Orcs

I have read the revised edition of The Hobbit, and there is not a single mention of orcs. On the wiki page of The Hobbit, it alternates between saying goblins and orcs for the different roles they played in the book. The movie has orcs and goblins. In the prologue and the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings, it only says orcs, not goblins. My question is, in The Hobbit, where they orcs or goblins? If both, then which parts were they orcs and which parts were they goblins? If J.R.R. Tolkien changed the story himself, then I am asking about the latest version. If someone else changed the story, then I am asking about Tolkien's version. Additionally, I tried tagging a wiki page titled "Goblins," but I couldn't find a page with that title. I just started reading The Lord of the Rings, so can you please not give me spoilers?

FYI, imma dump all my LOTR art here. So first off, we have the Ork inspired spear.

Second we have on the right, my design of a Morgul blade, and on the left... maybe like first age Angband forged dagger?

Last but not least, we have Gandalf the very, very, grey.

Tell me in comments how bad i did

Arguably the biggest regret that bothered Tolkien himself, to the end of his life, was that he could never find a solution for Orc souls.

See, Tolkien was quite a devout Catholic, so when he wrote the rules for his fantasy universe, he was quite clear on two things:

1. Anything sapient has a soul. Souls can only be granted by God to his creations. (They’re referred to as “the Secret Fire of Eru Illuvatar”, which you may remember from Gandalf facing down the Balrog, when he lists “servant of the Secret Fire” among his titles to intimidate the thing.)

2. Evil cannot create anything truly original — creation is an inherently holy act. It can only mock and mar, defiling pure things until they take on a form that better pleases it.

So, Orcs then. Melkor (our resident Satan stand-in) can’t have created them from whole cloth; evil does not create. This leads to the obvious question of how he got the Orcs. The answer given in The Silmarillion is that they’re Elves who’ve been brought utterly low, or at least descendants of them after generations of Melkor force-breeding them and using his powers to warp them into a mockery of Elven-kind. (Which is gross, but he’s Satan. Doing bad stuff is his thing.)

But that raises implications, doesn’t it? Elves definitely have souls. If Orcs are just twisted Elves, then they have souls too — and they’re clearly sapient. More proof. It’s pretty hard to deny that Orcs have souls.

And if they have souls, can they not be redeemed?

Remember again that Tolkien was Catholic. He simply could not accept that the answer to that question might be “no”. His cosmology reflects it; Orcs may be marred and ruined, but at their core is still the Secret Fire, a thing purely of Eru Illuvatar that Melkor cannot touch nor alter.

Orcs are evil because they’re raised evil, in an evil society, their wills are dominated by the forces of Evil. But it’s possible that at least some of them hate it. It’s possible that some Orcs wish to be good. Inside every Orc, there is the potential to denounce their previous ways and turn to good. If you got them alone, talked to them, really tried, every last bit of story logic and theology Tolkien ever thought up says that you could save their souls.

And if they can be redeemed, is it not immoral to slaughter them?

Tolkien needed monsters, needed a race that was always evil and could be cut down without conscience by his heroes, so he made the Orcs. But he needed God, too, and so every Orc became a tragedy, and his heroes turned slightly murderous. He never figured out how to square those two needs, and as I said at the start of this, it bothered him for the rest of his life. And the fantasy genre’s been wrestling with it ever since.

I know there were 10,000 Uruk-hai but how many orcs resideded in Mordor by the end of the 3rd age?

Please tell me if you know.

Thanks!

Hi, my name is Raina and I’m new to the LotR fandom. I watched RoP last month (which I honestly rly enjoyed I don’t care what anyone else says I thought it was a good show), and I’m watching all the Peter Jackson movies (starting with the Hobbit ones) right now. I just finished the second hobbit movie, and I have a question: so in RoP they establish that the orcs can’t come out in sunlight bc they get hurt from it, but then how are the orcs attacking Bilbo and the gang during the day in the hobbit movies?

Just rewatched The Fellowship of The Ring and can we take a second to appreciate how Boromir took two arrows to the chest and managed to still get up and keep fighting Orcs. He’s easily the best fighter of the Fellowship.

How can you tell the difference between regular Orcs and Uruk-hai? So far the only way we can determine the differences based on information. But how can you physically tell the difference? Is there a way to Is there a way to differentiate the normal Orcs from the Uruk-hai?

I don’t know a lot about the history of Middle Earth but it is something which I want to start getting into. But currently watching The Hobbit films and the Orcs (which I think are Gundabad Orcs, which may explain what I’m going to ask next), how come the Orcs in The Hobbit look like beasts compared to the Orcs we see in LOTR? I know that Angmar and Gundabad were out of commission sometime during the end of the S.A. or beginning of the T.A. But did the Orcs just stop breading with Gundabad Orcs and slowly became these less menacing Orcs or did something else have effect to it?

Have you finished reading The Silmarillion? And who is your Middle-Earth favourite character? And what race are you in?

So I'm new here but I thought I'd share something that's been on my mind a lot:

Legolas doesn't actually have a conversation with Frodo. Like at all. He says "And my bow" and that's it. He doesn't really interact with any of the Hobbits Either.

Not gonna lie it's a bit ORCS. (AKA Awkward)

He's kinda just Aragorn and Gimili's buddy.