An Alternate Ecology of Orcs, pt. 1
Orcs. Classic fantasy monsters, and very controversial, these days. Most of us are aware that orcs, as we know them, are an invention of JRR Tolkien for his Middle-Earth legendarium. In Middle-Earth, orcs are corrupted from the races created by Eru Illuvatar, the one. They are twisted from their original forms and made into evil mockeries. It's important to realize that in this original conception, they aren't based on any human ethnicity. Tolkien himself referred to people of all sorts as orcs or orc-like if they savored destruction, if they valued progress over well being, if they thought only of themselves and their own profit. He certainly didn't intend them as a bioessential condemnation of any particular group of humans in the world. One version of their origin, in fact, has them as elves who were tortured and molded into their current forms, and they even seem to have the elves' long life. As an aside, it can also be important to note that Tolkien's elves are also not based on a human ethnic group. They aren't human at all, but rather a sort of lesser nature spirit in humanoid form. I refer you to his essay 'On Fairy-Stories'. They are explicitly based on the elves of Anglo-Saxon myth, owing more to the Norse Alfar than any other mythological base. That being the case, orcs are corrupted spirit turned from their original purpose . . . earth bound demons, more than people.
The name, orc, itself is derived from various roots, but by the late 16th century meant a sort of ogre, stemming from Old English 'orcneas' or monster, and Italian 'orco' meaning demon. Tolkien was always very deliberate in his linguistic choices, so it seems obvious they were meant to be demonic.
All that has shifted quite a lot, of course, owing to the inclusion of orcs as a monster type in Dungeons and Dragons. Some portrayals of them certainly seemed to lean into a 'savage' or uncivilized identity, creatures that opposed the forces of Law. They were given a tribal, hunter-gatherer society, but still explicitly made evil, early on at least. Here's where I think the mistake was made. Not understanding their inherently supernatural nature, game designers made them a biological species, and then tied their identity, at least implicitly, to various tribal cultures worldwide . . . without removing their inherent evil. Not to mention, they badly missed the point of orcs as Tolkien used them. Orcs had better technology than the beings around them, using explosives and advanced war machines. They were the servants of a tyrannical overlord who was pretty clearly an industrial power, and their ranks, while violent, were organized. They were not a tribal society, at heart. They were demonic soldiers for a fascist industrial master who wanted to bring order, his order, to the whole world. DnD, probably unintentionally, positioned them (and many other human shaped monsters) as 'primitive' non settled peoples who were evil because they opposed human civilization. Rather a nasty reverse of the Tolkienian perspective. And by making them a real biological people rather than a supernatural corruption, well, here comes the nasty racist and bioessentialist nonsense. It does not help that many portrayals of them took elements of real indigenous cultures to flesh them out. It's understandable, we use what we know, but the results were unfortunate, and really did lend themselves to very racist caricatures.
As a bit of a backlash from people who liked the images of the indigenous cultures, and the outcast 'barbarian' vibe, orcs started to get treated differently in some media. Their cultures became more explicitly based upon real world tribal groups, and they were treated more as 'noble savages'. . . which is a problematic trope in its own right. Now we have a huge argument between the 'orcs are monsters' people, and the 'no people are inherently evil' people, talking past each other. Most, I feel, don't realize that the problem arises from this ongoing shift in perspective. They just aren't having the same conversation. To be fair, a lot of folks don't seem to realize that orcs and the like, as they stand now, are often racist caricatures, whether they were intended that way or not, and that one needs to be explicit about the distinction between supernatural demonic entities and people to avoid that. On the other side, many folks have no notion of the orcs real origin, as it isn't something made clear even in Tolkien's most read works, only in his supplementary material.
Given this, we have two possible solutions to the orc 'problem'. The first is to continue the trend, and simply treat them as people, with all the nuance and variety that entails, and often, that is the best approach, given how things have developed. So there will be 'good' orcs, and evil orcs. Civilized orcs and hunter-gatherer orcs (note that here civilized just means 'lives in cities' and I apply no value judgement.) Orcs who worship bloodthirsty war gods and orcs who revere the sun and moon and wind. They may even be in the same cultures. Plenty of folks have gone this route, and I endorse it.
But I think it's also valid to go the other direction. Orcs can be monsters. Demonic things that exist to destroy and tyrannize. You just have to make sure it's clear, in their origins, and in their existence, that they are demons, not people. A supernatural manifestation of evil, unnatural, not related to any real groups. Doing so does mean being very careful to get cultural consultation, to make sure you aren't accidentally using a racist trope that maybe you weren't aware of. I've done something similar with my Kobaloi, or goblinoids, for the Successor States of Rega, but I avoided orcs. Orcs don't even exist in Rega. I think I'll brave the controversy and come up with a model for orcs as demonic monsters in DnD and other fantasy games in part 2 of this Alternate Ecology. Stay tuned.
