Side rant, Lord Of The rings Orcs are problematically categorized as evil yet are sentient and at least in the movies (I haven’t read the books) that is never examined beyond providing the heroes cannon fodder and evil army to pillage the hero’s home.
Klingons on the otherhand have been immensely fleshed out as a vibrant complex species with many subcultures that still exhibit a capacity and willingness to engage in violence that feels decidedly inhuman (but also of course quintessentially human too) and Star Trek subverts and confirms the stereotype of Klingons in a confusing way that only truly subversive storytelling bothers to.
Klingons could “just” have been Lord Of The Rings Space Orcs, but the writers of Star Trek have consistently chosen more interesting possibilities to expand behind the initial facade of who Klingons appear to be at first glance. For one humans don’t win against the space orcs, they find other ways to end the war/wars that leverage an understanding of Klingons and making political gestures that are salient to their culture.
I don’t mean this as a huge takedown or critique I just think the juxtaposition is interesting.
OK, yes in the films the Orcs make little to no sense and are nothing outside of comic relief cannon fodder, but in the books they aren’t like that at all. In the books almost everything “evil” is an artificial or evil magic version of something else as a way to counter it, like the Nazgul were an attempt to fight against Eagles. Orc were actually the first elves to come into existence, and the evil bad guy who was Sauron’s boss corrupted and tortured them until they were orcs. They are meant to be a counter to elves, but making people out of evil motives and discordant thinking isn’t that great an idea, so they aren’t very good at this. but they do have their own language and family units, not weird birthing pits, and make their own choices, there’s a few longer parts in the books where you’re just following the orcs along. after the war the orc’s are pretty pissed they got roped into the whole evil army thing, and vow to never follow “big bosses” again. Also Aragorn gives them their own lands. The humans and other beings that fought for Sauron were all roped into it with his lies and cunning, and were pretty upset when they found out all the horrible shit Sauron was up to, in the books no one’s really THAT evil, and the orc’s and goblins can be pretty goofy, but also very normal humanoid type of things.
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War actually explore orcish culture and morality, the latter game more than the former. Ultimately, they’ve spent all their lives in a Morgoth and/or Sauron cult. The ones that don’t buy into it are more chill, and some show signs that they could be decent or even heroic in different circumstances. Eltariel is able to make some progress deprogramming a couple, but siding with Talion, Celebrimbor, or even Eltariel mostly just has the orcs cast them as their new Dark Lord. It’s probably possible to get the bulk of the orc population into a better place, but it would take many generations of concerted effort at a massive scale. They’d have to replace their entire belief system and most of their way of life just to leave the cult. Additionally, even when not following a Dark Lord, the orcs culturally favor bloodshed to settle conflicts. This isn’t too big of a problem with other orcs since they can take shockingly large amounts of punishment without dying, but it’s a huge problem when interacting with anyone else. And even that’s probably solvable without wholesale destruction of orcish culture, but everything would take so damn long that it’s well beyond the scope of LOTR.
To be fair, Klingons were “just” Space Russians in the TOS era. It wasn’t until after after Praxis/Chernobyl when the Soviet allegory ceased being topical, that they had to find other themes for them to embody.
I dunno about LOTR goblins specifically, but the general mythology of them is pretty similar to Ferenghi culture. But I bet they allow their women to work and wear clothes.
Side rant, Lord Of The rings Orcs are problematically categorized as evil yet are sentient and at least in the movies (I haven’t read the books) that is never examined beyond providing the heroes cannon fodder and evil army to pillage the hero’s home.
Klingons on the otherhand have been immensely fleshed out as a vibrant complex species with many subcultures that still exhibit a capacity and willingness to engage in violence that feels decidedly inhuman (but also of course quintessentially human too) and Star Trek subverts and confirms the stereotype of Klingons in a confusing way that only truly subversive storytelling bothers to.
Klingons could “just” have been Lord Of The Rings Space Orcs, but the writers of Star Trek have consistently chosen more interesting possibilities to expand behind the initial facade of who Klingons appear to be at first glance. For one humans don’t win against the space orcs, they find other ways to end the war/wars that leverage an understanding of Klingons and making political gestures that are salient to their culture.
I don’t mean this as a huge takedown or critique I just think the juxtaposition is interesting.
Same thing with the ferengi at least in DS9.
So, orcs were corrupted elves, by Morgoth (who was Sauron’s boss,)
Which is why Sauron doesn’t have complete control over them- though Morgoth would have.
never read the book
ARRRGGGGG!!!
dies inside
OK, yes in the films the Orcs make little to no sense and are nothing outside of comic relief cannon fodder, but in the books they aren’t like that at all. In the books almost everything “evil” is an artificial or evil magic version of something else as a way to counter it, like the Nazgul were an attempt to fight against Eagles. Orc were actually the first elves to come into existence, and the evil bad guy who was Sauron’s boss corrupted and tortured them until they were orcs. They are meant to be a counter to elves, but making people out of evil motives and discordant thinking isn’t that great an idea, so they aren’t very good at this. but they do have their own language and family units, not weird birthing pits, and make their own choices, there’s a few longer parts in the books where you’re just following the orcs along. after the war the orc’s are pretty pissed they got roped into the whole evil army thing, and vow to never follow “big bosses” again. Also Aragorn gives them their own lands. The humans and other beings that fought for Sauron were all roped into it with his lies and cunning, and were pretty upset when they found out all the horrible shit Sauron was up to, in the books no one’s really THAT evil, and the orc’s and goblins can be pretty goofy, but also very normal humanoid type of things.
Fairly sure that the orcs were able to be compelled of Sauron focused on them and wanted them to do something; as a result of morgoth’s corruption.
After the war, they were freed and could now make their own choices.
ok cool good to know some more lore!
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War actually explore orcish culture and morality, the latter game more than the former. Ultimately, they’ve spent all their lives in a Morgoth and/or Sauron cult. The ones that don’t buy into it are more chill, and some show signs that they could be decent or even heroic in different circumstances. Eltariel is able to make some progress deprogramming a couple, but siding with Talion, Celebrimbor, or even Eltariel mostly just has the orcs cast them as their new Dark Lord. It’s probably possible to get the bulk of the orc population into a better place, but it would take many generations of concerted effort at a massive scale. They’d have to replace their entire belief system and most of their way of life just to leave the cult. Additionally, even when not following a Dark Lord, the orcs culturally favor bloodshed to settle conflicts. This isn’t too big of a problem with other orcs since they can take shockingly large amounts of punishment without dying, but it’s a huge problem when interacting with anyone else. And even that’s probably solvable without wholesale destruction of orcish culture, but everything would take so damn long that it’s well beyond the scope of LOTR.
To be fair, Klingons were “just” Space Russians in the TOS era. It wasn’t until after after Praxis/Chernobyl when the Soviet allegory ceased being topical, that they had to find other themes for them to embody.
Even in TOS the Klingons weren’t as flat as orcs are in LOTR.
Roddenberry always tried to make sure their motivations made them “heroes in their own story”, while Tolkien wrote orcs as evil by nature.
Yeah but they didn’t stay that way, DS9 had a Klingon restaurant on it!
I dunno about LOTR goblins specifically, but the general mythology of them is pretty similar to Ferenghi culture. But I bet they allow their women to work and wear clothes.
Idk, goblins in other fantasy maybe but in the LOTR movies they are just ugly evil creatures to fear and kill.
The ferengi are very complex despite their initial comically campy hyperbolic space alien shtick of being hypercapitalist.