Orcs and Goblins! - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Lost One · 11-24-2003, 05:14 PM

Wasn't the idea that Saruman had crossed orcs and men a speculation made by characters in LOTR? I don't recall a definitive 'authorial' statement to this effect, or even an authoritative confirmation by, say, Gandalf. Tolkien may well have meant the reader to accept this, but he liked in some areas to keep a degree of uncertainty, simply to increase the sense of authenticity to his created world.

On another aspect of the thread, I was of the impression that orc or ork was a real Old English word for monster or something similar - in fact I'm pretty sure about this. As a term it certainly wasn't invented by Tolkien (William Blake uses it, for instance), so I'm not quite sure what he was saying in the Hobbit prologue, unless it was just that the word 'orc' is not a synonym for 'goblin'.

11-24-2003, 05:14 PM	#24
Lost One Haunting Spirit Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 67	Wasn't the idea that Saruman had crossed orcs and men a speculation made by characters in LOTR? I don't recall a definitive 'authorial' statement to this effect, or even an authoritative confirmation by, say, Gandalf. Tolkien may well have meant the reader to accept this, but he liked in some areas to keep a degree of uncertainty, simply to increase the sense of authenticity to his created world. On another aspect of the thread, I was of the impression that orc or ork was a real Old English word for monster or something similar - in fact I'm pretty sure about this. As a term it certainly wasn't invented by Tolkien (William Blake uses it, for instance), so I'm not quite sure what he was saying in the Hobbit prologue, unless it was just that the word 'orc' is not a synonym for 'goblin'.