Now, Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember , I think it was Gandalf saying ... "If every orc ever spawned..." I believe they ARE spawned. But that does not negate the need for females, just the process by which reproduction is achieved. Which brings us no closer to the answer to of the question, I'm afraid. Sorry. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[ April 10, 2002: Message edited by: Raefindel ]

Forty posts regarding the mating habits of the Medieval Northen Orc? I don't think even Marlin Perkins would have delved THAT deeply into the subject.

Sigh. I guess that'll teach me to ask questions like "where are the Orc women" - I guess the subject was kind of loaded after all.

Who is Marlin Perkins, BTW?

Oooops! Birdie gives away her age again. Marlin Perkins was one of those naturalist guys who had a nature show on in the 60s and 70s.

Perhaps I should have said "The Crocodile Hunter". [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I remember good ol' Marlin Perkins (whoops that's my age showing too!) I think we should stick to Marlin - the croc hunter would want to get right in there with the mating orcs and tell us how cute they are!

But crocodiles are cute! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Crocodiles, um, maybe. Orcs, no. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

But, at the risk of adding more absurdity to this thread, the business about spawning (and, incidentally, of all the odd/disturbing images this thread has brought up, I must say a female orc laying eggs like a fish is definitely the strangest) brings up yet another insoluble question: What about the little Orclings???? Do orcs get parental? ...I must say, this is scary on many levels: I'd hate to be raised by Orcs, myself, and one must be careful to stay away from the young ones; Orcs are much worse than bears, I'm sure! Or are they just immediately turned over to some commander so they can be properly raised as good little slaves of the Eye?
I must say, this kind of a childhood, in conjuction with things discussed on
this thread would certainly help to explain why Orcs are so mean and nasty....

--Belin Ibaimendi

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: Belin ]

this is such a completely reandom thread!if u think bak to the film, u c that lurtz appeared to be born full grown(how....?)and that they all seemed to be waiting 4 saruman who immediatly took lurtz away, so maybe the handed-over-to-commander thing is a good theory. how theyre born full grown is still a mystery tho....and not one that i think ill indulge in to deeply....

(hem...I think it's the 10th time I say this this week [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] In LotR-book, the Uruk-Hai weren't created by Saruman and Saruman did nothing but rule over them. Lurtz and all the Uruk-Hai creation scenes were mere additions by Peter Jackson.

Broody orcs-scary [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

LOL...of course we would shudder to think about Orcs 'doing it' but why should they?? If an Orc likes the way he looks, why would he not like it if a female Orc had similar features??
Personally I think that there were not few female Orcs (I cannot remember Tolkien saying anything about numbers??). I do think they stayed away from the fighting though. I also think that although they originally were 'corrupted Elves', they would have to be able to breed....it would be impossible to capture and enslave that many Elves!! I think over time it became normal for a female Orc to have several kids at a time...maybe 3-4 became the norm. I also think that maybe they grew up much faster...there might not be much motherly love so the babies would have to learn to fend for themselves early.
I do not think the Orcs necessarily had harems...I think it more a case of the most desirable women being enticed by the fiercest males...but they took what they could get. I cannot see them being faithful to one spouse can you?? [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] If the kids were weaned early, a female Orc could probably have a brood every couple of years...if you do a bit of maths, you can see that they could thus breed much faster than both Elves and humans, even if the method of procreation was similar.
Maybe I am not squeamish enough, but the thought of Orcs having sex does not worry me at all. What did appall me the first time I read it was how Orcs once came about....I would NOT have wanted to be a female, be it Elven or Human and fall into the hands of the Orcs. (but what they do with their own kind, c'est la vie!)

Can you imagine a female Orc down in a little cave, minding the children, saying, "I am woman, hear me ROAR!!!"? Hahaha!

I saw just the same topic the other day, and i aswered something like I THINK there SHOULD be female orcs. maybe they are like the dwarves or maybe theres no difference between fem and man orcs, they may be uncaring mothers that fight but they have a low standard in the troups.'
But when it comes to the thing, i really dont think there were any of them. maybe tolkien left that out for us readers to figure out on our own.
no one can tell now...

Okay. I can't resist any longer.

I agree with the Ghastly Neeker Breeker and Mithadan. That is, the petri dish thing is an embellishment of the movie; and there had to be female orcs.

Tolkien didn't comment on it because it didn't serve the purposes of his story, and also because to do so would be to talk about something quite horrible. Think about it:

common orcish traits: dominance by means of violence; beastly behavior; every perversion imaginable. My guess is that female orcs were probably slaves with only two functions: breeding and brooding. They were probably a lot smaller than male orcs, because that's the way the ruling orcs would want them; the chieftains and his cronies probably did all the breeding, and there was probably all manner of disease. To be female orc would be a cursed existence beyond all bearing, I'm thinking.

I must admit I wouldn't have read this thread unless I was wanting to play one of twin orcs in an RPG. Any way I did a search and found this in another thread I know this idea has been raised by others but I thought this made it very clear.

It seems to me that the general concensus is that there were female orcs (though this may just be I'm biased to the way I'm being persuaded).

Actually the 'spawning' concept goes rather well with Movie Saruman's breeding pits. The female(s) lay eggs which are fertilized by selected males and the result grows to maturity inside those muddy pouches. No 'childhood' and no family life of any kind.

If I recall correctly from the HoME Tolkien recognized certain, shall we say theological difficulties with the concept of Orcs as corrupted Elves, or Men for that matter. In either case they would have souls and so could *not* be automatically and irredeemably evil - which Orcs definitely are. Orcs therefore *must* be souless, possibly animated by minor evil spirits or the power of Morgoth.

I am officially and thoroughly disturbed now... [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] fascinating topic though...

I felt the need to revive this thread...
This is an interesting thought. I suppose for the most part this would be what happens, but suppose an ickle baby orc wasn't handed over, or was kept aside for a different purpose? Would he still be evil and violent, or would the lack of martial upbringing affect how he behaved?

Yeah. Hey, do you think that orcs would get creeped out talking about humans or elves having sex? Just a thought... [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Abedithon le,

~*~Aranel~*~

I think the idea of Orcs laying eggs is ridiculous......no mammal (except platypus and echidna) lays eggs and I'm quite sure Tolkien knew that. (though not neccesarily the exceptions to the rule.)He surely wouldn't have primates laying eggs,that's for sure.If you ask me,we shouldn't make a fuss and just accept the idea of Orcs "multiplying in the manner of the Children of Illuvatar",wich is the most direct and satisfactory answer you could wish for.

Okay, going by the opinion that LOTR actually happened, the only logical way to create more orcs is to reproduce...so there must be orc women! And if you think about it, the orcs are ruled by "Gorthaur The CRUEL" (a.k.a. Sauron), so I think that he would just make the orc women fight and work too! Let's say there's a 3:1 ratio of orc men to women, then why waste oh.....a couple hundreds of thousands of orcs(if not more) just to make the women nice & comfy. SAURON IS EVIL [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img] , so he would put the women to work!
Of course, that's just my theory... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]