# History of fantasy - orcs

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-fantasy-orcs/97119>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 5, 2001, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-fantasy-orcs/97119 "2001-12-05T22:54:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2001, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-fantasy-orcs/97119/21 "2001-12-06T21:26:00Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by 647 \*  
> **The LOTR was published much later (mid Sixties)**

LOTR was published in the mid 50s.

**Dr. Fidelius** –I love the Milton reference–do you by any chance have a line reference?

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2001, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-fantasy-orcs/97119/22 "2001-12-07T01:19:42Z")

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My guess on why the Hildebrandts came up with those absurd [boar-snout Orcs](http://www.timefold.com/brosimages/captured.jpg): Tolkien has been attacked (quite unjustly) for being a racist, and the basis for this accusation usually cites the race of Orcs as being unredeemably evil and also dark-skinned. To get as far away as possible from this controversy, the Hildebrandts decided to avoid humanoid Orcs and give them completely bestial faces instead, with dark green skin. But that never looked right to me, as the books imply that Orcs are ugly humanoids. Thus when Saruman interbred them with humans, the offspring simply looked like ugly humans and not half-beasts. I pictured Orcs as having round faces with dark gray skin, dull bleary eyes, and snaggle teeth. Not resembling black humans, nor like [boars](http://www.timefold.com/brosimages/siege.jpg), and certainly not with _boar tusks_, for cryin’ out loud.

The movie seems to depict them as somewhat more humanoid than bestial, with what I would call [“movie demon” faces](http://www.tnmc.org/gnews/pics/lotr/orcs01.jpg), though not much resembling any known species, and pale greenish skin. I thought this was an acceptable imaging of what Orcs might look like, although I hadn’t pictured them exactly that way. Note the elongated Elf ears on them, an astute touch, considering that Melkor had originally bred Orcs “in mockery of Elves.”

Tolkien, in the Appendix, suggested that orc-humans are still among us, and that if anyone really wanted to get an idea of what orcs were like, they could simply observe the orc type among modern people. Obviously he meant English people, not blacks. While there is not a shred of evidence for racism anywhere in Tolkien’s writings, he did write explicitly anti-racist statements.

How about William Blake’s [“Orc”](http://www.mindspring.com/~jntolva/blake/uriz20.jpg)? In _The Book of Urizen_ and _America: A Prophecy_, Orc is the son of Los (Urthona). While Urizen (the Old Testament Jehovah) represents cold repression of the natural life, Orc is the fiery personification of wild rambunctious vigor and lust, the spirit of Revolution to overthrow Urizen. Los chains him up as a sacrifice to Urizen, but he breaks the chains, bursts free, and rapes his sister (the daughter of Urthona, representing the land of America) in a mad frenzy of delight.

> [@](#):
>
> \*Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,  
> The hairy shoulders rend the links: free are the wrists of fire;  
> Round the terrific loins he siez’d the panting, struggling womb;  
> It joy’d: she put aside her clouds & smiled her first born smile;  
> As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep. \*

Blake commentators see his name as an anagram for _cor_, ‘heart’. The only resemblance I can see between Tolkien’s Orcs and Blake’s Orc is the “hairy shoulders.”

Now, as for “Mork from Ork”—I’m not even gonna go there.

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**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 2001, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/history-of-fantasy-orcs/97119/23 "2001-12-07T02:11:44Z")

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**Humble Servant** -

_Paradise Lost_, Book XI, lines 834-835

```
                     an island salt and bare,

```

The haunt of seals and orcs, and sea-mew’s clang

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