Orc intergration after the War?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Also, when the Eldar first espied Orcs in Beleriand they took them for Avari gone wild.

-and-

Originally Posted by Mithadan

Perhaps, after the passage of time, any physical corruption might have faded so that they appeared to be more like Men. Again, rank speculation.

I have to wonder just to what degree orcs were physically different from Elves or Humans.

They couldn't have been all that dissimilar if the Elves in the First Age originally thought that orcs were wild Elves.

Of course, Elves in the First Age seemed to suffer from an odd form of myopia because they also mistook the Petty-Dwarves for animals...

Still, the instances of specific description that we get seem to indicate that orcs could be expected to be short and squat with proportionally longer arms than one would find on an Elf or Man. If one is following the bestial theory of orcish origin, this clearly suggests an ape as being the original breeding stock.

I can only recall one specific place where an orc (and it was just one that seemed to be described this way) was described as "fanged." That was by Pippin during the first stage of his captivity where the "yellow-fanged" orc was one of Pippin's guards and was subsequently killed by the Isengarders.

Out of this one passage the idea that all orcs have massive fangs or tusks seems to have grown in the popular imagination to the point that when one says "orc" that is just part of the mental image.

Does anybody else recall another instance where an orc is described as "fanged?"