15 foot tall nomadic savages, favoring mighty beasts and weapons salvaged from the more civilized races of Barsoom. They have green skin and tusks, as well as six limbs (interestingly, the middle limbs are described as functional as either crude arms or secondary legs, but art always just depicts four arms)

Culturally, the Tharks are clearly meant as extensions of the Apache raiders encountered in the early chapters of the book set in Arizona; i.e. some California ranch-owner’s idea of wasteland savages. Nomadic, inhuman raiders redeemable only when breaching their primitive traditions.

The parallels are almost uncanny, and I’ll admit I’m honestly not sure where the crossover occurs. Early editions of D&D–another driver of fantasy trends–depict orcs as pig-people, which is probably how tusks became so iconic. They later added gray skin, which persisted officially until the current edition.

Somewhere between there in ‘74 and Warhammer in the early 80s is when the pseudo-Barsoom look took over in broader culture, and at this point there’s no getting around it. Even the more recent Tolkien film adaptations can’t entirely escape the expectation of modern Orcishness.

Turning back the clock a bit, Tolkien notably was never entirely sure where Orcs came from. His first idea was that they were molded from clay by Morgoth, a dark mirror to Adam, but being a Catholic at heart, he disliked the idea of Evil being a creative force.

He flip-flopped for the rest of his life, whether Orcs were corrupted men/elves/hobbits, uplifted beasts, even (according to one post I saw) soulless bodies remotely piloted by demons. He could never quite square the need for unfailingly evil mooks with his own feelings on Good & Evil.

Personally, I find particular resonance in the parallel between what D&D used to call an “always chaotic evil” race and the very Catholic concept of Original Sin. Was Tolkien merely dancing around the idea that the Orcs only needed to be Saved?

I can’t say what Tolkien would think of modern Orcs, either their merging with an earlier, American space alien, or our attempts to humanize what was supposed to be fundamentally inhuman. But I think his insecurity speaks to the same source as our fascination.

Who among us hasn’t struggled with what it means to be good? Or to be evil? And if we are made to be evil, what does it mean to strive against that purpose or to surrender to it? Can we abandon the precepts of predestiny? Or do we reject that they were ever there?

Stare deeply into that Jungian shadow and tell me…

Is it green? And do you want it to be?

[elevensiesexpert]

"Hobbits just aggressively make friends with everything and somehow that keeps saving the world" is my favorite take on lotr

[mrkida-art]

Young dwarf Thorin

[lordbucketofthecaribbean]

Lotr my beloved

[shire-lady-rozie]

Orc : I have one of your sons!

Aragorn : Which one? We have four.

Orc : Uh— The annoying one, constantly talking and asking about food?

Boromir : …

Aragorn : …

Boromir : Which one? We have four.

[meteors-lotr]

A group of Hobbits is called a herd

A group of Dwarves is called a pod

A group of Elves is called a dance

A group of Men is called a flock

A group of Orcs is called a nest

A group of Goblins is called a brood

A group of Wizards is called a problem

[olliecowz]

Orc mother bc LOTR Orcs are my new hyperfixation