h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So then this explains the orcs in the Hobbit, who were also called goblins in the book at times, I think. They were temporarily without a master but still carried on wreaking death and destruction. In a sense creating their own orc society until they were called back to serve.

But how did they reproduce?

az

I just cheated and had a look in Robert Foster's 'Guide'. He claims there's no mention of female orcs and that they are 'spawned'. No more detail than that, I'm afraid.

Yes, I had been thinking the Rohirrim had done some post battle slaughtering too - the battle that happened between the plain and the Ent forest.


That was my feeling about the orcs - that rather than being a distinct people they were dependant on the metaphysical power of their creator in someway. And that they had no personhood of their own.

Although I have been thinking about the point being made of racism - what happens if a race of people is created that _is_ largely or wholely evil. How do other peoples deal with that ethically?

Was Tolkien deliberately making the Orcs all evil so that he could explore that theme of corruption, or was he oversimplifying the 'species'?

Has anyone read Joan Slonczewski's The Wall Around Eden, where she looks at what happens to human and other cultures when the nanotech 'lifeforms' gain enough sentience to not want to be servants anymore. The things we normally think of as not living or needing to be valued so highly.

Trin:

Yes, I think it does go back to the original question (but then, I would, wouldn't I.)

Az:

Exactly. When left to their own devices, they set up their own little attempt at society. As such, they seem to be something of a threat to world peace, which is somewhat at odds with the scattered ant-hill description from the Return of the King.

As to how they reproduce: I suspect it is in a manner similar to the Dwarves. We don't hear a lot about Dwarf women, either. But I think it is safe to assume that Orc women exist. Tolkien does mention orcs "practicing procreation" in that little essay from the 50's that I posted above.

hi Trin,

<

I don't believe the Tolkien stories are genuine mythology. They are certainly made up of borrowed mythologies from just about everywhere, which adds to the wonderful story-telling. But I don't think there is any mythological reference in Tolkien's books that haven't been borrowed from past myths.

Unless someone else can come up with an example?

az

Trin:

"I just cheated"

I prefer to cheat with Tolkien's own words. But I'm fortunate to have all 14 posthumous volumes sitting on the shelf next to me.

At the end of chapter 3 in The Two Towers the Rohirrim 'hunt down' the remaining orc raiders. And the point is made that no news ever makes it back to Mordor or Isengard about the raid.

Don't a whole lot of orcs get driven into the Ent forest that moves to Isengard? Or was that men too?

Azahar - not mythology, but an attempt to simulate it as nearly as possible, drawing, as you say, on all kinds of different sources.

But that doesn't apply to the style perhaps, which is homogenous and clearly a product of its time. So, it's part mythos, part modern novel and that does seem to be part of the problem here: that its substance advertises something multiple and flexible (a vast mythology with lost of loose ends and plenty of room for manoeuvre), while its form advances claims to singularity and authority (this is the text and there are no other versions)

So when Jackson's film gets praised for its fidelity to the text (and is criticised where it seems to fall away from it), this actually is the problem: that he does what a film adaptation of a novel should do, but not necessarily what a film drawing on mythology might.

>>Exactly. When left to their own devices, they set up their own little attempt at society. As such, they seem to be something of a threat to world peace, which is somewhat at odds with the scattered ant-hill description from the Return of the King.<<

Wouldn't the greater collpase of the orcs at that point be related to the destruction of the Ring and the fact that Sauron was more utterly destroyed then than he had been in the past?


>>As to how they reproduce: I suspect it is in a manner similar to the Dwarves. We don't hear a lot about Dwarf women, either. But I think it is safe to assume that Orc women exist. Tolkien does mention orcs "practicing procreation" in that little essay from the 50's that I posted above.<<

Where do you think Forster's reference to spawning come from?

He also mentions the half-orcs - half orc, half man. How Tolkein imagined that happening (or the elves for that matter) I don't know

~~

In terms of the women - Dwarf women are mentioned in Middle Earth, but orc women aren't ever?

>>I prefer to cheat with Tolkien's own words<< So would I! But, hey, life is short

That also seems very relevant, though - if this were a discussion of some other mythology, Greek for example, then you might quote from Ovid in support of a particular point, but wouldn't necessarily feel constrained to accept that Ovid's is the only version, indeed you'd need to take other versions into account, even to infer that those existed ... Whereas, with Tolkien, this is the version and there aren't any others.

Kea >>Where do you think Forster's reference to spawning come from?<<

All it says is "Orcs were said to spawned" - no references, no footnotes (said by whom? Robert Foster's mum? )

Sorry - that should read "Orcs were said to be spawned"

I never saw any references in the books to female orcs or to orc children. Which is why the scene in the film of the Uruk-hai warrior being 'born' or 'hatched' full-grown seemed to make sense to me.


az

I have a copy of Foster ...I don't suppose you want to look up all his Tolkien references to see if it's in that?



btw Trin, you haven't seen Lou and Davie around have you? It's that time of night again

*Checks watch* I've got Lou's mobile number round here somewhere ...

i am not relegious in any way.
i have no specifc problem with homos apart from.
execive puplic demontrations of 'gay pride' can cause the corruption of weak minds.
theres a lot more to it than that, but you cannot deny that some people in the world sleep with same sex because it is 'fashionable'.
sorry ppl, its just another human deviancy that needs to be suppressed.
I dont think that in the persuit of ultimate intelect, we should not allow our base instincts to control us but for us to control them.
now if you would please read my earlier posts to get the full picture.
i have never been in here before this stint, and when my work is done you may very well not from me again for another 10 or 20 years.
some people dissagree with what i am doing, some dont think i have the right, some dont think i have enough education(me included, im working on it).
if i dont believe in a god, why would i care about whos right it is to claim a barren planet and terraform it for my own ends.
it might not be my right, but it is not your right to stop me.
nothing will ever be done to anyone without permission(within the democracy the monarchy is designed to protect).
as to the rest of you, well good luck, i have no intrest in getting in your way, i Will consolodate a piece of land and move emplyees there.
i will guard its right to exist by anymeans ness
i will leave the planet and take anyone who wants to go.
i am not forcing anyone to do anything.
i am not taking anything.
i DO NOT assume i am capable of RUNNING such a system, just creating it and owning it, is what i think i can do.
the people within run it.

the wild orcs i remember where in the hobbit some where.
im sorry but i dont care for tolkiens' son's opineon. he does not have the mind of his father.
not implying he dosnt know anything, just that no man can FULLY understand how another mans mind works unless that mind is very simple, and Tolkien senior most certainly was not mentaly weak.

Oh Giggy, you do make me giggle.

"execive puplic demontrations of 'gay pride' can cause the corruption of weak minds."

I sense a weak mind worrying about it's own corruption.

As I've told you elsewhere just a day or so ago - I was, inadvertently, AT the London Gay Pride parade the other weekend. I saw lots of fit, attractive young men, "execively" demonstrating their gayness in "puplic". I don't consider myself to be particularly strong of mind - I drink Guiness 'cos it looks cool, I have a houseful of DVDs I hardly ever watch (thanks to marketing, rather than wanting them per se...) and yet... and yet... I have not, in my life, ever, in any way, been sexually attracted to a guy.

And standing and watching the single biggest concentration of celebratory queers in the Western hemisphere the other weak had precisely ZERO effect on that.

Now... we know, thanks to your admission, that you're a bit of a closet homo yourself. You told me personally that you've had "encounters" with men. You clearly loathe yourself because of that. But please - don't make the leap from there to assuming that the rest of us are like you. We're not, OK?

"theres a lot more to it than that, but you cannot deny that some people in the world sleep with same sex because it is 'fashionable'."

Now you simply have to be kidding. When I was fifteen I'd have done almost anything to be fashionable - and believe me, in the eighties, you had to do some pretty embarrassing things to be fashionable. One of my first girlfriends left me for a guy who wore makeup, for instance. However, consider: as my hormones were at their ragingest, who were the poster boys for the girls I fancied?
- Boy George
- George Michael
- Pete Burns of Dead or Alive

Now, if I was aiming for "fashionable" in 1985, I'd have become gay. (and incidentally probably changed my name to George ). But I didn't, because I couldn't.

YOU could, and did. However, this is not a choice people can make. Get over it, OK?

"sorry ppl, its just another human deviancy that needs to be suppressed"

Hang on... deviancy from what, exactly? You want to talk about deviancy (smirks slightly as the old hands watching think "he isn't, is he? Yes, he is...") then let's talk about deviancy.

The world is full of deviants, and I'm here to stamp them out. Perhaps you can help me. There's a sexual practice happening RIGHT NOW in Britain that I (and a lot of other people) think should be stamped out.

First and foremost, it's unnatural - NONE of the other great apes do it, apart from some gibbons, which is more than you can say about homosexuality - ALL the great apes practice that, especially our closest relative the bonobo, they're as camp as a row of pink tents.

No, this disgusting thing I'm on about is UNNATURAL, hardly any mammals even do it. We're not naturally inclined to it - people have to DECIDE to engage in it against their hardwired, evolution-endorsed instincts. Worse than that, it can, in certain circumstances lead to genetic problems in offspring. In some cases, people who practice end up unable to have children at all! Doing it can lead to stress and depression.

Worst of all, this disgusting business is actually ENCOURAGED by certan religious organisations as a way to keep their followers "pure".

Added to all that, the name for it is from Ancient Greek, and we all know what a bunch of poofs they were, right?

I hope you're as disgusted by that litany of condemnation as I am, and agree we should stamp it out as soon as possible. I'm talking, of course, about monogamy.



Your ranting is amusing, right up to this bit:

"i am not forcing anyone to do anything"

So why are you stockpiling assault weaponry whose sole design intent is to kill humans?

H.

Tolkien describes dwarven women as being just like dwarven men in both voice and appearance. Leading to the human mistaking them for dwarven men, creating the belief that their are no dwarven women. It's unclear whether dwarfs have problems telling male from female, with the problems that any Terry Pratchett reader will know about.

I always assumed that it was the same with orcs, or alternitavely that there are orc 'queens', that resemble the queens of bees and wasps, giving birth to hundreds of orcs in a day.

and i told you i was talking about children. and there realy are those out there that same sex it to be popular.
i have even heard of men becoming temporarily gay so as to be seen in a more sensitive light by women.
its a very wierd world allready without, stuff like that cropping up.