#102 Sun (10/2/22) - On Orcus gobelinus, the common orc

 In Rings of Power, the character Adar is presumably a corrupted elf, who thinks of himself as an Uruk, and is called "Father."  He admits to being one of the first such produced by Morgoth.  The show is gaining some comments regarding the fact that the orcs are not presented simply as faceness nameless evil drones.  But Tolkien never presented them this way.  When encountered they often had names, disputes, grievances, appetites, preferences, a chain of command, a hierarchy. Goblintown in the Hobbit had a king.

I remember thinking when I was an undergrad studying history, that the presentation of the goblins and orcs in Tolkien were a case of history written by the victors.  Since they are depicted so loathsomely, the true appearance had to be something much more humanlike. Tolkien says he imagined something like the Mongol hoardes.  Mongol soldiers were described as dog-faced when first encountered by Europeans. The spoke an incomprehensible language, acted in a barbaric, cruel manner, and had strange customs and practices. The were unstoppable in war and seemed limitless in number.  

For the enemy, two characteristics must be combined; individually they are weak, cowardly, and totally lacking in honor, but in their multitudes they are fearsome, unstoppable and relentless.  They are like a wave crashing against the shore.

I wondered how could such overwhelming multitudes be produced in a medieval era? Armies require logistics.

The land of the orcs, Mordor, is a vast wasteland, filled with ash. There are no cities, only fortresses and army camps. Where are the farms and factories, where are the cities, where are the vast breeding pits and nurseries for the huge armies? Underground perhaps?  

What do orcs eat? It is implied that they eat meat, both man-flesh and other orcs if needed. This would lead to absurd levels of attrition if it is the standard fare. They admit to eating 'maggoty bread.'  The Mongols ate mostly mutton and lamb, but preferring horse-flesh, they also drank milk, chiefly from sheep, but preferring mare's milk.  Herders mostly subsist on the products of the herd, milk and meat. The Maasai of east Africa supplement their milk with blood from the cattle and also millet or other grains. 

I could easily imagine the orcs supping on porridge or gruel made from some kind of grain mixed with blood and milk, with some mutton or other meat if available.  I could also imagine that fungi, especially  mushrooms would be a regular diet along with grubs, slugs or snails, since these would be easy to grow underground.  

Cannibalism is not an effective or sustainable source of sustenance. To presume that orcs exist in this state by choice is mere hearsay. 

Is war the natural and exclusive occupation of the orc? Again Mongols made effective warriors because when not at war, they herded and hunted. They were essentially training for war all the time. It was coterminous with their lifestyle. Perhaps the same could be said for the orcs, but it is unclear what they would herd or hunt. They seem to look and act more like a rabble of medieval peasants. They do not seem like professional soldiers, until much later, when they march in formation with banners, signals and officers (also orcs). Is there an orc officer class? Officer training school?

Tolkien was concerned with the morality of the orc, and tried to decide was he just a mindless evil slave, a brute animal, a corrupted elf, or a creature bred solely to die in war. Was he birthed out of mud pits, or were there orc females, mothers? 

With all respect, I think that for a young British soldier at the front, in WWI, the orcs would seem exactly like the enemy that emerges out of the fog and smoke, mindlessly charging your positions, covered in filth, mud and blood.  It is impossible to imagine them coming from civilized homes, having mothers and Sunday lunches, reading newspapers, going to University, working on farms or in tailor shops. They become faceless implacable, cannibalistic enemies, with a guttural, nonsensical speech and dining on rats and vermin. 

I think another possible referent for orcs in the western imaginary is actually the Vikings as seen by Britons or Irish. Marauding warbands of psychopaths, who routinely murder the unarmed, take slaves and seem to have a voracious appetite for rape, pillage and gold; who sack towns and burn everything before disappearing back to sea. (Sea People). Look at how they were depicted in "the Secret of Kells, very orc-like.

Some say orcs are supernatural beings like fairies and therefore don't have concerns like food, shelter,  economy, housing, employment or procreation, but if that is the case, so are the dwarves and elves.  And we can imagine lives and livelihoods for them.

The D&D book for Mythology lists gods for Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Kobolds, etc. Do they have a religion?

The wikipedia page for Orc, lists some of the moral dilemma faced by Tolkien regarding whether orcs are irredeemably evil.  It shows how he modified the origin tale for orcs and never did definitively settle it.

Kirill Eskov's The Last Ringbearer reimagines the entire scope of the War of the Ring and proposes that Aragorn and Gandalf were war-mongering imperialist monarchists, and that Sauron and the orcs were scientific progressive communists or something.

Eskov bases his novel on the premise that the Tolkien account is a "history written by the victors". Eskov's version of the story describes Mordor as a peaceful constitutional monarchy on the verge of an industrial revolution, that poses a threat to the war-mongering and imperialistic faction represented by Gandalf (whose attitude has been described by Saruman as "crafting the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem") and the racist elves. (wiki)

Benedicte Page, writing in The Guardian, states that the book is well-known to fans in Russia, and that it is based on "the idea that Tolkien's own text is the romantic legend of the winning party in the War of the Rings, and that a closer examination of it as a historical document reveals an alternate version of the story."