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The Problem with Orcs · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:10
  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I spend
• 0:16
  most of my time as an author and screenwriter and very creative person all around, but
• 0:23
  I also direct the centre, so that's what I'm doing here. And joining me today is regular
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  co-presenter Jacob Renica, who is sitting over in, I think it's Seattle, isn't it, Jacob?
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  And it is. Yeah. And Jacob is a Tolkien expert and also involved in the creation of ballgame,
• 0:43
  so having a sort of different creative expression of fantasy. Okay, so what are we talking
• 0:50
  about today? Well, I've been thinking about Orcs as one does. And they are quite a problematic
• 0:59
  aspect of Tolkien's world in many ways. So I thought we would devote today's podcast to a deep
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  dive into the world of Orcs. So just before we get into the Lord of the Rings version of Orcs,
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  I just want to go back to the origin of the word, because some people may not realise that the
• 1:21
  actual word comes from Old English. Of course it does. We're talking about Tolkien. And if you go
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  to the Encyclopedia Britannica and look up Orc, you find there are two routes for the name and both
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  are interesting. So the one which is the less relevant Tolkien is that Orc is a reference to a
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  sea monster, which is from the French Orc or the Italian Orca, which Orc comes from Latin,
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  which is why one of the words for a killer whale is an Orca. So there's an element over like a
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  sea monster, somewhere floating around in that meaning. But Tolkien himself probably reached for
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  the Old English version of this, which means a demon or an ogre. And it appears in Old English
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  in compound words such as Orc Nias, which means monsters in the poem Bearwolf, which we all know
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  was one of Tolkien's favourite and one he spent much scholarly time pondering. Possibly there is some
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  derivation from the Latin word Orc as a god of the underworld. So I think it's that side of the
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  English language that Tolkien was drawing on, but it does mean that he was as ever finding a new
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  meaning for a very old word. So Jacob, help us out. What are Orcs when it comes to Tolkien's world?
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  Yeah, that's a good question. I think Tolkien being very familiar with Norse myth as well,
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  the the Yotun, the giants in Norse mythology. And we thought we had a whole conversation
• 3:06
  you had about giants. Yeah, yeah. So one of the terms that's used for giants,
• 3:13
  the ears, I believe, was translated in Old English using that term, the Orc. So there's a tie
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  between giants, the worldly creatures associated with darkness, underworld death, and Orcs. So
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  yeah, there's the natural natural connection there. Yeah, so Tolkien, it's interesting because
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  one of the things that we see in the Hobbit is that we don't have Orc really there that you have
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  goblins instead, right? And we're told in the Hobbit that Goblin is used kind of synonymously
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  with Orc, and it's actually said to be a translation, you know, Goblin is used as a translation
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  of Orc. And so there doesn't seem to be kind of a clear distinction between these species,
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  Goblin versus Orc. So it can get kind of confusing. Yeah, can we pause there? Because actually,
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  I think Goblin has a very different route. So if you look at Victorian fantasy, like the Princess
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  and the Goblin, so those books, those Goblin does seem more of a folk story figure that's been
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  around. And Orc seems to be coming a little bit from the outside, from the cold of bear wolf,
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  and you know, way back in medieval time, middle English times, no, old English time,
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  sorry, get this right. So I don't buy that as a thing. I feel as though that's not a great translation,
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  because the Goblins in the Hobbit do behave more like Goblins than Orcs with their songs,
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  and they're, you know, they're a bit more cheery. Yeah, yeah. Well, in the two, so you have
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  in two towers, you have like Goblin soldiers that are specifically referred to, right?
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  And but Goblins, whereas I think traditionally in that broader, like Victorian area that
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  Goblins are kind of smaller, but here in two towers, the Goblin soldiers are said to be of
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  greater stature. Like so they're like larger. So it's tough. I don't know, I would love to see a
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  taxonomy of Orcs in general and Goblins and other fel beasts. Okay, so we'll just accept that even if
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  there is a bit of a Victorian blend happening here that what we think of as Goblins under the
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  mountain in the Hobbit are in some way related to Orcs. Yes, right, right, right. Okay, so we'll accept
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  that and we'll move on to Lord the Rings. So let's talk about where they come from, because I know
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  this isn't an easy question. So our Orcs, and we were not talking about Urkaya yet, our Orcs
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  ruined elves. Yeah, it depends, it depends on where you're dipping into Tolkien's writings,
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  right? Like the earliest, earliest origins for Orcs, right? Book of Lost Tales is describing Orcs
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  or Goblins, right? So sometimes Tolkien using those interchangeably are they're coming from a
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  stone, right? They're coming from like subterranean heat and slime, and it says their hearts were
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  of granite in their bodies to form. So they're, they almost seem to be like made out of clay, right?
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  They're like wolves that went a bit wrong or something. Exactly. No, and there's a parallel there,
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  and that's back that comes in a little bit later kind of like it's as Tolkien is teasing out the
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  theological implications of Orcs is comparing them to dwarves, right? Which are different types
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  of creation and sub-creation who's creating them and who's allowed to create and who can give life
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  in Tolkien's world? That's a big issue in Tolkien's mind and why I don't think he ever kind of
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  finally settles down on a specific origin for Orcs in the big picture. But from the beginning,
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  so possible origins, earliest conceptions that Tolkien has are they're just kind of made from stone,
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  kind of like from the earth, but from the, you know, eager places of the world, hotter, slimy
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  places, whereas maybe, you know, Aale is is taking the nice, you know, prettier clay that has
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  really nice tones, maybe some streaks of different colors in there because he's a he's a craftsman,
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  so he's probably taking greater care, whereas Melkor is just kind of really just slapping it all
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  together, you know, okay, so that's the possibility and the underlying principle here is
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  in Tolkien's theology and actually in Charlie and Arwell too, that the origin of life is very
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  difficult to pinpoint and within his theology, only Eru, Illuvitar should be creating life, so
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  when the dwarves are created sort of, you know, on the side, Eru kind of steps in and kind of
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  puts them to sleep for a bit, doesn't he, until the Elsa awake, because they were going to be the
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  first people, so there's a kind of ordering of who creates life, which is where the idea that
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  the Orcs can't be just, you know, snap my fingers and a new race comes to be, the Orcs in a way
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  have to come from somewhere, and so that's why it's not clear and one of the things that is said
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  is that they, and I think it's mentioned again in some of the film versions, isn't it,
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  that they were elves once, possibly, who wandered off in the darkness and got bent and twisted.
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  Right, there's definitely a relationship to elves and in some way she performs, so after chronologically,
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  if you start out with Tolkien, seeing Orcs is created from stone granite heat slime,
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  then in quite a still meridian of 1937, you have Orcs, specifically says that Morgoth is creating
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  Orcs after Morgoth had seen the elves and was making them in mockery of the children of Illuvitar.
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  So, they're not in this version in 1937, they're not
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  deformed elves, but he's kind of copying elves, he sees these elves, and he's like making them not
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  just as a copy, but again, like in mockery of the elves, so like he's doing, oh yeah, you can do this,
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  yeah, I can do it, but worse. And so, but they're still made of stone in that version,
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  they're still not kind of made out of the same flesh and blood, but then you have
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  the annals of Aman in the 1950s, the Tolkien is putting together, and you see that that's where we
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  start having the overtones of elves that have been corrupted and twisted, so that's kind of
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  referencing that enter into Tolkien's, at least in writing. Oh, I didn't realize it was that late.
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  Okay, that's really interesting. Yeah. So, yeah, and so here's from the passage there, it says,
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  you know, all those of the Quendi, the elves that came into the hands of Melkor,
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  Er, Atomno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of cruelty and wickedness
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  were corrupted and enslaved, thus did Melkor breathe the hideous race of the Orkor, which is
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  they were called at that time, in envy and mockery of the Eldar of whom they were afterwards,
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  the Bidris de Fos, and then this is, and this is actually what's then adapted, what follows here
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  is adapted in the published Silmarillion, the Christopher Tolkien publishes, so this is some of
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  this other language that follows will be a little bit more familiar, raises it in their deep dark
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  hearts, the Orkor load the master whom they served in fear and make her only of their misery,
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  and then it talks about, yeah, this maybe was the violist deed of Melkor and the most hateful to
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  Eru, so yeah, this was a bad scene as like being a very bad thing because he's taking existing life
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  and then twisting it to these perverse ends, and so that scene is greater than him just creating
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  something out of stone and being a mockery in the image of, this is actually dealing with life
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  itself, living beings, and that's despicable in this particular, you know, kind of theological
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  framework. So before we go and talk about the different kinds of Ork under the umbrella,
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  do we have any idea how they reproduce because none of the Orcs that we meet seem female, they may be,
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  I don't know, they could be gender fluid or whatever, but is there any sense of,
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  are they in a laboratory, are they spawned like, you know, lava, do we know?
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  This is a good question, well in that same, in the same passage it says, again from this early
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  see the annals of Amman that then is adapted into the Silmarillion section that talks about Orcs,
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  it says, the Orc were had life and multiplied after the manner of the children of Aluvatar,
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  sort of suggestion that they're reproducing biologically there.
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  Okay, so there's going to be some kind of ability to have Orc babies somewhere.
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  Which is quite interesting to think about.
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  Okay, and within that, do we have any sense how long they live, any of that kind of thing?
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  So obviously if they are after the children of Aluvatar, they have a sense of they live an awful
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  long time, or are they more like wolves, again, extended lifetimes, but do die.
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  Do die, yeah, and that again, it appears to be that's an issue that Tolkien's trying to work
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  through because if they are derived from elves, then they're going to have, you know, this serial
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  longevity, right, that they're essentially made of the same stuff, but are they, but because
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  they have been twisted, do they have more limitations placed on them like dwarves where they can live
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  longer lives? We do see, we have examples and we talk, we can talk a later about some of the specific
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  orcs that we have named in different works, but you know, one of them is referred to
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  right, Gorbag says that he lived longer than regular orcs did. So there's, at least there we have,
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  we see that orcs have a particular life span and that this one had a longer life span than most.
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  Yeah, though one suspects there isn't much of a retirement plan for an orc, so it could be
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  that he's, so that could be that he's a survivor and hasn't been killed off in some,
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  no, exactly, exactly. Yeah, so we don't know, I think, it was an element that's, that's probably
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  yeah, and it will, and this, and this depends also, so one of the other avenues that you have
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  that Tolkien is playing with, even in that passage that I mentioned here that said that,
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  you know, orcs were kind of twisted from elves and then multiply after the manner of the
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  children of Aluvitar is in the margins Tolkien wrote, alter this orcs are not Elvish.
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  Okay. So he had written, so he's written both, but that was the one afterwards.
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  There's the idea, right, that so are they are they sentient, they're they're clearly sentient,
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  but there's, you know, you have the this idea of of soul of a rational soul, this they are,
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  the living creatures have, and animals and different types of animals have different degrees of,
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  it's kind of like sliding scale of sentience, right, so you have a huan, you have, you know,
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  is is a dog. The Tolkien dog is one of my favorite actors, a very good dog, right?
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  Who has, right, so he's an animal, but he has speech and like, volition, and then you have
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  to sit simply with the eagles as well, right, so they seem to be set apart from the natural kind of
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  regular beast of the field. And the dragons, they also speak. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, so there's
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  so that this is messy and so to complicate things further, then you have in a appendix to an essay on
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  the quendy and Eldar that Tolkien's writing in 1959 and 60, he says here that there's a
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  cogent point, the horrible to relate, it became clear in time that undoubted men could under the
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  domination of more Gotheners agents and a few generations be reduced almost to the orc level of
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  mind and habits. And then they would or could be made to mate with orcs producing new breeds
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  often larger and more cunning. So you have interbreeding and between different species, not just
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  Elvish or Elvish, but that there's like some sort of crossbreeding that's happening with different.
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  But that would follow if there is some connection to the elves because of course elves and men can
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  have children. So okay, what so we've got we can live with them. We can live with some uncertainty
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  there, but we can see what he's reaching for. He's sort of thinking about these in some way as a spoiled
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  creation. That seems to be a constant thing here. Okay, so going sort of the next level down is one
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  of the things that's very interesting as you read Lord of the Rings is to get a sense of the politics
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  within the world of Octum where you've got Sarah and perhaps breeding with men. I don't know,
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  but he's he's producing a super race, isn't he? The the Uric High who are able to travel under
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  daylight and a bigger and stronger and and they're the ones who run off with Mary and Pippin back
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  or tried to get back to Orsanq and we've got the I suppose the original flavour orks who come out
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  of Mordor. So if we give them names if you're referring to that passage, the original flavour
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  ork is Grishnack and the Uric High is Ugluck and there's clearly tension between those two groups
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  and they all look down on the orks who are coming out of the misty mountains to avenge their captain.
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  So there does seem to be a bit of politics within the orks. Now we can see where the
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  the Uric High are coming from because this you can imagine Sarah and applying his magic to that
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  problem and doing a bit of bioengineering and we and we can see the Mordor orks but then you go
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  to the next level down when you get with Sam and Frodo into the borders of Mordor you find that
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  the original flavour orks are also hugely divided by their jobs and where they're stationed.
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  So you've got the two orks who are the ones carrying Frodo into the tower at Kirith Ongel
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  who are and then there's a big punch up and they kill each other at the two sets of orks but
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  also right and gorebag. Thank you. And then there are two unnamed orks I think a bit later on who
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  Sam and Frodo over here who are tracking them and they are called the soldier and the tracker
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  ones like snuffling along the ground and the other one is sort of like leading him in a way
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  it's like his kind of mind. It's almost like a dog owner type thing except they talk to each other.
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  So Tolkien really did think through his orks aren't all one kind of orks. There's a whole series
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  of a sense of a community if that's the right word but there is a sense of a real politic of orks
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  that gives them a little bit more definition than just the you know the master armies in
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  the UC on the screens when there's a battle sequence in any of the films or whatever.
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  Are there any named orks outside Lord of the Rings like in the Silmarillion? I couldn't think of one
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  but that may be just my ignorance. I couldn't think of any. There is the one who from the Hobbit who
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  who kills the one who became a hero character the hero character in the films.
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  I'm sorry I'm forgetting his name. He's the one who's who Thorin has the big set to battle with so
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  I think there is a couple there who whose names are plucked from the history of the dwarves but
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  there isn't really a lot of focus on orks in Silmarillion as they seem to be you know less of a problem.
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  I mean they are the last ranks but they're not they tend to be more interested in fighting
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  dragons and other sorts of things in the first age. Yeah okay right so moving on before we talk
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  about the actual characterization of orks let's deal with the problem of orks which is
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  the way Tolkien has written about the orks and the period in which he is writing people have
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  begun to relate it across to the whole sort of eugenics movement and sort of ideas of racism
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  the tarring of everybody of the same brush who's of one race you know the lack of differentiation
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  is everybody really all bad in this race you know that stuff. Do you have any thoughts on that
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  at all? Do you think that he's he's a man of his era of course but should we be worried about
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  accepting this great raft of characters as bad guys just because who they're born?
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  Yeah I think this is and I think this is what one of the issues that Tolkien had
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  you know especially later in life is he's thinking through the theological implications of
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  orks and their sentience again are they leaving so what happens when orks die right so if they have
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  a rational soul if if they're derived from elves and their elf ish and that means that
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  they're taken to mandos to the halls of waiting or like that they and then they could be rehab or
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  they rehoused into another body are they not that there is there some sort of you know the judgment
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  placed on them that's what he's trying to figure out and because if they if they are rational if
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  they do have will and they're not inherently evil then what does that what does that mean and so
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  I think he was on he seemed to be very uncomfortable with with just having them all pure evil that
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  because they were you know life even though it was corrupted life that it was still life nonetheless
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  that came from ultimately the creation of arrow eluvitar right that there's something that can't
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  be completely evil in them and so I think yeah so he would he he was wrestling with that question
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  even till the end so I think you see the depictions even in people you know I think you reference
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  this before Julia is Lewis's response to that I don't know if you want to speak to Lewis
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  of the two towers and how he dealt with people already you know fans already having kind of a
• 24:05
  backlash to Tolkien saying that he's too black and white yeah what were you yeah what were you
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  thinking about there no I mean yes Lewis was a very sensitive reader to Tolkien I mean admittedly
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  some of their language now we would find used differently so using swarthy as a sort of negative term
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  for example but putting that aside allowing them to be men from the middle of the 20th century and
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  CS Lewis goes on to say I think some readers seeing and disliking this rigid demarcation of black
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  and white imagine they have seen a rigid demarcation between black and white people
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  looking at the squares they assume in defiance of the fact that all the pieces must be making
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  bishops moves which can find them to one color but even such readers will hardly brazen it out
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  through the last two volumes motives even the right side are mixed and he goes on to say those
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  who are now traders usually began with comparatively innocent intentions heroic Rohan and imperial
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  gondor are partly diseased even the wretched smegel till quite late in the story has good impulses
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  and by a tragic paradox but finally pushes him over the brink is an unpremeditated speech by the
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  most selfless character of them all is referring to you know Sam sort of talking about him sneaking
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  off that bit so I think that that he was aware I think put it like this if Tolkien was writing
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  today he would completely clear away any association that we have with a sort of black and white
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  people aspect to make sure it's absolutely clear because he's not actually doing that
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  and he is when you look at his people on the white squares in this context they are
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  veering around all over the chess chess set chess board so you've got Denner Thor for example
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  who's you know doing a night's move really rather than a bishops move so I think that's quite a
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  good way of looking at it to say to a to not spoil your enjoyment of reading by thinking it's not
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  actually it is more nuanced than you may think and also I'm very pleased that any sort of visual
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  versions of this that we've had in the 21st century have clearly chosen let's not go down
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  as a skin tone route for these people let's make sure that they are sort of neutral in that sense
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  so you get you know very chalk white orcs and you get ones who look like they need a bit of
• 26:39
  sun and you get some who are darker toned and leopard striped you know that's the way to go is to
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  think it's yeah let's not make it into a racial eugenics you know a big let's not let's not ruin
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  orcs get further by doing that to them yeah it's good to be sensitive to it because it absolutely is
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  and it has and it and to be completely fair it has been used by fantasy authors who have picked up
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  on orcs the idea of orcs in those sorts of ways that that weren't nuanced and I mean before going
• 27:15
  to that you know the the film really is written from the elves perspective right yeah and so
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  of their concerns and what their what where their minds are what they're most concerned with
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  you know hobbit lord of the rings talking was very intentional about the frame narrative right
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  who's writing it where it's being translated from right who's passing it on so as a as a
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  linguist and as a scholar he was very concerned about sources and and and aware that
• 27:47
  who is writing and transmitting and translating any story that that's going to filter
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  what the end product is so I I think Tolkien was self-aware enough you're saying Julia that
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  if it was written in these days that he would be very painstaking with people who like
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  capital maybe yeah so but but but but some some people I think have used orcs as an excuse to like
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  perpetuate ideas of like an entire race or or to essentially give you
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  license for a lack of nuance in a character so so the author N. K. Jemisin who's written some some
• 28:34
  really lovely fantasy and sci-fi works somebody asked her why she didn't include creatures like orcs
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  in her fantasy writings and what she said was and I think this gives a glimpse on like how orcs
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  can be used in that very negative sense she says orcs are fruit of the poison vine that is human
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  fear of the other in games like Dungeons and Dragons orcs are a fun way to bring faceless
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  savage dark hordes into a fantasy setting and then gleefully go genocidal on them
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  and that there and then she goes on to say that they're in amalgamation of stereotypes
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  representing a kind of sort of people who aren't worthy of even the most basic moral considerations
• 29:15
  like the right to exist yeah and it does become problematic when it leaks into the real world
• 29:21
  because I have heard understandable from the the point of view of the suffering involved but some of
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  the social media talk about the Ukraine russia context the war there refers to the russian army
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  as orcs and and russia as mortal and you can see why they're reaching for that but the danger is
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  it misses out on the humanity of all the people involved in that conflict even if they're
• 29:49
  in the wrong side of it and that's why that is problematic because of course that's what the
• 29:55
  Nazis did to the people they didn't like you you treat them as subhuman and therefore you don't
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  have to worry about human rights so I think you always check check what you're doing with orcs
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  that's why they're problematic I think moving on from the the racial aspect of this and because
• 30:13
  Tolkien's world is a world where sentient beings are more than one race that's just the way he set up
• 30:18
  his fantasy I think there is grounds for saying there is a classist aspect to the way he characterises
• 30:26
  orcs so you could actually look at it if you're going to complain you could say why do they all speak
• 30:32
  like union reps who from sort of mining communities up north or something there is an element of that
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  so when we do see the individual walks arguing there's a lot of sort of oil gore you know all that
• 30:51
  stuff and what when they do talk it does sound like a union meeting that's gone wrong where they're
• 31:00
  complaining to each other so I'm just looking at in the two towers and when they're about to be
• 31:11
  struck down by Rohan they're all sort of arguing about and you know what they should be doing
• 31:18
  in their strategy but it's all sort of in what I recall it's quite a new one thing but in English
• 31:27
  in English it sounds like what you might do for a working class person you look to get to others
• 31:35
  and stand guard over them they're not to be killed unless the filthy white skins break through
• 31:39
  understand as long as I'm alive I want them but they're not to cry out and they're not to be rescued
• 31:45
  you know so it's kind of thug speak yeah it's thug speak so they don't that where is all the you
• 31:52
  know the refined gondor people say very leydine that thou shalt do this and the other
• 31:57
  he's gone that way and again in the return of the king when we've got the
• 32:04
  really interesting insight to what the orcs know about the war that's one of my favorite passages
• 32:10
  when these unnamed orcs are talking the big orcs he's saying not much you saw you you little snufflers
• 32:19
  I reckon your eyes are better than your snottie noses then what have you seen with them snob the
• 32:26
  gond you don't even know what you're looking at who's the blame for that said the soldier not mine
• 32:33
  that comes from higher up and he goes on to explain the rumours that the common soldier is getting
• 32:39
  from what's happening over in baradur and elsewhere so this is where it kind of humanizers
• 32:46
  is the wrong way but you get a sense of their labor rumbles and their policies and it does seem
• 32:53
  to me taken from he's got like gone he's going for a working class commoners dialect for the orcs
• 33:02
  so there you go a little bit of um issue there perhaps but it's a translation isn't it of course
• 33:11
  it's a translation so we can blame the translator so do you have a favorite orc so we've got
• 33:19
  go back uh ugluck uh shagra you got mugg birds yeah do you have a favorite snaga yeah so it's
• 33:31
  interesting I think so so snaga is sometimes used as like a derogatory term by urukai for some of the
• 33:43
  other you know lower cast uh orcs um but it's also a proper name for one of the orcs who brings
• 33:53
  pippin and marie to isengard and the proper name of another orc who mistakes samford elf warrior
• 33:59
  and the tower of serothungal so it's like the name like steve or john like a common name right so
• 34:07
  well maybe it's like like tit or maggot or something you know it will speak to us short means like
• 34:13
  like that yeah um i think my favorite is um i actually like ugluck because he he he is basically
• 34:23
  arrogant of the urukai he has you know he he's aware of his own greatness we are the fighting
• 34:30
  urukai you know he's got a real sense of um his importance which I rather like you know he's sort of
• 34:38
  pontificate so you get a real sense of this commander who really thinks is the bee's knees uh
• 34:44
  money so here's my favorite of all the orcs my favorite well yeah i think that works it's not
• 34:49
  enough but it's not from the books it's it's unique to the film as alerts who's that urukai the nasty
• 34:55
  one that has the kind of one-on-one fight the one who's you know peppering uh uh
• 35:00
  uh bore a mirror with with arrows and who has that one-on-one fight with with air a gorn at the end
• 35:07
  yeah he is very fine i mean he we were doing the books but because the other one in um the p2jaxon
• 35:13
  version is the commander figure who has the sort of um very disformed head yeah yeah i forgot
• 35:22
  his name someone not listening to someone who knows his name um but he again has his own
• 35:28
  he's got you know you can see the p.o.v their point of view of that orc looking at his job is
• 35:33
  got to get done and how are these idiotic gondor cavalry are just riding into his guns you know
• 35:39
  you can see the the the world from his point of view which makes them rise up to
• 35:46
  more of a rounded character but those are inventions added in for the film aren't they i think
• 35:53
  yeah that's got goth mark by the way goth mark thank you yes um okay so
• 36:01
  moving on to um the film version as we've touched on how they've been characterized as
• 36:09
  trying to get away from a skin tone shorthand which would be objectionable
• 36:15
  on the whole the the orcs from more door are less handsome if we're allowed to sort of an all
• 36:21
  handsomeness scale whereas the the ones from um all thank are quite you know they've got some fine
• 36:32
  the actors to sort of fill out those suits should we say like lurs and others so they're
• 36:37
  more handsome versions um dipping back into the hobbit and this is where you need to google again
• 36:47
  for me in the name of the the the one who fights um soren um he and his son both have quite a
• 36:57
  sort of big part in those films trying to give their point of view um is it lurs the son
• 37:06
  they've azog azog that's it yeah yeah um but there was quite a lot of criticism of that character as well
• 37:13
  people didn't warm to it as i um i mean there was some problems with the overextension of that
• 37:22
  that series anyway but i don't know i don't think they really worked as well as the lord of the rings
• 37:29
  version of the the orcs um for some reason and i can't work out why maybe it's because we don't
• 37:38
  i i i don't know i think the problem about those films is the the real real enemy is smoug
• 37:46
  for most of the film and then smoug dies and then we get the battle of the five armies that's
• 37:51
  one of the structural problems of the hobbit um which is seen as you go into a film that if
• 37:56
  was it broken back so the drama with the orcs or the goblins or whatever recording them
• 38:02
  is a bit disconnected from the smoug threat i don't know so i can see why it was difficult to film
• 38:10
  what would you have done yeah i don't know i don't know i'd quite like to recap that film and just
• 38:16
  keep it to the Tolkien material and see what it looks like and there's there's people that have
• 38:21
  done that that have done yeah the hobbit yeah the billbo cuts they've done yeah they're taking the
• 38:25
  the all three films and cut it down to essentially the length of a single film where it's really
• 38:30
  I think i'd like that you closer yeah yeah um i just i like you know the acting and everything is
• 38:36
  and the look that it's fine it's just somehow it doesn't quite mesh yeah so moving from the hobbit
• 38:44
  um to the rings of power a version of this yeah i actually think this is some of my favorite
• 38:52
  awk material because the the character who's like the um the spoiled elf who's trying to stand up
• 39:01
  for the orcs in that really interest me is one of the most interesting bad guys um again i'm going
• 39:08
  to have to google his name uh i don't thank you i don't know what's wrong with my brain today i do
• 39:13
  i've had a long day that's what we did um but that to me seems to be a kind of that's what you need to
• 39:23
  do with orcs if you're doing a modern writing so well done the the screenwriters there um rather than
• 39:29
  just a drop in orcs as they were originally put into orderings if you're going to talk about more
• 39:33
  of their origins from um the second age that is the interesting stuff to do is is they are fighting
• 39:40
  for their survival uh it's taking those seeds of the industrial discontent of the mortal orcs
• 39:47
  and looking at them earlier as they're founding their empire um so did you like Adar did you
• 39:53
  enjoy it yeah no i did and i like the whole conversation there is a camera for his episode
• 39:58
  so seven uh when you have Adar when he's you know tied up um gladriel is uh this you know captured him
• 40:07
  and he's kind of inside that barn uh being tied up and talking to her again telling her that
• 40:14
  you know like well orcs uh are really you know the just elves really were all the same and then
• 40:20
  he then he gives a theological argument right that they're uh that were all creations of
• 40:29
  the louvatar and so we put on equal footing and say why why are you so much better than these living
• 40:36
  creatures and so he i think they do you're right the the writers do raise some really interesting
• 40:42
  and i think significant moral questions there and the difference between how much of a difference
• 40:47
  is there really between orcs and elves is it nature is it nurture right is it the environment
• 40:55
  that they're that they're raised in um but they clearly have uh you know a tendency towards
• 41:02
  worship right so they're they're kind of treating this adar character as you know quasi divine in a
• 41:08
  sense right they prefer to do something yeah and they have easier like when the um in episode
• 41:13
  i think it was two another three because that's my first you see adar at the end of two you see
• 41:19
  adars blurry at the end of two and then three uh or is it three and four but when you first see adar
• 41:25
  and then you uh they're the the orc camp um uh when erandyr is captured with the other ones and
• 41:31
  that little kind of like slave camp where they're trying to hue down the trees uh one of the orcs
• 41:37
  dies right and so you almost have like a like funerary ritual uh that he does on them so you have
• 41:44
  this kind of which is a you know oddly tender moment right where you see or if he was diagnosed
• 41:50
  the orc was dying right and then adar like ends his life but does so in a tender way um so it's
• 41:57
  kind of like a ritual death end of life where the the orc wanted that to come from this character so
• 42:05
  you have more of a sense of like a culture right um a sense of a worldview that they're fitting
• 42:12
  within and that they're living within that is different from yours but for them you see that it
• 42:18
  is compelling and encompassing in a way that they find meaning yeah in a sense um and that's something
• 42:25
  we haven't really seen before um so i i like you yeah i did really appreciate uh seeing that
• 42:31
  from a kind of a cultural perspective yeah and then so just moving on slightly from um
• 42:36
  the sort of screen versions just we need to recognise um that there are some book extensions of this
• 42:44
  um like the stan nickles uh series called orcs i haven't read it actually i don't know um i
• 42:51
  was just reading about it and i was aware of it um and it seems to have really like a fun
• 42:56
  satirical take with the orcs being uh sort of boisterous heroes and the humans being the
• 43:03
  you know the enemy um so and you were mentioning you also see orcs in spin-offs in um dungeons and
• 43:10
  dragons and of course in um those kind of video games and so on so people are asking those questions
• 43:19
  and finding out what they think an orc might be in other worlds in other no
• 43:26
  so all the fantasy worlds should we say well and interestingly without the dungeons and dragons it was
• 43:30
  uh 2020 uh dungeons and dragons wizards of the coast kind of revisited their race system uh right
• 43:39
  for characters and in uh 2021 specifically are talking about seeing like races like orcs goblins
• 43:48
  and dark elves usually they were identified as typically evil uh right it's just like the default
• 43:53
  is evil but now it specifically says that any of the any of those races they may be good or
• 44:00
  evil as defined by how they're acting um and according to the will of the player that's playing them
• 44:06
  so okay they're they're being more sensitive to some of those possible
• 44:11
  abuses of taking those races and uh you know essentializing them as evil as the after whatever
• 44:20
  the ones you don't have to worry about right right yeah okay so thank you and i think we have
• 44:26
  done our deep dive into the problem of orcs and uh i certainly learned quite a few things i hope
• 44:32
  that's helpful to people who are listening and we always end with wearing all the fantasy worlds
• 44:38
  is the best place for something and it's absolutely obvious that we have to decide where is the best
• 44:44
  place to be an orc so Jacob have you had a chance to think about this where would you like to be an
• 44:53
  orc i'm sorry and i think i think i just i have to say middle earth because it's middle earth
• 45:00
  and like at least even if i was an orc at least i would be in middle earth it would be a rock line
• 45:06
  it would be it would be it would be it would be hard to be difficult i'd talk with you know i
• 45:13
  i'd sound like a the union uh leader and i'd be organizing the labor to the strike
• 45:20
  but at least like the landscape at least how talking describes the landscape like what i would be
• 45:25
  marching across and where i would be if i it was a snuffler or whatever at least the landscape
• 45:32
  would be gorgeous uh so i'd have to content myself with the entire landscape yeah yes exactly
• 45:39
  that's where i came down that's why i the suppose i'd have to do exactly the only way i can get
• 45:44
  there it's as an orc so be it i would go to middle earth even if it was just as an orc
• 45:49
  yeah it's like the worst economy glass ticket you could get um i think i've been thinking about this
• 45:56
  and i think that it's not much fun being an orc in middle earth because because everyone hates you
• 46:00
  and they're trying to exterminate you um and so i thought i'd go back to the original worlds
• 46:07
  of orc to the old english orc and i would fancy being an orc some monstrous demon figure living
• 46:14
  in the forests of europe um a bit like you know grendel from bear wolf just going about my orcish
• 46:21
  business in that kind of world you might last a bit longer and i might even turn myself into
• 46:28
  something like the lockness monster eventually you know just kind of hide out in my monstrousness
• 46:33
  so i'm going back to you know those those forests of europe to the original orc
• 46:39
  thank you jake of um for talking about the problem of orcs and i look forward to talking to you
• 46:45
  next time do you have do it do you have a tip for us oh thank you for reminding me yes so i think
• 46:53
  the tip the relevant tip here is about how to write villains and one of the things that the orcs
• 47:02
  present is the problem about um having swathes of people who are villainous one of my favorite quotes
• 47:10
  from um Terry Pratchett is about dark lords and he says dark lords should be rationed
• 47:17
  and i think orcs are part of the same economy you should ration the kind of number of orcs that
• 47:23
  you think up for your world and if you want to write in a modern vein think about the point of
• 47:29
  view of your characters who you've put as other to make sure you're not falling into the track of
• 47:36
  having a set of expendable people who are your cannon fodder i just don't think our modern time
• 47:42
  likes that wants that and i don't think we should be doing that um if they're sentient and
• 47:49
  all those things so that is my tip is to learn from the orcs that we'd have to write them differently
• 47:54
  today how about you we got a tip we want to share with us i do i just i stumbled across something
• 48:00
  earlier this week uh going back to rings of power and orcs there and how they're portrayed there um
• 48:06
  the i mentioned uh last time uh the podcast series the rings of power official podcast so they had an
• 48:14
  episode um with bear mercury who does um the composing uh for those series beautiful um he started
• 48:21
  doing a deep dive into his composition for each of the episodes on his blog so bear mercury.com
• 48:30
  and you go to that main page and you can uh select he has uh lord of the rings right now he's just on
• 48:35
  episode one but if you look at that he talks through kind of the theory of um of coming up with
• 48:42
  those different themes he has translations of the different you know the music you know people
• 48:49
  here seeing they're searing you're singing in quenya he has you know english translation of the
• 48:53
  quenya he also has english translation of you know here orcs uh chanting in the black speech
• 48:59
  and you have the english translation of that here um along with the full musical accompaniment so if
• 49:05
  you want to on your piano so yep do they see your piano behind you you can turn around and
• 49:11
  just by playing the the orcish yeah the orcish chant you can start uh uh start tickling the
• 49:17
  ivories there um and singing your own black speech uh you can certainly do that courtesy of
• 49:23
  bear mercury.com um and it's it's fascinating and if you enjoy it is it's really special seeing
• 49:29
  how much thought um uh and care went into his crafting of the musical setting for the world so
• 49:39
  just as much you see how much care was put into the the physical setting right the the environment
• 49:46
  the clothing and everything there um you can see that spelled out wonderfully here in the music
• 49:53
  and it really helped me taking a greater appreciation for um what's being added there so now
• 49:59
  as i'm relistening to the soundtrack as i see it um i'll certainly be doing so um from a place
• 50:05
  that i'm enjoying appreciating um and getting one more out of it that's a very good tip thank you
• 50:11
  for showing that and uh i will certainly be going and having a look at that myself right so thank
• 50:17
  you for talking about the problem of orcs and for your special tip and i look forward to speaking
• 50:22
  to you again next time
• 50:26
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• 50:35
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