Orc

An orc (sometimes spelt ork; ) is a fictional race of humanoid monsters often found in works of modern fantasy. Originally called "Goblins," the concept of modern orcs can be found in George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, and later adapted into J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, where the first uses of the word can be found. In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters, contrasting with the benevolent Elves. He described their origins inconsistently, including as a corrupted race of elves, or bred by the Dark Lord Morgoth, or turned to evil in the wild. Tolkien's orcs serve as a conveniently wholly evil enemy that could be slaughtered without mercy. The orc was a sort of "hell-devil" in Old English literature, and the (pl. , "demon-corpses") was a race of corrupted beings and descendants of Cain, alongside the elf, according to the poem Beowulf. Tolkien adopted the term orc from these old attestations, which he professed was a choice made purely for "phonetic suitability" reasons. Tolkien's concept of orcs has been adapted into the fantasy fiction of other authors, and into games of many different genres such as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Warcraft.

An orc (sometimes spelt ork; ) is a fictional race of humanoid monsters often found in works of modern fantasy. Originally called "Goblins," the concept of modern orcs can be found in George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, and later adapted into J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, where the first uses of the word can be found. In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters, contrasting with the benevolent Elves. He described their origins inconsistently, including as a corrupted race of elves, or bred by the Dark Lord Morgoth, or turned to evil in the wild. Tolkien's orcs serve as a conveniently wholly evil enemy that could be slaughtered without mercy. The orc was a sort of "hell-devil" in Old English literature, and the (pl. , "demon-corpses") was a race of corrupted beings and descendants of Cain, alongside the elf, according to the poem Beowulf. Tolkien adopted the term orc from these old attestations, which he professed was a choice made purely for "phonetic suitability" reasons. Tolkien's concept of orcs has been adapted into the fantasy fiction of other authors, and into games of many different genres such as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Warcraft. 's film versions of Tolkien's orcs have been compared to wartime caricatures of the Japanese (here, an American propaganda poster). |alt=Poster showing fanged caricature of "Tokio kid," a Japanese person pointing a bloody knife at a sign that reads "Much waste of material make so-o-o-o happy! Thank you!"]] Scholars of English literature William N. Rogers II and Michael R. Underwood note that a widespread element of late 19th century Western culture was fear of moral decline and degeneration; this led to eugenics. In The Two Towers, the Ent Treebeard says: The journalist David Ibata writes that the interpretations of orcs in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films look much like "the worst depictions of the Japanese drawn by American and British illustrators during World War II". The Germanic studies scholar Sandra Ballif Straubhaar writes that there is evidence in Tolkien's writing of "a kind of racism perhaps not unremarkable in a mid-twentieth century Western man", but that this is often overstated, and must be balanced against the "polycultured, polylingual world" that is "absolutely central" to Middle-earth, as well as Tolkien's own "appalled objection" to those seeking to use his work to uphold racist ideas. File:Savage Orc by farmerownia.jpg|Savage orc File:For the love of waaagh by grundalug.jpg|For the Love of Waaagh!, an Ork from Warhammer 40,000 ==References==

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