How come you never hear of orc children in the books?

[Ringethiriel]

i was just wondering why, in any of the books, you don't hear of orc children. if any one knows why you don't see or hear of them please tell me. thanks.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

There is a reference in The Hobbit about Gollum strangling a young 'Goblin imp' or something like that.

[Phervasaion]

Im not sure but i thought orcs were full size as soon as they came out of their egg type thingies...Im probably totally wrong but thats what i thought.

[Annalaliath]

i read somewhere that when it came to the making someting like or a perversion of any of the children of Iluvitar that they didn't reproduce like the elves men and dwarves. I don't know mabe they do.

[merenwen]

wow! that would be cool!
orc child: dad can we go kill sumthing please?? please?? please?????
orc dad: *sigh* i suppose...
ahem ne wayyss.. moving on

[Elotareth]

Well, in the movie, the Uruk-hai were created by Saruman and "birthed" as adults. It may be different with normal Orcs. I don't know.

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

I don't think that the movie's very accurate with regards to the Uruk-hai... in fact, if I'm not mistaken, Saruman wasn't responsible for their coming into being at all, they came from Mordor. Saruman crossed men and orcs. I would assume (since they can be crossed with men) that orcs reproduce after the normal fashion... they are afterall, essentially inbred elves.

Interesting though that we never see or hear about orc females or their children. But we don't hear about dwarf women and children either, and they certainly exist.

-Sophia

[Goldberry]

I always thought that orcs didn't reproduce in "the normal way" so I assumed there just weren't women. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, never really thought about it too hard before.

[Lalaith]

I believe Tolkien said that Orcs reproduced 'in the way of the children of Iluvatar', that is, I assume, by giving birth. Fully-formed Uruk Hai emerging from slime was the creation of Peter Jackson, not Tolkien.
Mind you, I don't really blame anyone for not wanting to think about this in too much detail. Orc sex, orc babies - ew!

[Tinuviel the Nightingale]

Somewhere in the hobbit it says something about a goblin being the son of some other goblin so I think orc/goblins have fathers.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Indeed, Bolg son of Azog.

[Ringethiriel]

i agree that it is hard to imagine orc children and orc women.

[Lily Bracegirdle]

I think we don't hear about orc women and children because LotR was technically "written" by the victors of the War of the Ring: Bilbo, Frodo and Sam. None of them had any contact with orc women or children, so there wouldn't be any in the narrative.

Orcs seem to be embodiments of "fallen" beings (if Elves are "angels," then orcs would natually be "demons"). As their role in the story was to destroy, pillage and be generally nasty, it would be too humanizing to portray non-combatant orcs, so there aren't any. (And no, I don't want to get into a discussion about whether female orcs would be non-combatants.) [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

Cheers!
-Lily

[Lily Bracegirdle]

There's an interesting Q&A at tORn that touches on this subject. I found it after I posted here. It's the second question from the top.

The One Ring . net

-Lily

[Heathie4479]

I always thought Orcs were tourtured elves turned evil, or were those just the first orcs?

[Annalaliath]

ahhh but you mussn't forget Morgoth. That dude got the elves before the comming of the sun and the moon and tourchered and mutalated them, and as such there are orces in LOTR.

[lindil]

Tolkien wrestled with the ORcs from Elves idea ad tried to discard it entirely [see Morgoth's Ring - section 5 Myths Transofrmed].

He had however problems with all of his replacement ideas:

1- orcs were really clever animals imbued with a certain power o Morgoth and or Sauron. Bereft of their controlling will they just replayed mechanical actions - I hate, I will kill etc...

2 - orcs as degenerate Men. This was I think for JRRT the optimum solution BUT it hinged on his abandoning the flat earth [pre-numenorean] world and having a pre-exisisting Sun - so Men would awaken early - before Mekor was captured the first time and then released.

He went back and forth on these ideas - nothing definitive.

As far as I understand it[I have been researching this for an entry on the Avari] the only canonical thing you can say about orc origins is that 'within the legendarium' some elves and men believed Elves [specifically captured Avari in some accounts] to be the origin of orcs. This however as I said before was severla times accounted as a myth, though no satisfactory resolution was ever perfectly decided.

If I have any details wrong hopefully some of the real scholars round these parts will fix it up.

[Ringethiriel]

thanks for posting everyone! i never used to think about orcs and how they multiply until i watched the first film when gandalf says
"He's breeding an army." [when refering to saruman in isengard]. ever since i saw that scene it has bothered me. it is SO confusing!
[img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[The Only Real Estel]

Uruk-hais and regular orcs (goblins) are different, obviously. Uruk-hais are, 'bred', full-grown. Orcs are bred smaller (never babies though), and sometimes grow a little. The hob-goblins were always a little larger than the other goblins (orcs). Some orcs didn't grow much, but some did (although they never reached the stature of an uruk-hai, never near it even), so in reality, there were never goblin or orc children, just smaller men (that sometimes grew larger over time). Of course there were never any female orcs (that I've heard of!), the dark lord (& Saruman) bred these ugly beings for war, no need of females there (obviously no offense)! Since he could always breed them, he never needed any female orcs. Hope that explains everything (I sure tried my best). [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

[Sapphire_Flame]

...in fact, if I'm not mistaken, Saruman wasn't responsible for their coming into being at all, they came from Mordor.

Thank you! Everyone just seems to be stuck on the idea that Saruman created the Uruk-hai, when it was really Sauron. Brilliant deduction!

[Rindoien, elf of Lothlorien]

Well, orcs don't really 'multiply themselves', they are made as they are, grown up etc

[Noxomanus]

I really can't believe that,to me it's obvious orcs bred in a human way.I suppose they were bred by the Dark Forces to be the ultimate warriors,so they were bred heavily selective.One of the goals was probably for them to give birth to twins and/or even more children at once wich grew up very fast and were able to reproduce soon themselves (at least compared to other humanoids.)These female and young orcs might have been living in something like a hive,with numerous babies collected in chambers and raised by other orcs or slaves.females only being there to breed and for nothing else. (except maybe raising the youngsters)

[The Saucepan Man]

Well, orcs don't really 'multiply themselves', they are made as they are, grown up etc

How can you be so sure, Rindoien?

[Mordor_Queen]

arent they created by saruman? [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

[The Only Real Estel]

Saruman & Sauron both made them. And if they can already 'breed' them, why would they need any female orcs? [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[Silmarien]

There are many discussions of orcish reproduction in other threads. There is one here. This has more to do with the orc women if they exist but naturally orc kids come into it.

[Lily Bracegirdle]

Err... The Rohirrim breed horses, but they still need mares!

-Lily

[davem]

There was a talk given by Jessica Yates at last years Tolkien Society 'Oxonmoot', where she stated that with the numbers of Uruk Hai Saruman would need for his army, it would be impossible for his to have bred them 'naturally', & that therefore something along the lines of Jackson's process would have been necessary.

[Mitheithel]

Clever thought indeed. Someone previously mentioned that Guglunk had eaten a Goblin imp. But were the Orcs the same as the Goblins? (Sorry, I know this goes a little off topic)

[Sapphire_Flame]

But were the Orcs the same as the Goblins?

I believe so. The orcs of the Misty Mountains were called goblins in The Hobbit, and orcs in LotR (there are some with the Uruk-hai that capture Merry and Pip). I think the terms could be interchangeable. Just try to keep the Uruk's in their own group...

[Meneltarmacil]

Exactly HOW are orcs attracted to each other? I don't even want to think about orc (reproduction) it's so nasty. *pukes all over keyboard*

[Horse-Maiden of the Shire]

Welcome to the Downs, Meneltarmacil! Enjoy being dead.

Yes, this topic has been niggling at the back of my mind ever since I saw FotR. Now this thread has cleared it up...for the most part.

[ July 12, 2003: Message edited by: Horse-Maiden of the Shire ]

[Annalaliath]

I was wondering when someone would bring this up again........

Yes this is one of those contriversal topics. But after debating this i think that it has cleared thing up for me too.

[Sapphire_Flame]

You know, it's threads like this that add interesting depths to the fics I write. I don't know if that's good or bad, but..... [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Abedithon le! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

~*~Aranel~*~