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Orcs...
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Author:  Gandolorin [ May 5th, 2017, 11:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

I'm ready to copy 'n' paste at need, Elthir! :laugh:

Author:  Héalic [ December 11th, 2017, 1:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

I kind of think of the goblins as a lesser offshoot of the original orc made by Morgoth who decided to go live in the mountains after he was thrown down and firm their own society. When I think of orcs, I generally think of those who are actually fighting for Sauron in a more organized form.

As to whether they are really evil or not, I don't think they really have any choice. They were created evil creatures to do evil things. I like the idea of orcs being amoral as opposed to immoral.

Also, I'm really impressed with Morgoth's torturing skills. It really is hard to take an elf and torture it without killing it to create something as fundamentally evil as an orc. It must have taken forever. Also how on Earth do you do that?

....After further thought I am much more terrified of Morgoth than I was previously.

Author:  Gandolorin [ December 11th, 2017, 5:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

It only took humans the odd millennium to breed animals ranging from a Mastiff to a Chihuahua from the original half-self-tamed wolves. So some serious breeding of Elves to drive the breed massively in the Fëanor / Eöl / Saeros direction could have done the trick (nobody knows how long that First Age pre-sun really was …).

Author:  Elthir [ December 13th, 2017, 6:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

"I kind of think of the goblins as a lesser offshoot of the original orc made by Morgoth who decided to go live in the mountains after he was thrown down and firm their own society. When I think of orcs, I generally think of those who are actually fighting for Sauron in a more organized form."



But I refer you to Elrond, for example, concerning the "goblin wars" and the goblins of Morgoth:

"These are not troll-make. They are old swords, very old swords of the High Elves of the West, my kin. They were made in Gondolin for the goblin-wars. They must have come from a dragon's hoard or goblin plunderer, for dragons and goblins destroyed that city many ages ago. This, Thorin, the runes name Orcrist, the goblin-cleaver in the ancient tongue of Gondolin; it was a famous blade."

Elrond can "say" this (in English) 'cause goblins are not lesser orcs...

... but lesser goblins are lesser orcs :)

Author:  Jax Nova [ December 13th, 2017, 9:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

*continues to follow this topic with still interested eyes*

:)

Author:  Elthir [ December 14th, 2017, 12:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

"(nobody knows how long that First Age pre-sun really was …)."

I do :p

But however one defines the First Age, if the topic is the creation of Orcs from Elves (which I don't think is necessarily the case, but that's a long story), then we can generally start with the Awakening of the Quendi, in Valian Year 1050. My math could be off (or I could be making some other silly mistake), but employing 1 Valian Year = 9.582 Sun Years:

1050 (Elves Awake) to 1500 (end of VY reckoning) equals 450 Valian Years + 590 Sun Years... or basically 4,311 (.9) years + 590 more = 4,901 years. Tolkien had once mentioned (drafts for Appendix B) that the ages were around 3,000 years long, and though he did state that the First Age was the longest, admittedly this number is notably longer... but then again, counting only Sun Years (590) is too short, and going deeper in time only adds more years!

In any case, if we use JRRT's later 144, that is, 1 Valian Year = 144 Sun Years.

64,800 + 590 = 65,390

This leaves a vast amount of time between the Awakening of the Elves and the end of the First Age! I note Christopher Tolkien's comments concerning the awakening of Men: "In notes not given in this book, in which my father was calculating on this basis the time of the awakening of Men, he expressly stated that 144 Sun Years = 1 Valian Year (...) Placing the event "after or about the time of the sacking of Utumno, Valian Year 1100" (...), a gigantic lapse of time could now be conceived between the "arising" of Men and their first appearance in Beleriand." Christopher Tolkien, Myths Transformed, note 5 to Aman and Mortal Men. In another text Tolkien had noted: "The coming of Men will therefore be much further back. This will be better; for a bare 400 years is quite inadequate to produce the variety, and the advancement (e. g. of the Edain) at the time of Felagund."

This second statement refers to the earlier idea of course, where Men awaken with the Sun (which could be seen as reflecting Mannish myth) and Finrod chances upon Beor and his Men in Sun Year 400 (Grey Annals).

Anyway, by switching to 144 Tolkien could greatly increase the time involved, as well as matching 144 to his Elvish Long Year (144 Sun Years) in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings. Was he going to do this, and publish it, especially without altering the dates in the Annals (originally written with 9.582 in mind)? Who knows. But it seems to me that he was leaning this way, possibly with some alterations to the dates concerning the revolt of the Noldor, at least.

I mean, one can do a lot of rebelling in 144 years!


Of course what you probably want here is not the length of the First Age but the "gap" between the awakening of the Elves and the first "certain" appearance of orcs.

I'm too lazy to track that down in detail :whistle:


But Tolkien invented Orc-formed Maiar, which could arguably explain early sightings, or early assaults, for example, on an Elf who had wandered alone and too far from help... compared to later battles with large numbers of regular orcs.

It's said in VY 1330 that the orcs were "yet few and wary, and did but smell out the ways of the land, awaiting the return of their lord." And in 1497 there were enough to help wage war in Beleriand. If this date represents the true first use of many regular orcs (I'm going to be lazy still, and check no further), then...

... from 1050 to 1497 gives us 447 Valian Years...

(times 9.582) or 4,283 years (and change)...

... or (times 144) 64,368 years.


Give or take. Or something else :wary:

And I feel compelled to add (blather on) that this post represents a bit of "using (some of) what there is", whereas Tolkien was not obliged to constrict himself to dates or explanations that his reading public knew nothing about. For example, JRRT could have landed on 144 and notably revised a First Age Tale of Years with this number in mind.

So never mind ;-)

Author:  Gandolorin [ December 14th, 2017, 4:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

I’ve read some of the (most certainly non-canon) musings by JRRT on such matters in HoME. And I’ve read a similar “doctorate” of yours as above somewhere else, Elthir. ;-)

Now I’m going to do something I occasionally like to do, throw some irrelevant numbers together. :-P

Melkor (not yet named Morgoth) was imprisoned “for three ages of the world … in the Halls of Mandos …”.
An age (later ones, 2nd and 3rd certainly) is stated to be “about” 3,000 years.
The Elven “yén” or long year (= Valian year?) is 144 years of the sun.
3,000 times 144 is 432,000 => one Valian age?
Then Melkor would have been imprisoned 1,296,000 years of the sun. :confused2:

Hooooo boy, we’re deep in Homo erectus territory now!!! :confused2:

Author:  Elthir [ December 14th, 2017, 11:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

And when you add it all up...

d
r
u
m

r
o
l
l



goblins are orcs and orcs are goblins :hide:

Author:  Gandolorin [ December 15th, 2017, 11:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

Come to think of it, what would Homo neanderthalensis have thought of the invading Homo “sapiens”? (Doubt about the arrogant presumption in describing ourselves as “sapiens” remains at best controversial, more likely justified – the doubt, that is.)

Author:  Jax Nova [ December 16th, 2017, 8:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Orcs...

Elthir wrote:
And when you add it all up...

d
r
u
m

r
o
l
l



goblins are orcs and orcs are goblins :hide:



Cool... a post that is actually on my level! :p

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