Orc#Tolkien

{{further|Beowulf and Middle-earth}}

File:Orcus glossed as Orc, Thyrs, or Hel-deofol in Cleopatra Glossary.jpg orcus is glossed as Old English "{{lang|ang|orc, þyrs ꝉ hel-deofol}}" ("Goblin, spectre or hell-devil") in the 10th century Cleopatra Glossaries.]]

The Anglo-Saxon word orc, which Tolkien used, is generally thought to be derived from the Latin word/name {{lang|la|Orcus}},{{cite book|last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |chapter=Creation from Philology in the Lord of the Rings |title=J. R. R. Tolkien, scholar and storyteller: Essays in Memoriam |editor1-first=Mary |editor1-last=Salu |editor2-first=Robert T. |editor2-last=Farrell |year=1979 |location=Ithaca, New York |publisher=Cornell University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/jrrtolkienschola00unse/page/291 291]|isbn=978-0-80141-038-3 |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/jrrtolkienschola00unse/page/291 }} though Tolkien expressed doubt about this.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#290a }} The term {{lang|la|orcus}} is glossed as "{{lang|ang|orc, þyrs, oððe hel-deofol}}"{{efn|Here: "orcus   [orc].. þrys ꝉ heldeofol" is the redaction given by {{Harvnb|Pheifer|1974}}, {{URL|1=https://books.google.com/books?id=kN5ZAAAAMAAJ&q=heldeofol|2=p. 37n}} but þrys appears to be a mistranscription for þyrs. The original text uses "ꝉ", the scribal abbreviation for Latin vel meaning "or", which Wright has silently expanded as Anglo-Saxon {{lang|ang|oððe}}.}} ("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."{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Wright (antiquarian) |title=A second volume of vocabularies |publisher=privately printed |year=1873 |url=https://archive.org/details/ASecondVolumeOfVocabularies |page=[https://archive.org/details/ASecondVolumeOfVocabularies/page/n76 63]}}{{cite book |last=Pheifer |first=J. D. |title=Old English Glosses in the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1974 |pages=37, 106 |isbn=978-0-19-811164-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kN5ZAAAAMAAJ&q=orcus }}(Repr. Sandpaper Books, 1998 {{ISBN|0-19-811164-9}}), Gloss #698: orcus   orc (Épinal); orci   orc (Erfurt).The Corpus Glossary (Corpus Christi College MS. 144, late 8th to early 9th century) has the two glosses: "orcus, orc" and "orcus, ðyrs, hel-diobul.{{Harvnb|Pheifer|1974|p=37n}}

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:

File:Beowulf eotenas ylfe orcneas.jpg{{'}}s eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas, "ogres and elves and demon-corpses", inspiring Tolkien to create orcs and other races]]

The meaning of {{lang|ang|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.{{harvnb|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".{{efn|Klaeber here takes orcus to be the world and not the god, as does {{Harvnb|Bosworth|Toller|1898|p=764}}: "orc, es; m. The infernal regions (orcus)", though the latter seems to predicate on synthesizing the compound "Orcþyrs" by altering the reading of the Cleopatra glossaries as given by Wright's Voc. ii. that he sources.}} It is generally supposed to contain an element -né, cognate to Gothic naus and Old Norse nár, both meaning 'corpse'.{{efn|The usual Old English word for corpse is líc, but -né appears in nebbed 'corpse bed',{{cite thesis |title=Moot passages in Beowulf |first=Patricia Kathleen |last=Brehaut |year=1961 |publisher=Stanford University |location=Stanford, California| page=8}} and in dryhtné 'dead body of a warrior', where dryht is a military unit.}} If *orcné is to be glossed as orcus 'corpse', then the compound word can be construed as "demon-corpses",{{sfn|Shippey|2001|p=88}} or "corpse from Orcus (i.e. the underworld)". Hence orc-neas may have been some sort of walking dead monster, a product of ancient necromancy, or a zombie-like creature.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|p=88}}{{cite book |translator=Chickering, Howell D. |title=Beowulf: A Dual-language Edition |publisher=Anchor Books |year=1977 |page=284 |isbn=978-0-3850-6213-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iQLXAAAAMAAJ&q=%22orc-neas%22}}

{{anchor|Lord of the Rings}}

File:The princess and the goblin (1920) (14566641580).jpg's 1872 The Princess and the Goblin. Illustration "The goblins fell back a little when he began, and made horrible grimaces" by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920]]

The term "orc" is used only once in the first edition of Tolkien's 1937 The Hobbit, which preferred the term "goblins". "Orc" was later used ubiquitously in The Lord of the Rings.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1937|p=149, n9}} The "orc-" element occurs in the sword name Orcrist,{{efn|Thorin Oakenshield's Elvish sword from Gondolin.}} which is given as its Elvish language name,{{harvnb|Tolkien|1937|p=62, n4}}{{cite journal|last=Kemball-Cook |first=Jessica |title=Three Notes on Names in Tolkien and Lewis |journal=Mythprint |volume=15 |issue=2 |date=February 1977 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4s0qAQAAIAAJ&q=%22rist%22+%22cleave%22 |page=2}} and glossed as "Goblin-cleaver".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1937|loc=ch. 4 "Over Hill and Under Hill"}}

Tolkien began the more modern use of the English term "orc" to denote a race of evil humanoid beings. His earliest 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.{{efn|Parma Eldalamberon volume XII: "Quenya Lexicon Quenya Dictionary": 'Ork' ('orq-') monster, ogre, demon. "orqindi" ogresse. [The original reading of the second entry was >'orqinan' ogresse.< Perhaps the intended meaning of the earlier form was 'region of ogres'; cf. 'kalimban', 'Hisinan'. 'The Poetic and Mythologic Words of Eldarissa' gives 'ork' 'ogre, giant' and 'orqin' 'ogress', which may be a feminine form. ...]"}} 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). They had similar names in other Middle-earth languages: uruk in Black Speech; 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.

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.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#144 to Naomi Mitchison 25 April 1954 }} He explained that his word "orc" was "derived from Old English orc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability",{{cite book|last1=Gilliver |first1=Peter |author1-link=:en:Peter Gilliver |last2=Marshall |first2=Jeremy |author2-link= |last3=Weiner |first3=Edmund |author3-link=:en:Edmund Weiner |chapter=Part III. Word Studies. Orc. |title=The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary |title-link=The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2009 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bszM-uwEQOkC&q=orc |pages=174–175 |isbn=978-0-19-956836-9}} and

{{blockquote|I originally took the word from Old English orc (Beowulf 112 orc-neas and the gloss orc: þyrs ('ogre'), heldeofol ('hell-devil')).{{efn|In the Cleopatra Glossaries, Folio 69 verso; the entry is illustrated above.}} This is supposed not to be connected with modern English orc, ork, a name applied to various sea-beasts of the dolphin order".{{cite book |first=J. R. R. |last=Tolkien |editor-last1=Hammond |editor-first1=Wayne G. |editor1-link=Wayne G. Hammond |editor-last2=Scull |editor-first2=Christina |editor2-link=Christina Scull |chapter=Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings |title=The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion |title-link=Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings |publisher=HarperCollins |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-00-720907-1 |chapter-url=http://tolkien.ro/text/JRR%20Tolkien%20-%20Guide%20to%20the%20Names%20in%20The%20Lord%20of%20the%20Rings.pdf}}}}

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".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1994|loc=Appendix C "Elvish names for the Orcs", pp. 289–391}}

{{anchor|Uruk-hai}}

Orcs are of human shape, and of varying size.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955}} book 6, ch. 1, "The Tower of Cirith Ungol" 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.

By the Third Age, a new breed of orc had emerged, the Uruk-hai, larger and more powerful, and no longer afraid of daylight. Orcs eat meat, including the flesh of Men, and may indulge in cannibalism: in The Two Towers, Grishnákh, an orc from Mordor, claims that the Isengard orcs eat orc-flesh. Whether that is true or spoken in malice is uncertain: an orc flings Peregrin Took stale bread and a "strip of raw dried flesh ... the flesh of he dared not guess what creature".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954|loc=Book 3, ch. 3 "The Uruk-hai"}}

{{anchor|Half-orc}}Half-orcs appear in The Lord of the Rings, created by interbreeding of orcs and Men; they were able to go in sunlight. The "sly Southerner" in The Fellowship of the Ring looks "more than half like a goblin";{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954a|loc=Book 1, ch. 11 "A Knife in the Dark"}} similar but more orc-like hybrids appear in The Two Towers "man-high, but with goblin-faces, sallow, leering, squint-eyed."{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954|loc=Book 3, ch. 9 "Flotsam and Jetsam"}}

{{multiple image

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|image2=Harvey Weinstein Césars 2014 (detail).jpg

|alt2=A close-up picture of film producer Harvey Weinstein from the shoulders up

|footer=Peter Jackson had an orc modelled on the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein after a disagreement.

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In Peter Jackson's 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.{{cite news |last1=Oladipo |first1=Gloria |title=Lord of the Rings orc was modeled after Harvey Weinstein, Elijah Wood reveals |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/oct/05/elijah-wood-lord-of-the-rings-orc-modeled-harvey-weinstein |access-date=1 December 2022 |work=The Guardian |date=5 October 2021}}

{{further|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 Westron, often with a crude accent, was used as a common language. When Sauron returned to power in Mordor in the Third Age, Black Speech was used by the captains of his armies and by his servants in his tower of Barad-dûr. A sample of debased Black Speech can be found in The 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!" In The Peoples of Middle-earth, Tolkien gives the translation: "Uglúk to the cesspool, sha! the dungfilth; the great Saruman-fool, skai!"{{harvnb|Tolkien|1996|loc=Part One: the Prologue and Appendices to The Lord of the Rings. Draft of Appendix F.}} However, in a note published in Vinyar Tengwar he gives an alternative translation: "Uglúk to the dung-pit with stinking Saruman-filth, pig-guts, gah!"{{cite journal |last=Hostetter |first=Carl F. |author-link=Carl Hostetter |title=Ugluk to the Dung-pit |journal=Vinyar Tengwar |issue =26 |date=November 1992 |publisher=Elvish Linguistic Fellowship}}

{{illm|Aleksandr Iosifovich Nemirovsky|ru|Немировский, Александр Иосифович|lt=Alexander Nemirovsky}} speculated that Tolkien might have drawn upon the language of the ancient Hittites and Hurrians for Black Speech.{{cite web |last=Fauskanger |first=Helge K. |author-link=Helge Fauskanger |title=Orkish and the Black Speech – base language for base purposes |work=Ardalambion |url=http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/orkish.htm |publisher=University of Bergen |access-date=21 April 2023}}

{{anchors|Morality|In-fiction origins: a dilemma}}

{{main|Tolkien's moral dilemma}}

The origins of orcs were explained in multiple inconsistent ways by Tolkien.{{cite encyclopedia |last=Schneidewind |first=Friedhelm |entry=Biology of Middle-earth |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |encyclopedia=The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia |publisher=Routledge |year=2007 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B0loOBA3ejIC&pg=PA66 |page=66 |isbn=978-0-4159-6942-0}} Early works depict them as creations of Morgoth, mimicking the forms of the Children of Ilúvatar. Alternatively, as in The Silmarillion, they may have been East Elves, enslaved, tortured, and bred by Morgoth;{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|p=50}} or, perhaps the Avari, the Elves who refused to go to Aman, turned "evil and savage in the wild".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|pp=93–94}}{{efn|The orcs are described as "foul broodlings of Melkor who fared abroad doing his evil work" in The Tale of Tinúviel.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1984b|loc="The Tale of Tinúviel"}}}}

The orcs "multiplied" like Elves and Men, meaning that they reproduced sexually. Tolkien stated in a letter dated 21 October 1963 to a Mrs. Munsby that "there must have been orc-women".Tolkien (1963). Letter dated 21 October 1963 to Ms. Munsby, cited in {{cite web |last=Gee |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Gee |url=http://greenbooks.theonering.net/guest/files/041305.html |title=The Science of Middle-earth: Sex and the Single Orc |website=TheOneRing.net |access-date=29 May 2009}}{{cite book |last=Chausse |first=Jean |chapter=Le pouvoir féminin en Arda |language=fr |editor1-last=Qadri |editor1-first=Jean-Philippe |editor2-last=Sainton |editor2-first=Jérôme |editor2-link= |title=Pour la gloire de ce monde. Recouvrements et consolations en Terre du Milieu |publisher=Le Dragon de Brume |year=2016 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z6g8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA160 |page=160, n7 |isbn=978-2-9539896-4-9}}{{sfn|Stuart|2022|p=133}} In The Fall of Gondolin Morgoth made them of slime by sorcery, "bred from the heats and slimes of the earth".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1984b|p=159}} Or, they were "beasts of humanized shape": possibly Elves mated with beasts, and later Men.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1993|loc="Myths transformed", text VIII}} Elsewhere, Tolkien wrote that they could have been fallen Maiar – perhaps a kind called Boldog, like lesser Balrogs – or corrupted Men.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1993|loc="Myths transformed", text X}}

Shippey writes that the orcs in The 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,{{harvnb|Shippey|2005|p=265}} or in Tolkien's words from The Monsters and the Critics to serve as "the infantry of the old war" ready to be slaughtered. Shippey states that orcs nevertheless share the human concept of good and evil, with a familiar sense of morality, 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.{{harvnb|Shippey|2005|pp=362, 438 (chapter 5, note 14)}} 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".{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter 153 to Peter Hastings, draft, September 1954 }} The scholar of English literature Robert Tally wrote in Mythlore 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.{{cite journal |last=Tally | first=Robert T. Jr. |author-link=Robert Tally |title=Let Us Now Praise Famous Orcs: Simple Humanity in Tolkien's Inhuman Creatures |journal=Mythlore |date=2010 |volume=29 |issue=1 |at=article 3 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol29/iss1/3 }} Shippey notes that in The Two Towers, the orc Gorbag disapproves of the "regular elvish trick" (an immoral act) of abandoning a comrade, as he wrongly supposes Sam Gamgee has done to Frodo Baggins. Shippey describes the implied concept of evil as Boethian – 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 the Manichean position – that evil coexists with good, and is at least equally as powerful.{{sfn|Shippey|2001|pp=131–133}}

{{anchor|Racism|Alleged racism}}

{{further|Tolkien and race}}

Writers including Andrew O'Hehir and the literary critic Jenny Turner have likened Tolkien's descriptions of orcs to racial stereotypes. In a private letter, Tolkien describes orcs as:{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#210 }}

{{blockquote|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.}}

Writing for Salon.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." 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 an anti-Semite", mentioning Tolkien's letters to this effect. Turner, in the London 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."{{cite journal |last=Turner |first=Jenny |title=Reasons for Liking Tolkien |journal=London Review of Books |date=15 November 2001 |volume=23 |issue=22 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n22/jenny-turner/reasons-for-liking-tolkien}}{{cite web |last=O'Hehir |first=Andrew |title=A curiously very great book |url=https://www.salon.com/2001/06/06/tolkien2/ |work=Salon.com |access-date=3 March 2020 |date=6 June 2001}}

Tally says the orcs are a demonized enemy, despite Tolkien's own objections to demonization of the enemy in the two World Wars.{{cite journal |last=Tally |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Tally |title=Demonizing the Enemy, Literally: Tolkien, Orcs, and the Sense of the World Wars |journal=Humanities |volume=8 |issue=1 |year=2019 |page=54 |issn=2076-0787 |doi=10.3390/h8010054 |doi-access=free }} In a letter to his son, Christopher, who was serving in the RAF in the Second World War, Tolkien wrote of orcs as appearing on both sides of the conflict:

{{blockquote|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.{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#71 }}}}

File:Tokio Kid Say 'Much Waste of Material Make So-o-o-0 Happy! Thank You.jpg's film versions of Tolkien's orcs have been compared to wartime caricatures of the Japanese (here, an American propaganda poster).|alt=Poster showing fanged caricature of "Tokio kid," a Japanese person pointing a bloody knife at a sign that reads "Much waste of material make so-o-o-o happy! Thank you!"]]

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.{{cite book |last1=Rogers |first1=William N. II |last2=Underwood |first2=Michael R. |editor-last1=Clark |editor-first1=Sir George |chapter=Gagool and Gollum: Exemplars of Degeneration in King Solomon's Mines and The Hobbit |title=J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ES0Hs75IVg0C&pg=PA121 |year=2000 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-313-30845-1 |pages=121–132}} In The Two Towers, the Ent Treebeard says:{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954|loc=Book 3, Ch. 4, "Treebeard"}}

{{blockquote|It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman's orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!}}

The journalist David Ibata writes that the interpretations of orcs in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films look much like "the worst depictions of the Japanese drawn by American and British illustrators during World War II".{{cite news |last=Ibata |first=David |title='Lord' of racism? Critics view trilogy as discriminatory |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/chi-030112epringsrace-story.html |work=The Chicago Tribune |date=12 January 2003}} The Germanic studies scholar Sandra 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.{{cite book |last=Straubhaar |first=Sandra Ballif |author-link=Sandra Ballif Straubhaar |editor-last=Chance |editor-first=Jane |editor-link=Jane Chance |chapter=Myth, Late Roman History, and Multiculturalism in Tolkien's Middle-Earth |title=Tolkien and the invention of myth: a reader |title-link=Tolkien and the Invention of Myth | publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8131-2301-1 |pages=101–117}}

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.{{cite web |last=Canavan |first=A. P. |title="Let's hunt some orc!": Reevaluating the Monstrosity of Orcs |url=https://www.nyrsf.com/2015/03/ap-canavan-lets-hunt-some-orc-reevaluating-the-monstrosity-of-orcs.html |publisher=New York Review of Science Fiction |access-date=7 March 2020 |date=2012 |quote=A version of this essay was presented at the International Conference on the Fantastic in 2012.}} A series of books by Stan Nicholls, Orcs: First Blood, focuses on the conflicts between orcs and humans from the orcs' point of view.{{cite web |url=https://www.fantasticfiction.com/n/stan-nicholls/ |title=Stan Nicholls |website=Fantasticfiction.co.uk |access-date=21 February 2009}} 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.{{cite book |last=Pratchett |first=Terry |author-link=Terry Pratchett |title=Unseen Academicals |title-link=Unseen Academicals |date=2009|publisher=Doubleday |isbn=978-0-3856-0934-0 |page=389}}

File:Orc mask by GrimZombie.jpg]]

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

{{main|Orc (Dungeons & Dragons)}}

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."'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." {{Cite news |last=Gygax |first=Gary |author-link=Gary Gygax |date=March 1985 |title=On the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien on the D&D and AD&D games |periodical=The Dragon |issue=95 |pages=12–13}} These D&D orcs are implemented in the game rules as a multi-tribed race of hostile and bestial humanoids.{{cite book|last1=Williams |first1=Skip |author1-link=:en:Skip Williams |last2=Tweet |first2=Jonathan |author2-link=:en:Jonathan Tweet |last3=Cook|first3=Monte |author3-link=:en:Monte Cook |title=Monster Manual: Core Rulebook III |edition=3 |publisher=Wizards of the Coast |date=October 1, 2000 |page=146 |isbn=0-7869-1552-8 |quote=Orcs are aggressive humanoids that raid, pillage, and battle other creatures}} apud {{harvp|MacCallum-Stewart|2008|p=41}}{{Refn|"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". quoted by {{harvp|Young|2015|p=96}}.}}{{Cite web |url=https://oldschoolroleplaying.com/orcs-in-dungeons-and-dragons/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191231184034/https://oldschoolroleplaying.com/orcs-in-dungeons-and-dragons/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=31 December 2019 |title=Orcs in Dungeons and Dragons |last=Mohr |first=Joseph |author-link= |date=7 December 2019 |website=Old School Role Playing |access-date=31 January 2020}}

The D&D orcs are endowed with muscular frames, large canine teeth like boar's tusks, and snouts rather than human-like noses. While a pug-nose ("flat-nosed") was attributable to Tolkien's written correspondence, the pig-headed (pig-faced{{cite book |last=Pramas |first=Chris |author-link=Chris Pramas |title=Orc Warfare |location=New York |publisher=Rosen Publishing |year=2017 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z9xhDwAAQBAJ&q=orc&pg=PA5 |page=5 |isbn=978-1-5081-7624-4}}) look was imparted on the orc by the D&D original edition (1974).{{sfnp|Mitchell-Smith|2009|p=219}} It was later modified from bald-headed to hairy in subsequent editions.{{sfnp|Mitchell-Smith|2009|p=219}} In the third version of the game the orc became gray-skinned,{{cite book|last1=Williams |first1=Skip |author1-link=:en:Skip Williams |last2=Tweet |first2=Jonathan |author2-link=:en:Jonathan Tweet |last3=Cook|first3=Monte |author3-link=:en:Monte Cook |title=Monster Manual: Core Rulebook III |edition=3 |publisher=Wizards of the Coast |date=October 1, 2000 |page=146 |isbn=0-7869-1552-8 |quote=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 {{harvp|Young|2015|p=95}}{{cite book|last1=Williams |first1=Skip |author1-link=:en:Skip Williams |last2=Tweet |first2=Jonathan |author2-link=:en:Jonathan Tweet |last3=Cook|first3=Monte |author3-link=:en:Monte Cook |title=Monster Manual: Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook |edition=3.5 |publisher=Wizards of the Coast |date=July 2003 |page=203 |isbn=0-7869-2893-X |quote=[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 {{harvp|Mitchell-Smith|2009|p=216}}{{Refn|And the "Gray orc" introduced as a race.}} even though a complicated color-palleted description of a (non-gray) orc had been implemented in the Monster Manual for the first edition (1977).{{cite book|last=Gygax |first=Gary |author-link=:en:Gary Gygax |title=Monster Manual |edition=1 |publisher=TSR |date=December 1977 |page=76 |quote=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.}} Newer versions seem to have dropped references to skin-color.

Early versions of the game introduced the "half-orc" as race.{{Refn|Either the D&D first edition or Advanced D&D,{{sfnp|Mitchell-Smith|2009|p=219}}}} 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;{{Refn|Gygax, Gary (1977) Monster Manual, TSR. Also {{harvp|Young|2015|p=97}}, citing this and subsequent editions of MM.}} 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.{{sfnp|Young|2015|p=97}}{{cite book|editor-last=Crawford |editor-first=Jeremy |editor-link=:en:Jeremy Crawford |others=Co-lead design by Mike Mearls |title=Monster Manual: Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook |edition=5 |publisher=Wizards of the Coast |date=July 2003 |url=https://archive.org/details/dnd-5e-handbooks/Monsters%20Manual%205e/page/245/mode/2up |page=244 |isbn=978-0-7869-6561-8}} 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".Moore, Roger E. "The Half-Orc Point of View." Dragon #62 (TSR, June 1982).

The orc for the D&D offshoot Pathfinder RPG are detailed in the 2008 book Classic Monsters Revisited issued by the game's publisher Paizo.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.

Games Workshop's Warhammer 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.{{cite book |last1=Priestley |first1=Rick |author-link=Rick Priestley |last2=Thornton |first2=Jake |title=Warhammer Fantasy Battles Army Book: Orcs & Goblins |edition=6th |publisher=Games Workshop: Nottingham |year=2000 |pages=10–11}} In the Warhammer 40,000 series of science-fiction games, they are a green-skinned alien species, called Orks.{{cite web |url=http://rob-sanders.blogspot.com/2012/03/xenos-seven-alien-species-with-shot-at.html |title=Xenos: Seven Alien Species With A Shot At Conquering the 40k Galaxy |last=Sanders |first=Rob |website=Rob Sanders Speculative Fiction |access-date=1 February 2020}}

Orcs are an important race in Warcraft, a high fantasy franchise created by Blizzard Entertainment.{{sfnp|MacCallum-Stewart|2008|pp=39–62}} Several orc characters from the Warcraft universe are playable heroes in their crossover multiplayer game Heroes of the Storm.{{cite web |url=https://www.destructoid.com/another-orc-enters-the-heroes-of-the-storm-battleground-391319.phtml |title=Another orc enters the Heroes of the Storm battleground |website=Destructoid |date=6 October 2016 |access-date=31 January 2020}}

The orc features in numerous Magic: The Gathering collectible cards, in the 1993 game series published by Wizards of the Coast.{{efn|Wizards of the Coast acquired TSR in 1997, and subsequently published editions of D&D and Monster Manual.}}{{cite web |last=Vessenes |first=Ted |title=Lessons of the Past |url=https://www.theonering.com/news/games/lessons-of-the-past-by-ted-vessenes/ |website=The One Ring |access-date=28 October 2021 |date=8 February 2002}}

In The Elder Scrolls series, many orcs or Orsimer are skilled blacksmiths.{{cite web |last=Stewart |first=Charlie |title=Why the Orcs Could Have a Huge Role in The Elder Scrolls 6 |url=https://gamerant.com/the-elder-scrolls-6-orcs/ |website=GameRant |access-date=13 April 2021 |date=14 September 2020}} In Hasbro's Heroscape products, orcs come from the pre-historic planet Grut.{{cite web |url=http://www.hasbro.com/games/kid-games/heroscape/default.cfm?page=Inside/CharacterDetail&char_id=2&set_id=3&set_type=2 |title=Blade Gruts |website=Hasbro.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614145310/http://www.hasbro.com/games/kid-games/heroscape/default.cfm?page=Inside%2FCharacterDetail&char_id=2&set_id=3&set_type=2 |archive-date=14 June 2011 |access-date=30 October 2017 }} They are blue-skinned, with prominent tusks or horns.{{cite web |url=http://www.hasbro.com/games/kid-games/heroscape/default.cfm?page=Inside/CharacterDetail&char_id=103&set_id=8&set_type=2 |title=Heavy Gruts |website=Hasbro.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110614145317/http://www.hasbro.com/games/kid-games/heroscape/default.cfm?page=Inside%2FCharacterDetail&char_id=103&set_id=8&set_type=2 |archive-date=14 June 2011 |access-date=30 October 2017 }} The Skylander Voodood from the first game in the series, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, is an orc.{{cite web |last1=Ronaghan |first1=Neal |title=Skylanders Giants Character Guide Magic Element Characters From Spyro's Adventure |url=http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/feature/31352/skylanders-giants-character-guide-magic-element-characters-from-spyros-adventure |website=Nintendo World Report |access-date=7 July 2022}}

File:Savage Orc by farmerownia.jpg|Savage orc

File:For the love of waaagh by grundalug.jpg|For the Love of Waaagh!, an Ork from Warhammer 40,000

File:Orc grunt by Lucas Salcedo.jpg|Orc Grunt, an orc from Warcraft

• Haradrim – the dark-skinned "Southrons" who fought for Sauron alongside the orcs
• Orc (slang) – the modern pejorative usage of the word
• Troll (Middle-earth) – large humanoids of great strength and poor intellect, also used by Sauron

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• {{cite book |last1=Bosworth |first1=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Bosworth |last2=Toller |first2=T. Northcote |title=An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary |volume=1 A-Fir |publisher=Clarendon Press |year=1898 |page=764 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oXlii1KgDngC&pg=PA764 }}
• {{ME-ref|Letters}}
• {{cite book |last=Klaeber |first=Friedrich |author-link=Frederick Klaeber |translator=John R. Clark Hall |translator-link=John Richard Clark Hall |title=Beowulf and the Finnesburg Fragment |edition=3 |publisher=Allen & Unwin |year=1950 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pEUkrusVxRIC }}
• {{cite book|editor-last=Lobdell |editor-first=Jared |editor-link=Jared Lobdell |title=A Tolkien Compass |publisher=Open Court |year=1975 |isbn=978-0-87548-316-0}}
• {{cite book|last=MacCallum-Stewart |first=Esther |author-link=Esther MacCallum-Stewart |chapter=2: 'Never Such Innocence Again': War and Histories in World of Warcraft |editor1-last=Corneliussen |editor1-first=Hilde |editor1-link= |editor2-last=Rettberg |editor2-first=Jill Walker |editor2-link=:en:Jill Walker Rettberg |title=Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader |publisher=MIT Press |date=2008 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RMsgSX2JWbAC&q=orc |pages=39–62 |isbn=9780262033701}}
• {{cite encyclopedia |last=Magoun |first=John F. G. |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=South, The |encyclopedia=The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment |year=2006 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=1-135-88034-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=by0dzzQ6m8sC&pg=PA622 |pages=622–623}}
• {{cite book |last=Mitchell-Smith |first=Ilan |author-link=Ilan Mitchell-Smith |chapter=11: Racial Determinism and the Interlocking Economics of Power and Violence in Dungeons & Dragons |editor1-last=Harden |editor1-first=B. Garrick |editor2-last=Carley |editor2-first=Robert |title=Co-opting Culture |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=Lexington Books |date=May 2009 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ar1yUk0aDS8C&pg=PA219 |page=219 |isbn=978-0-7391-2597-7}}
• {{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |title=J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century |title-link=J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century |date=2001 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0261-10401-3 }}
• {{ME-ref|ROAD}}
• {{cite book |last=Stuart |first=Robert |title=Tolkien, Race, and Racism in Middle-earth |publisher=Springer Nature |date=2022 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t0hrEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA133 |isbn=978-3-030-97475-6}}
• {{cite book|last=Young |first=Helen |author-link= |chapter=4. Orcs and Otherness: Monsters on Page and Screen |title=Race and Popular Fantasy Literature: Habits of Whiteness |publisher=Taylor & Francis |date=2015 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FvlWCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA88 |pages=88–113 |isbn=9781317532170}}

• {{ME-ref|TH}}
• {{ME-ref|FOTR}}
• {{ME-ref|TT}}
• {{ME-ref|ROTK}}
• {{ME-ref|Silm}}
• {{ME-ref|BoLT2}}
• {{ME-ref|MR}}
• {{ME-ref|WOTJ}}
• {{ME-ref|POME}}

{{commons category|Orcs}}

• [https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/orcs_pr.html 9 milestones in orcs history. Wired magazine article]
• [http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/archetypology21dec01.html RPG.NET Article about Orcs]

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