View Single Post
Old 06-14-2003, 12:59 PM   #4
Cúdae
Wight
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Posts: 161
Cúdae has just left Hobbiton.
Send a message via AIM to Cúdae
Sting

Quote:
And, after re-reading the scenes with Shagrat and Gorbag, I think that the orcs strongly identify with the company or regiment or army they belong too. I mean, that doesn't count as a different culture. But we don't know of any non-violent activities of the orcs, so maybe their lifes are 100% occupied by their activities in wars, guardings (tower of Cirith Ungol) or slaughtering themselves. So maybe the army they belonged to WAS their culture (or the only content of their lives).
Coming from a heavily military family and town, I can say that a lot (not all, though) of men and women who've returned from fighting have been altered in their perceptions of "culture." When I think about this and put it beside the orcs, I see similarities. You said that there is the obvious possibly the orcs whole lives revolved around militarial work (wars, fighting, guarding, etc). War would become a lifestyle to them, the same way it does to some soldiers, which would also lead to a certain culture.

I'm not making much sense, let me rephrase.

If war is the center of the orcs' lives, then they would develop a certain "culture" towards or around it. In example, if you look at different aspects of the military (using the US military because it's what I'm familiar with), you'll see different attitudes. For instance, you'll see different attitudes and points of view as you go from Air Force to Coast Guard and so on. You get different jokes, different outlooks on life, different tastes in food, different favorite colors (okay, maybe not colors, but you get what I'm saying), everything. So, apply this to the orcs. Between orc regiment A and orc regiment B, you'd probably find different attitudes, orc jokes (or, whatever equivalent they might have), differences in fighting technique, maybe even differences in food tastes. If they had permanent guards and fighters (as in, group A is for guarding only and group B is for fighting in war only), then you might find differences there and probably larger ones than between two regiments of a fighting army.

I still don't think I'm making any sense. Heh. But I'll leave off there before I go off on a tangent and start really not making sense.
__________________
"And if you listen very hard/ The tune will come to you at last/ When all are one and one is all/ To be a rock and not to roll." --Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven"
Cúdae is offline