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Originally Posted by Lalwendė
You know what? I'm sure that the plug-ugly Orcs we saw in the films have made us all think that Orcs resembled re-animated corpses or something, when they were probably just a bit ugly.  I must look this up and see what I think...
Because it's something on the inside of an Orc that makes them nasty. |
I think you're right. Although the Orcs were no George Clooneys or Brad Pitts they weren't Frankenstein's monster either. As I said earlier, "half-orcs" and similar could infiltrate human societies so the real deal couldn't have looked
that monstrous. Actually I remember reading somewhere a more direct description of how they looked like. Gonna try to Google it...
Ok, here goes, it's apparently from the letters:
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Originally Posted by Letter #210
: "Orcs are 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."
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Oh dear. Well, I suppose they did look like ugly humans after all. Poor sods.
There's also this phrase from the Silmarillion:
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Whence they came, or what they were, the Elves knew not then, thinking them perhaps to be Avari who had become evil and savage in the wild; in which they guessed all too near, it is said
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If the Elves thought them to be Avari gone evil and savage in the wild the Orcs can't have looked or behaved all that different to themselves, I reckon.
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Originally Posted by Lalwende
I also wonder whether a redeemed Orc might look quite so ugly? It's not easy to imagine one of PJ's re-animated corpse zombie Orcs being redeemed and sitting in Ithilien pressing flowers but it might not be so unimaginable if that Orc wasn't such a pig, eh?
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That's quite a picture you're painting and yes, it's very hard to imagine that Lurtz fella picking flowers and reciting poems haha.
And yeah, it's easier picturing a redeemed Orc if he or she mind you looked less monstrous. But that says more about us then them I suppose.