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An orc (sometimes spelt ork; / ɔːr k / [1] [2]), [3] in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, is a race of humanoid monsters, which he also calls "goblin".. In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters, contrasting with the benevolent Elves.
The Elf Ecthelion slays the Orc champion Orcobal in Gondolin. 2007 illustration by Tom Loback. J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, [T 1] created what he came to feel was a moral dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak.
The word "monster" has as its origin the Latin monstrum, "a marvel, prodigy, portent", in turn from Latin monstrare, "to show". [1] Monsters in Medieval Europe were often humanoid, but could also resemble wild beasts, but of enormous size; J. R. R. Tolkien followed both paths in creating his own monsters.
[T 19] Deformed half-orcs exist, crossbred from Men and Orcs. [T 20] Tolkien uses the term "Goblin" mainly interchangeably with Orc, [T 21] though sometimes in The Hobbit the term is exclusively used for the smaller sub-races of Orcs native to the Misty Mountains.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit the evil creatures living in the Misty Mountains are referred to as goblins. In The Lord of the Rings, the same creatures are primarily referred to as orcs where the goblin name was used for the lesser orcs. Representation of a goblin as it appears in the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons
In the preface of The Hobbit, he states that "Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)". [17] In The Spiderwick Chronicles, a hobgoblin [c] is portrayed as a selfish character, always hungry, insulting to others, and annoyed with always being confused for a ...
In the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, a warg is a particularly large and evil kind of wolf that could be ridden by orcs.He derived the name and characteristics of his wargs by combining meanings and myths from Old Norse and Old English.
A devout Roman Catholic, he described The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work", rich in Christian symbolism. [5] The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey, like Tolkien a philologist, called Beowulf the single work that most strongly influenced Tolkien, out of the many other sources that he used. [6]