wearewatchman:

snarthurt:

i dont care if tolkien came up with orcs, tolkien orcs are not orcs. true orcs have big gay arms to hold their wives and husbands and aside from that only care about antiques roadshow

I mean, any joke aside, this is kinda accurate? DnD orcs are a distinct race of fully sapient creatures. Even in the worst of stereotype-embracing DnD games, orcs might be portrayed as dumb or uncivilized, but they still have free will and a cultural society of their own.

Tolkien Orcs (and especially Uruk-Hai) are not a naturally occuring species. They have sinister origins being bred from elves and men, and are essentially Saurons biological war machines. To the best of my knowledge, they are meant to personify the horrors Tolkien experienced through the First World War, and aren’t meant to be a “race” in the way elves, dwarves, men and hobbits are. The DnD community kinda gradually just said “What if they still looked like that, but they were just dudes?”, and that’s what we’re running with now.

Like, I enjoy the modern interpretation of orcs, but I also appreciate Tolkien’s initial intent of creating an army of horrifying monsters and saying “That’s war. These things embody war.”