BF2S Forums The Hobbit

They are different names for the same race of creatures. Of the two, "Orc" is the correct one. This has been a matter of widespread debate and misunderstanding, mostly resulting from the usage in The Hobbit (Tolkien had changed his mind about it by LotR but the confusion in the earlier book was made worse by inconsistent backwards modifications). There are a couple of statements in The Hobbit which, if taken literally, suggest that Orcs are a subset of goblins. If we are to believe the indications from all other areas of Tolkien's writing, this is not correct. These are: some fairly clear statements in letters, the evolution of his standard terminology (see next paragraph), and the actual usage in LotR, all of which suggest that "Orc" was the true name of the race. (The pedigrees in Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia are thoroughly inaccurate and undependable.)

What happened was this. The creatures so referred to were invented along with the rest of Tolkien's subcreation during the writing of the Book of Lost Tales (the "pre-Silmarillion"). His usage in the early writing is somewhat varied but the movement is away from "goblin" and towards "orc". It was part of a general trend away from the terminology of traditional folklore (he felt that the familiar words would call up the wrong associations in the readers' minds, since his creations were quite different in specific ways). For the same general reasons he began calling the Deep Elves "Noldor" rather than "Gnomes", and avoided "Faerie" altogether. (On the other hand, he was stuck with "Wizards", an "imperfect" translation of Istari ('the Wise'), "Elves", and "Dwarves"; he did say once that he would have preferred "dwarrow", which, so he said, was more historically and linguistically correct, if he'd thought of it in time ...)

In The Hobbit, which originally was unconnected with the Silmarillion, he used the familiar term "goblin" for the benefit of modern readers. By the time of LotR, however, he'd decided that "goblin" wouldn't do -- Orcs were not storybook goblins (see above). (No doubt he also felt that "goblin", being Romance-derived, had no place in a work based so much on Anglo-Saxon and Northern traditions in general.) Thus, in LotR, the proper name of the race is "Orcs" (capital "O"), and that name is found in the index along with Ents, Men, etc., while "goblin" is not in the index at all. There are a handful of examples of "goblin" being used (always with a small "g") but it seems in these cases to be a kind of slang for Orcs.

Tolkien's explanation inside the story was that the "true" name of the creatures was Orc (an anglicized version of Sindarin Orch, pl. Yrch). As the "translator" of the ancient manuscripts, he "substituted" "Goblin" for "Orch" when he translated Bilbo's diary, but for The Red Book he reverted to a form of the ancient word.

[The actual source of the word "orc" is Beowulf: "orc-nass", translated as "death-corpses". It has nothing to do with cetaceans.]

http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/Creatures.html#OrcGoblin

Q: Are Orcs and Goblins the Same Thing?

ANSWER: Yes, Orcs and Goblins are the same thing. People sometimes argue that Orcs are in truth the “larger” Goblins but that is not the case. Tolkien freely used “orcs” and “goblins” interchangeably throughout The Lord of the Rings but he also used them in similar fashion (but to a lesser degree) in The Hobbit. In fact, according to John Rateliff in The History of the Hobbit, Part One: Mr. Baggins, J.R.R. Tolkien used “orcs” and “goblins” interchangeably going all the way back to the stories in The Book of Lost Tales, including “The Fall of Gondolin” (the first of those stories to be written).

Some readers argue that Tolkien only intended to use “orc” to refer to larger goblins in The Hobbit, but he in fact describes big goblins simply as large or big goblins in several places, as when narrating the events of the Battle of Five Armies:

Day drew on. The goblins gathered again in the valley. There a host of Wargs came ravening and with them came the bodyguard of Bolg, goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel. Soon actual darkness was coming into a stormy sky; while still the great bats swirled about the heads and ears of elves and men, or fastened vampire-like on the stricken. Now Bard was fighting to defend the Eastern spur, and yet giving slowly back; and the elf-lords were at bay about their king upon the southern arm, near to the watch-post on Ravenhill.

It can be shown that Tolkien used orc in Orcrist, the name of the Elvish sword Thorin claimed from the trolls’ hoard, going all the way back to the earliest published edition of The Hobbit — and that Elrond translated that name as “goblin cleaver”. Although this seems sufficient proof to many fans, others feel that Tolkien was distinguishing between goblins of different size by calling some “orcs” and others “goblins”. There is, however, no textual support for this point of view in any of J.R.R. Tolkien’s letters, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth, the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, or the two volumes of The History of The Hobbit.

Orcs are goblins and goblins are Orcs and that is as Tolkien always viewed the matter.


Xenite.Org (http://s.tt/18Xb2)

AussieReaper wrote:

Tolkien was also a racist.

Evil -
The Dark Lord Sauron
Black Riders / Nazgul
The Black Gate
Black Orcs


Good -
Gandalf the White
Blonde, blue eyed and fair haired elves
Gondor the "white" city. White tree banner.

Wake up sheeple!

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

And black = evil, white = good is a classical portrayal, metaphorical day and night, dark and light.  Aussie is being stupid on purpose (go figure).

Ty wrote:

I passed three trolls being constructed on my way to work this morning.

Ty wrote:

Do all movies get this sort of fanfare?

Macbeth wrote:

KEN-JENNINGS wrote:

And black = evil, white = good is a classical portrayal, metaphorical day and night, dark and light.  Aussie is being stupid on purpose (go figure).

Does it matter? Fantasy is terrible genre anyway. Period.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Spearhead wrote:

Lincoln was better

Well guess what I'm going to wait to see on DVD rather than theaters? That's right, Lincoln.

Last edited by Spearhead (2012-11-29 01:22:27)

Macbeth wrote:

Fantasy is terrible genre anyway. Period.