Orcs

Origin

The account given in The Silmarillion is that when the Elves awoke at Cuiviénen, Melkor, already watching from the north, sent his shadows and hunters to take them. Those he captured he carried to Utumno, and there by slow torment and cruelty he corrupted and enslaved them, breeding from them the race of the Orcs. The Silmarillion presents this as the belief of the wise of Eressëa, and adds that it was Melkor's vilest deed and the one most hateful to Ilúvatar, since the Orcs multiplied like the Children whom they mocked. It also states that the Orcs had life and bred as the Children did, and that they hated their master in their hearts.

Tolkien himself was never satisfied with this origin. Elsewhere he describes Orcs as made by Melkor in mockery of the Elves, and in his later reflections he weighed whether they might have been bred from Men, animated by lesser spirits, or several of these at once. The published text follows the Elvish account, and this compendium does the same, but the question of whether Orcs were beyond redemption troubled their author, and the texts describe them as creatures that Morgoth's power maintained and could not truly create.

Nature

Orcs are short and bow-legged, long-armed, swart or sallow, with fangs, flat noses and slanting eyes; the larger breeds approach the height of Men. They are strong, hardy and cunning, quick to make weapons and engines, and clever at tunnelling and at the mechanical arts, though they make nothing of beauty. Most breeds loathed sunlight and moved by night or under cloud; they saw well in the dark, could run for days, and could smell a trail like hounds. Their disposition was hatred, first of Elves, then of all the Free Peoples, and last of one another: they quarrelled constantly, killed their own, and were held together only by the fear of a master. They ate any flesh, including that of Men and, in extremity, of other Orcs. The Uruk-hai alone among them could endure the sun.

Breeds

Orcs were never one uniform people. The smaller mountain breeds, the goblins of the Misty Mountains, infested the caves from Gundabad to Moria and rode wolves in the open. Trackers of Mordor were small, black-skinned and wide-nostrilled. The great soldier-Orcs, the Uruks, appeared out of Mordor in T.A. 2475 and became Sauron's main strength, while Saruman bred his own Uruk-hai at Isengard, taller, straighter and sun-tolerant, and crossed Orcs with Men to produce half-orcs and goblin-men. The Orcs themselves recognised the differences with contempt, the larger calling the smaller snaga, slave.

Language

The Orcs had no language of their own. From the beginning they seized words from other tongues and twisted them, so that every tribe spoke a different jargon and no two bands could understand each other at a distance. Sauron devised the Black Speech to be used by all his servants, but it never took root except in the debased form used in Mordor and among the Uruks; the inscription on the One Ring is its purest surviving example, and the curse that Grishnákh's kind muttered on the plains of Rohan its commonest. Among themselves the Orcs of the West mostly used a broken and ugly Westron, which is why Merry and Pippin could follow the quarrels of their captors.

Under Morgoth

Morgoth filled Angband with Orcs before the return of the Noldor. They overran Beleriand in the first battle against Thingol's Elves, were destroyed in Dagor-nuin-Giliath and the Glorious Battle, and became the mass of his armies in the Dagor Bragollach and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, where they were led by Balrogs and dragons. Orcs sacked Nargothrond behind Glaurung, took Gondolin with the Balrogs, and were the instrument of the Nirnaeth's aftermath in Hithlum. After the War of Wrath the survivors fled into the mountains of the East and North.

Under Sauron

Sauron's new Mordor of the Second Age gathered Orcs from every refuge; they fought in the war against the Elves of Eregion and the Last Alliance, and Orcs slew Isildur at the Gladden Fields in T.A. 2. In the Third Age they became the enemy of the North. Orcs of the Misty Mountains raided Eriador, fought Arnor and its successors, took Moria after the Dwarves fled, and murdered Thrór, bringing on the War of the Dwarves and Orcs in which Azog died and the Orc-holds of the mountains were emptied. Under Azog's son Bolg they rose again and were broken at the Battle of Five Armies in 2941. Meanwhile Sauron built a far greater army in Mordor, whose captains Shagrat and Gorbag held the pass of Cirith Ungol, and whose hosts sacked Osgiliath and stormed the Pelennor.

Saruman's Uruk-hai

Saruman's contribution was a new soldiery bred in the pits of Isengard, wearing the White Hand, able to march by day. Under Uglúk a band of them took Merry and Pippin at Amon Hen and carried them toward Isengard until Éomer's riders destroyed them at the eaves of Fangorn. The mass of the Uruk-hai perished at Helm's Deep, and with the fall of Isengard the breed had no home.

Fate

When the Ring was destroyed the will that drove the Orcs of Mordor failed. Before the Black Gate they fled in every direction, threw themselves into pits or slew themselves in despair. The Orcs of the mountains survived as bands of robbers, and Orcs are recorded harrying the North for a time after the war, but their day as armies was over. Whether any redemption was possible for them the texts never say.

Orcs vary greatly by breed, but the typical Orc is shorter than a Man, thick-bodied and bow-legged, with long arms that reach nearly to the ground, a wide flat face, sallow or dark skin, slanted eyes, fangs and a broad flat nose. Their blood is black. The larger Uruks are nearly Man-high, straight-limbed and heavily muscled, with black skin and, in Saruman's breed, the ability to bear daylight. The small trackers of Mordor are snuffling, slit-eyed and black-skinned. Orcs heal fast, tire slowly and can run without rest for days, and their eyes are made for darkness. They are not naturally long-lived so far as the texts show, though Bolg was active a century and a half after his father's death, suggesting spans well beyond those of Men.

Orkish society is a hierarchy of fear: captains rule by the whip and the knife, and a captain's authority lasts as long as his back is guarded. Bands identify by tribe and master, Mordor's with the Red Eye, Isengard's with the White Hand, and the Moria and Gundabad goblins with their own marks. They forge crude but effective weapons, scimitars, broad-bladed spears and short bows, and are ingenious with engines and tunnels; Merry and Pippin found their ointments and cordials horrible but effective. Their humour is cruel, their songs mocking, and their loyalties short. They loathe Elves above all things, hate and fear the Dwarves, despise Men as easy prey, and hate one another. Sauron's Orcs kept a written tally and used the Black Speech for oaths and orders; the goblins of the North had their own wolf-riding customs and their alliance with the Wargs. There is no record of Orc-women or Orc-children, though the texts state that Orcs bred after the manner of the Children of Ilúvatar.

The Elves of Cuiviénen learned early that some among them who wandered alone did not return. A dark rider hunted them, and Melkor's servants took them to Utumno. There, in the only creation Melkor ever managed, he bred from the captives a race shaped to his hatred, and the Orcs multiplied in the dark until they were the most numerous of his servants. Tolkien records this as the account the wise believed, and it is the one The Silmarillion gives; it should be read alongside the fact that its author was never content with it and considered that the Orcs might have come in part from Men or from lesser spirits.

The armies of Mordor broke at the Black Gate on 25 March 3019, and with Isengard and Dol Guldur destroyed the Orcs had no master in the West. Bands survived in the Misty Mountains and the far North and were hunted by Dwarves, Beornings and the Men of the Reunited Kingdom in the early Fourth Age. They never again gathered as a host.