Crude question re: orcs

SuicidalMarsbar · **Joined:** Sun Apr 24, 2011 1:14 am **Posts:** 1712

Basically me and my friends often have this discussion, generally in them midst of our comical dnd sessions (PAINTHAGORAS HALF ORC SCHOLAR!) . What i want to know is, do lotr orcs have any reproductive organs, i know their spawned from a pit etc but still, just wondering

(If the mods wanna remove this thread no problem, i'm just intrigued by this)

GothmogtheWerewolf · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:22 pm

They can probably reproduce asexually. But a guess is the best bet, Tolkien didn't mention this sort of stuff for any race, I think.

Draugluin · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2012 5:20 pm

Right before he died, Tolkien started saying that their were orc women, so they would have reproductive organs if he had had time to rewrite everything. Fortunately, he didn't have the time. I would say that sure they would. They would at the least need the testosterone.

SuicidalMarsbar · **Joined:** Sun Apr 24, 2011 1:14 am **Posts:** 1712

Draugluin wrote:

I would say that sure they would. They would at the least need the testosterone.

That's what i've been thinking, if orcs had none of it then they'd all be as placid as monks and terrible warriors. My main curiosity stems from that tolkein never writes about how orcs enjoy the spoils of their victories. EDITED BY AZOG TO DELETE AN INAPPROPRIATE LINE. Mass effect has also taught me how cross gender reproduction could work. I'm really not a fetishist or anything, i swear; I'm just a bit confused and curious.

Telchar · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2012 7:49 pm

Orcs are terrible warriors, except that you can lose a million of them and just shrug.

Actually, the Orcs never win (in the Silmarillion once or twice, but never where women are involved and not under protection of something real big and real nasty). So they just never get the chance. And aside from that, I don't think Tolkien thought such descriptions added to the literary value of his works...

Oldman Willow · **Posted:** Thu Jul 05, 2012 9:25 pm

Quote:

I don't think Tolkien thought such descriptions added to the literary value of his works..

That as an understatement :shock:

Ares B · **Posted:** Fri Jul 06, 2012 6:11 am

There was also the orc Bolg, son of Azog, which supports the thought that they reproduced the common way.

The way I see it, there were orc women, maybe not as many as men considering their crude lifestyle, and those few who survive hard childhood are kept in breeding pits making and raising little orclings to the age they can pick up a sword and join the rank and file. Wretched life, I imagine. Some females may be more favored by their more powerful mates, like Azog, who raise their sons as their followers, but that's wishful thinking.

Jackson's imagery of Uruks bred in the ground was all wrong, but then he had to quicken the raising of Saruman's army, since he shortened the corruption of Isengard from years to days. It was a nice place when Gandalf rode there, though who knows what was happening in the caves beneath. Maybe the Uruks weren't made in the ground, just rapidly grown there to adulthood.

Draugluin · **Posted:** Sun Jul 08, 2012 2:44 am

Actually, Jackson's imagery was a lot closer to Tolkien's original (ie canon/Silmarillion) way of the orcs reproducing.

RedSquad · **Joined:** Tue May 22, 2012 9:02 pm **Posts:** 17

Thought this might answer your question, quote from the Silmarillion

Quote:

For the orcs had life and multipied after the manner of the children of Iluvatar

Azog · **Posted:** Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:15 pm

Please don't let this thread get out of hand. If it starts going into too much detail then it will be deleted. I've deleted one line from your post SuicidalMarsbar as I deemed it inappropriate for the One Ring. You've done nothing wrong but I decided to pull a particular sentence. Provided this discussion is kept to generalities then that's OK.

On the this topic I think Telchar is correct when he says Tolkien didn't think such descriptions added to the literary value of his works. In the time he was writing it really wouldn't have occurred to him to even consider it it detail. He was a linguist and hence the richness of his world revolved around languages.

You only have to look at the Fantasy genre now to see how our more open society means authors now include more graphical elements of life in their writing. If Tolkien was writing LOTR now I'm sure he would have considered this topic more.

Amarthadan · **Posted:** Sat Sep 01, 2012 12:39 pm

Honestly I think everyone has asked him/herself this question. :p I assumed they do it the human/ elvish way, since they are after all related to the elves.

Crude question re: orcs

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