The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - Are there female orcs, or are they simply androgynous?

Grendel · 05-25-2002, 07:58 AM

I suppose that was more or less my question, Ulairi, i.e. how do orcs reproduce, by nature or artifice? Its true that its not conclusive either way. I just find the idea of artifice appealing as an explanation for the nature of orcs.
Gimli, its the books that refer to them as evil, and since we have only that information to go by, and since all of that information comes from the anti-orc side, we can say that the notion that orcs are inherently evil may not represent the full picture. So the data we have, and thus the books themselves, are biased, as it were, against orcs (perhaps justifiably, perhaps not!!).
As far as I can recall, the word orc is represented as being elvish in origin. It may come from the sound of disgust that the elves made in response to orcs: Haldor of Lothlorien refers to orcs as "yrrch" or something like that (I've lost my copy of LotR so referencing is difficult!).
Goblins are orcs and orcs are goblins, as far as I can make out. The words appear to be interchangeable. The word orc may actually be inspired by an Old English word in the poem Beowulf. "Orcneas" is glossed as 'evil spirits of the dead" and, interesting from the point of view of this topic, is further explained as originating from "the practice of necromancy, by which evil spirits were conjured by means of corpses back from the world of the dead".
Artifice and unnatural selection or what??

05-25-2002, 07:58 AM	#8
Grendel Pile O'Bones Join Date: May 2002 Location: Brittany, France Posts: 16	I suppose that was more or less my question, Ulairi, i.e. how do orcs reproduce, by nature or artifice? Its true that its not conclusive either way. I just find the idea of artifice appealing as an explanation for the nature of orcs. Gimli, its the books that refer to them as evil, and since we have only that information to go by, and since all of that information comes from the anti-orc side, we can say that the notion that orcs are inherently evil may not represent the full picture. So the data we have, and thus the books themselves, are biased, as it were, against orcs (perhaps justifiably, perhaps not!!). As far as I can recall, the word orc is represented as being elvish in origin. It may come from the sound of disgust that the elves made in response to orcs: Haldor of Lothlorien refers to orcs as "yrrch" or something like that (I've lost my copy of LotR so referencing is difficult!). Goblins are orcs and orcs are goblins, as far as I can make out. The words appear to be interchangeable. The word orc may actually be inspired by an Old English word in the poem Beowulf. "Orcneas" is glossed as 'evil spirits of the dead" and, interesting from the point of view of this topic, is further explained as originating from "the practice of necromancy, by which evil spirits were conjured by means of corpses back from the world of the dead". Artifice and unnatural selection or what??