Current Events > It turns out people were wrong about Tolkien's Orcs (the controversy)

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://twitter.com/RaphaelShamrock/status/1273491591198576640

It seems like Orcs was more of a joke towards Irish People when they made Irish Cartoon Characters (because they depict the Irish the exact same way as Orcs).

It makes sense given its from the same time period of Tolkien's life.

The Tweet:
This is really annoying bc white people think orcs are rip offs of black folk. This is racist and it is also wrong. Clearly when Tolkien wrote the orcs he meant Irish people if you ever look at old cartoons of Irish people its super similar.


like the English at the time viewed the Irish like apes.



Further tweet:
My main problem is that they are taking something and applying a different meaning and context to it. Like saying "mac and cheese is harmful bc all of the ingredients are inherently white." Its not true and ultimately any rationalization to try to make it true is pathetic.

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.....
Ok that guy's twitter is something else (I don't think you guys want to know what he is into).

But still given the historical context seems to make way more sense than what it was originally being accused of.

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so it's still racist, just against the irish instead?
admission: i didn't read anything you posted really

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Oh, its against the Irish?

Cool, now the bigotry doesnt count

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The Trent posted...

so it's still racist, just against the irish instead?
admission: i didn't read anything you posted really

Basically.

People on the crazy side of social media literally made it up that Orcs was about blacks, but instead it was about the Irish.


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YourDrunkFather posted...

Oh, its against the Irish?

Cool, now the bigotry doesnt count

Basically

No one cares about racism against white people

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What even is this topic?

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So is there any evidence of Tolkien's thoughts on the Irish is that just one person's assumptions?

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BloodMoon7 posted...

What even is this topic?

Its to point out how Social Media Critics got it wrong about Orcs (though Orcs still turned out to be racist, but not the one they thought it was about).


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Funkydog posted...

So is there any evidence of Tolkien's thoughts on the Irish is that just one person's assumptions?

It might just be his assumption, but he least provided examples of the same time period as tolkien's works.

To me it matches very well.

The Irish and British really did not get along very well back then.

If there is any more of these cartoon depictions that it could actually provide a possibly solid link to Tolkien's own thoughts.

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Kaliesto posted...

Its to point out how Social Media Critics got it wrong about Orcs (though Orcs still turned out to be racist, but not the one they thought it was about).

Ok but what is the point you are trying to make? I'm genuinely confused.

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"Look out, Itchy! He's Irish!"

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...orcs are the descendants of elves taken by the original enemy in the tolken universe and tortured/perverted into his designs since he had no power to create just warp and destroy...

you know what the problem is with much of twitter? you've got a bunch of liberal arts majors, with no jobs and to much time on their hands, trying to apply their "skills" to infer meaning from shit that had no meaning...

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I blame WoW, also all trolls in our game have a Jamaican accent.

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Kaliesto posted...

It might just be his assumption, but he least provided examples of the same time period as tolkien's works.

To me it matches very well.

The Irish and British really did not get along very well back then.

Many of us also didn't like black people back then either. If you want to look to Tolkien's disdain for Ireland/Irish people you'd find more evidence in his disdain for anything Celtic and refusal to accept any influence of it on his works than the orcs.

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BloodMoon7 posted...

Ok but what is the point you are trying to make? I'm genuinely confused.

That its possible Tolkien took inspiration from Irish Cartoons, and thus we got the Orcs.


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Funkydog posted...

Many of us also didn't like black people back then either. If you want to look to Tolkien's disdain for Ireland/Irish people you'd find more evidence in his disdain for anything Celtic and refusal to accept any influence of it on his works than the orcs.

you realize the elves are pretty much drawn completely from the tuatha de danann right? hell the argument could be easily made that orcs are modeled after fomorians, their 'enemy' in that folklore.

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Were_Wyrm posted...

I blame WoW, also all trolls in our game have a Jamaican accent.

WoW (especially from WC3 forward) actually made the orcs more complex and sympathetic (unlike Warhammer). And while the trolls *were* Jamaican, they were lean, agile, and of similar intellect to the other races.

Dumb tweet, dumb topic

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I hope you guys resolve this soon, Ive a 10:00 am poop scheduled

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monkmith posted...

you realize the elves are pretty much drawn completely from the tuatha de danann right? hell the argument could be easily made that orcs are modeled after fomorians, their 'enemy' in that folklore.

Tolkien is the one who made the comments about Celtic culture, not me. He had great disdain for it and refuted its influence on his work.
" "Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact 'mad' as your reader saysbut I don't believe I am." "

I simply meant if you wanted to look for anti Irish influence you only need to look to the things he said about anything Celtic (which obviously isn't just Ireland) than the orcs as they could potentially draw negative stereotypes from many things, or just meant to show various monstrous traits, many of which were unfortunately attributed to many groups of people.

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Funkydog posted...

So is there any evidence of Tolkien's thoughts on the Irish is that just one person's assumptions?

This. Orcs were never portrayed as ape-like anyway so any comparison to black people or Irish people being compared to apes is completely beside the point. Tolkien took inspiration from the real world but really made everything his own. I doubt anyone would look at the depiction of Dwarves and say "Yep, those are Jews".

Orcs being coded as black people has always been idiotic to begin with. It just shows peoples' inherent bias when they see any depiction of "savages" as having to be an analogue for black people. It's fantasy; you can make people as evil, or stupid, or savage as you want and it doesn't have to be analogues to more complex real world people. Also, black people are hardly the only ones to ever be called savages in the real world so even when fiction shows actual savages that share very few or no similarities with real world analogues "savage=black" is beyond stupid.

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Tolkien was an even dumber racist than we thought? Fucking SJWs! Gwaaaargh

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IShall_Run_Amok posted...

Tolkien was an even dumber racist than we thought? Fucking SJWs! Gwaaaargh

Except he wasnt and nothing about the tweet is true (i know this is satire)

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Everyone's in here discussing this, and here I am, watching, wondering what difference it makes. Depicting any race as purely evil, corrupted, deformed, etc. is deeply problematic and suggests a worrying world view regardless of what exact real world prejudices animate it.

YourDrunkFather posted...

Oh, its against the Irish?

Cool, now the bigotry doesnt count

For some, the opposite is now true.

"Oh, it's against the Irish?

Cool, now the bigotry counts."

Were you one of the people who denied the Orcs were racist caricatures in the first place?

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RebelElite791 posted...

Except he wasnt and nothing about the tweet is true (i know this is satire)

The problem is you got a huge swathe of people claiming Tolkien was racist in some particular way, and honestly I was starting to wonder if he was because last time I tried to defend Tolkien claiming he isn't racist that I got my ass blasted for it.

The tweeter "may" have some argument, but I admit I made it seem absolute which I shouldn't have done if we're looking for just evidence.

I always like to see what CE says because sometimes they know more than I do on some subjects despite this board getting a bad rep. for other things.

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specialkid8 posted...

This. Orcs were never portrayed as ape-like anyway so any comparison to black people or Irish people being compared to apes is completely beside the point. Tolkien took inspiration from the real world but really made everything his own. I doubt anyone would look at the depiction of Dwarves and say "Yep, those are Jews".

Orcs being coded as black people has always been idiotic to begin with. It just shows peoples' inherent bias when they see any depiction of "savages" as having to be an analogue for black people. It's fantasy; you can make people as evil, or stupid, or savage as you want and it doesn't have to be analogues to more complex real world people. Also, black people are hardly the only ones to ever be called savages in the real world so even when fiction shows actual savages that share very few or no similarities with real world analogues "savage=black" is beyond stupid.

This is actually a main concern of mine because Tolkien/DnD being one thing, but if they start thinking everything else has some kind of racist connections like say Zelda is when I can say people can't separate Fiction from Reality anymore and just causing general confusion and distortion.

I always thought the controversy with the Drow (Dark Elves) besides the Orcs was incredibly stupid because the social media nutters literally tried to tie culture with skin color which in itself is very racist.

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Tolkien's orcs were explicitly based on asians. it had a lot to do with a "Yellow Peril" going on at the time. the D&D version took some liberties and made them more similar to black people.

here's a two-part article about that:
https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/1/13/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-i-a-species-built-for-racial-terror

https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/6/30/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-ii-theyre-not-human

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Kaliesto posted...

This is actually a main concern of mine because Tolkien/DnD being one thing, but if they start thinking everything else has some kind of racist connections like say Zelda is when I can say people can't separate Fiction from Reality anymore and just causing general confusion and distortion.

I always thought the controversy with the Drow (Dark Elves) besides the Orcs was incredibly stupid because the social media nutters literally tried to tie culture with skin color which in itself is very racist.

That's the entire point of deconstructionist and critical race theory thought. If you remove the context and the authors intent you can pretty much declare anything is racist or sexist or something like that. It's been going on for years, and stuff like d&d and Lord of the rings being caught in the crossfires is just evidence that the technique is effective.

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averagejoel posted...

Tolkien's orcs were explicitly based on asians. it had a lot to do with a "Yellow Peril" going on at the time. the D&D version took some liberties and made them more similar to black people.

here's a two-part article about that:
https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/1/13/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-i-a-species-built-for-racial-terror

https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2019/6/30/orcs-britons-and-the-martial-race-myth-part-ii-theyre-not-human

eehhh

His whole argument is built around this quote

The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.

He then stretches it to it's absolute breaking point in meaning and then gives an extremely long (although well researched) rant about historical racism independent from Tolkien. The quote literally says that Orcs are a corrupted form of Asian traits, not that Asians are a corrupted form of human traits. He used Asians as a base for the physical traits of orcs and then fucked their shit up.

He then talks about the "martial race" which is basically just shorthand for barbarians (but also honorable soldiers) which is... also a long used and pretty useful trope of fantasy and not exclusive to Asians. The above quote is pretty much the only thing the author shows Tolkien saying about Asian peoples influence. The rest is just his essay about historical racism. He also feels the need to say that he is personally offended, being half Asian, by some of this stuff which makes me doubt his ability to remove his own feelings from the discussion.

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I can't stop rolling my eyes. Certain folks just have to find controversy in anything. How about more "the heroes are white and all the villains are black/minorities!" again from people who obviously never read any of his work.

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People are clearly extremely bored during this pandemic

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ElatedVenusaur posted...

Everyone's in here discussing this, and here I am, watching, wondering what difference it makes. Depicting any race as purely evil, corrupted, deformed, etc. is deeply problematic and suggests a worrying world view regardless of what exact real world prejudices animate it.

I mean arent "races" in a fantasy context more like entirely different species

Is it problematic to say polar bears are aggressive and dangerous

Maybe the issue here woukd be resolved if we just used the word species, lol


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To put it somewhat simply, orcs are just corrupted and twisted versions of God's (Eru) children (Elves and men) made by the devil (Melkor/Morgoth). Comparing them to an actual race of people is silly and obviously wasn't what Tolkien was going for when he created them.

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Yeah, what Wizards of the Coast is doing in their work is making actual Player Character Race have less forced-traits by increasing the complexity of heavily "generalized" and type-cast races in their personal worlds. I don't really have a problem with that, I always thought it was a bit bizarre that 80% of DnD campaigns depict orcs as mostly dumb and brutish when, as a GM, you could really do so much more to create a cool culture for them with more nuance than "They like to kill and raid and burn stuff". You don't need a player race that is just dumb, any member of any race can be pretty stupid if you want them to be--In fact, it would probably be more interesting making an Elf who is a total ignoramus than pushing the same tired tropes.

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What a topic

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I always thought it was a WW1 metaphor and the Orcs were The Germans.

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Pogo_Marimo posted...

Yeah, what Wizards of the Coast is doing in their work is making actual Player Character Race have less forced-traits by increasing the complexity of heavily "generalized" and type-cast races in their personal worlds. I don't really have a problem with that, I always thought it was a bit bizarre that 80% of DnD campaigns depict orcs as mostly dumb and brutish when, as a GM, you could really do so much more to create a cool culture for them with more nuance than "They like to kill and raid and burn stuff". You don't need a player race that is just dumb, any member of any race can be pretty stupid if you want them to be--In fact, it would probably be more interesting making an Elf who is a total ignoramus than pushing the same tired tropes.

It's always good to set some baseline foundation, especially for something like DnD where everything is dependent on player imagination. If the books didn't tell you what Orcs , Elves, Drow, and Halflings were generally like people would have very little clue on how to proceed. And if you just say any race can be and do anything it dilutes the purpose of them to begin with. It basically just turns them into people from different places. Nothing is stopping someone from playing a scholarly wizard orc but it needs to be stated somewhere that that is not the norm.

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Wait until you guys found out who Bethesda used for TES races and creatures

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specialkid8 posted...

It's always good to set some baseline foundation, especially for something like DnD where everything is dependent on player imagination. If the books didn't tell you what Orcs , Elves, Drow, and Halflings were generally like people would have very little clue on how to proceed. And if you just say any race can be and do anything it dilutes the purpose of them to begin with. It basically just turns them into people from different places. Nothing is stopping someone from playing a scholarly wizard orc but it needs to be stated somewhere that that is not the norm.

If your GM cannot fill out the nuances of races in the game world better than these over-simplified stereotypes people lean on, then they are not a very good GM. As someone with a lot of experience GMing and playing tabletops, that much is indisputable. The game is literally about imagination, world building, and interesting characters. God forbid the GM and players have to flex their creativity to create an experience more memorable than "Generic Tolkien Fantasy #891728".

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People thought orcs were based on black people? Isnt that pretty racist in and of itself?

my question is who the fuck makes Mac and cheese with white cheese

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josifrees posted...

my question is who the fuck makes Mac and cheese with white cheese

Oh, you're missing out. You can make quality mac with a lot of different cheese blends. It's awesome. Except Velveta. That's illegal.

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Pogo_Marimo posted...

Oh, you're missing out. You can make quality mac with a lot of different cheese blends. It's awesome. Except Velveta. That's illegal.

Illegal and delicious.

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specialkid8 posted...

The quote literally says that Orcs are a corrupted form of Asian traits, not that Asians are a corrupted form of human traits.

do you see the problem with basing a race of aggressive warriors on real people who, because of xenophobia and racism, were portrayed as aggressive warriors

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wasnt lotr an allegory for wwi or something which would mean orcs are Germans

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averagejoel posted...

do you see the problem with basing a race of aggressive warriors on real people who, because of xenophobia and racism, were portrayed as aggressive warriors

He just used them as a visual starting point. They are not apparently a direct analogue. Intent is everythign and the fact that he is accused of basing orcs on three separate racist caricatures in this topic alone, with nothing backing them up seems to put him in the clear. You shouldn't be afraid to do anything just because people can misunderstand or willfully misinterpret it.

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specialkid8 posted...

He just used them as a visual starting point. They are not apparently a direct analogue.

no one is saying that they are a direct analogue. I am saying that orcs were based on asians. that is a fact.

Intent is everythign and the fact that he is accused of basing orcs on three separate racist caricatures in this topic alone, with nothing backing them up seems to put him in the clear.

Tolkien explicitly said that he based orcs on asians

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