Thread by @timboltonuk

🧙‍♂️📜 On Orcs and other curiosities: A mini-thread essay to help viewers of The Rings of Power understand the sources used from J.R.R. Tolkien.

2/🧵 This thread will cover quotes and lore from J.R.R. Tolkien to help assist people in understanding the sources used by Amazon’s The Rings of Power Season 2 and hopefully inform, educate and resolve any confusions.

3/🧵 Fans seem to be confused over the nature of orcs and the existence of orc families in Middle-earth. Let’s go directly to Tolkien on this matter in a reference to how orcs get more orcs…

4/🧵”multiplied after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar” – they had sex and gave birth to children, it’s quite clear.

#TRoPSpoiler The doubt from fans came over an orc woman appearing in the show. Tolkien is clear on that too.

4/🧵Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey (@UppsalaBooks) discussed this in his wonderful “The Road to Middle-earth” but also examined Tolkien’s internal conflict over the varied implications regarding an Elven origin of orcs.

@UppsalaBooks 5/🧵 Note this book was (I believe) written before the Munby Letter was public knowledge where Tolkien himself says there must be female orcs.

6/🧵 I would be amiss to not acknowledge that Tolkien was ultimately in conflict over his orc origin, but it’s clear he understood that they reproduced and had babies. But he did toy with the origins. Dwarf origins seem mixed with orcs in the below quote.

7/🧵 As well as the fact there are female orcs and also they reproduce and have babies, across the legendarium there are hints this exists. There are half-orcs (LOTR).

8/🧵 We also have “goblin imps” (Hobbit). These imply Gollum was eating goblin babies/children whilst living in the Goblin cave system under the Misty Mountains.

9/🧵 We also have family lines of orcs: Azog (d. Battle of Azanulbizar) and his son Bolg (d. Battle of Five Armies). Sons of orc chieftains became leaders themselves in the wars against Men, Dwarves and Elves – implying a hereditary system of leadership?

10/🧵So on the matter of Orcs with families, I think Tolkien is clear – they existed, he had considered them, but he didn’t include them in his works. Christopher included an incomplete essay by Tolkien on the origins of orcs in “Morgoth’s Ring” (HoME 10).

11/🧵 Some (easily accessible) resources (@TolkienGateway + @Wikipedia) on orcs:
1]
2]
3]
4] tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Orcs
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc#The_o…
tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Half-orcs
tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Azog

@TolkienGateway @Wikipedia 12/🧵Other subjects that have come up include Sauron’s own nature: was he evil from the beginning? Tolkien is clear on this point in one of his letters, as follows:

@TolkienGateway @Wikipedia 13/🧵Something pointed out to me in the TORN discord (thanks to that person): Sauron was as much as breeder of orcs as Morgoth and this idea may well have been used by the writers/showrunners in Season 2 – that is deep lore.

14/🧵#TROPSpoilers

The part alluded to is Adar explaining it was Sauron who fed him wine on the mountain top when Morgoth converted 13 elves. Sauron was an active participant in the corruption of those elves.

15/🧵I think part of why we are seeing fan confusion over orc families is caused by the Peter Jackson films – there is nothing in Tolkien’s writings that fits with how we see the Uruk-Hai "births" in the LOTR: The Two Towers, it’s completely non-canon but is fixed in fans’ minds.

16/🧵#TROPspoilers Some deep cuts in Episode 2 and Elf slander with poor Rúmil and Daeron. Naughty Círdan!

Lore via @TolkienGateway:

tolkiengateway.net/wiki/R%C3%BAmi…
tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Daeron