Trolls Goblins Giants Elves Dwarves

Orcs WERE once elves

Okay, my hand has been forced in this discussion.............


1. The appendices and silmarillion clearly state that Morgoth captured some of the earliest elves and twisted them to his purpose. I think I also read this in my handy Tolkienn companions. Yes Morgoth created them in mockery of elves, but he used elves as the "grist for his mill." He also created trolls in mockery of ents, but it isn't clear that he used ents to do this.

2. Gandalf did make mention of needing to find a decent giant to seal off the troll cave after the three trolls were turned to stone. There is mention of giants.

3. AD&D trolls and Tolkienn trolls bear little resemblance to each other.

4. Their is clear mention of Saruman using Dunlanders to interbreed with orcs to produce his Uruk-Hai. They are half-orcs and have human blood.

5. Goblins and orcs are clearly the same thing in Tolkienn's eyes. As someone said earlier, the Hobbit was aimed at a younger audience, hence the use of the term Goblin. LOTR was aimed at a more adult audience, hence the use of the term Orc. Any differences in the two would be due to the way Tolkienn portrayed because of his intended literary goals. All that said, someone else already mentioned (sorry, I don't remember who), Tolkienn's orcs are highly diverse and could be interpreted as seperate races. The goblins of Moria had clear differences with the Orcs of Mordor and the Urak-hai of Isengard (much less the goblins of the Misty Mountains).

Consider this, it's like the difference between a "california girl and a southern chick or a midwest farmer's daughter." All human, but all very distinct.

So how did we get on this subject?

 

...It was me, I stole the cookies from the cookie jar.

 

Robert Rogers...

...would dispute your claim, hal, if he were alive to do it.

http://www.rangerring.com/history/

--------------------------------

Bake and toast 'em, fry and roast'em!
till beards blaze and eyes glaze;
till hair smells and skins crack,
fat melts, and bones black
in cinders lie beneath the sky
so dwarves shall die...

Just what one needs to read to a child...if you're trying to raise a mass murdering arsonist. Hobbit = PG; LoTR = PG13...only because it's a bit more complicated and lengthy. Kids shouldn't be exposed to this until they can read and understand it for themselves.

--------------------------------

1. Tolkien has only one 'n' ;

2. Read Farmer Giles of Ham; not in LoTR, but a good giant story nonetheless; includes info on a reluctant dragon of sorts, too. Also not for young kids...and page 65 of the Hobbit, for giants;

3. Gygax didn't borrow everything from Tolkien;

4. Yep;

5. Tolkien...goblins=orcs; Gygax...goblins<orcs. Both agree to them being "different breeds".

Ted, I knew you had something to do with this...!

 

Bye the way

It all started because of the direction this thread was headed in.

You stealing my cookies you big meanie :roll:

 

did not!
ok, maybe the "lawyer" part, but that just makes a great visual.

 

Lies!!!

Waitasecond!!! I didn't steal the cookies, just the next point!! Cujo stole the cookies, he even admitted it................................

What do cookies have to do with trolls and elves????

We're not talking about lembas bread are we???

 

The rabid dog strikes again

Nah we're not talking about lembas bread, I just wanted to put in my two cents about Trolls, Goblins etc, and see what everyone else had to say, very informitive so far. Although I do find it annoying that goblins and orcs are often counted as different species in modern things, my belief is when you're puting a creature into a fantasy world either make the whole thing up and give it a new name, eg my Garachi which is kind of like an orc, or base it on traditional myth, and using traditional myth have a good background story explaining how it got into the world eg a goblin is a dwarf orc or some thing like that.

just an after thought about orc blood, what metal has a black oxide, because iron is red eg hemoglobin, copper is blue eg hemocyanin in certain mollusks and arthropods, unless it's some thing new like hemogoblin. I was just wondering why orc blood is black

 

Two possibilities below. First link: http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/blood.html

Excerpt When oxygenated, iridium-based blood would need to be shielded from light because of its high photosensitivity. The pigment slowly decomposes over a period of days or weeks when exposed to strong light, gradually changing color from orange to green and finally to a deep bluish-black. Iridium-blooded aliens would thus have to be dark skinned or inhabit a dimly lit world. (In the absence of light, the molecule is stable for years.)

So maybe orc blood is really orange, but looks black when exposed to light. Could also explain why orcs are generally depicted as having dark hued skin, and why they also shun light.

Second link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemoglobin

Excerpt from section other oxygen-binding proteins Pinnaglobin: Only seen in the mollusk Pinna squamosa. Brown manganese-based porphyrin protein.

Not quite black, but maybe mixed with other trace elements proteins could be close enough.

 

Gygax got it wrong

Gygax was a plagiarist. His use of the Tolkien race name orc to make a humanoid race in his fantasy rpg was plagiarism, even though the word orc is also used in the description of whales. Tolkien renamed his goblins orcs (to some in LOTR, to others they are called other names), and it was this use of orc that Gygax used, so his orc is the Tolkien orc, distorted through the garbled understanding of Gygax's brain. Gygax I think just got mixed up. I think he really thought orcs were different from goblins. It's just that simple.

As I wrote previously, if he knew orcs and goblins were the same, then when he made them separate he would have not used the name 'orc', so that the separation would be complete. Using the name 'orc' only meant confusion, as people like me years later would be pointing out the mistake he made. He could have avoided all this if he'd not used the name 'orc' for his humanoid race creation, but invented some other name completely separate. That he didn't do this, when he could so easily have done so, shows, to me, that he didn't think there was anything incongruous or confusing by calling his new race orcs. This can only make sense if he thought goblins and orcs really were different races. Q.E.D.

Gygax, and others like him, got it wrong, and these others have been defending their error ever since (its a hard thing to do for some people to admit they've got something wrong, so they keep on defending, defending in face of the evidence). Its like those who, in the face of heaps of evidence that the world is not flat but round, still go on defending the flat earth theory because to admit they got it wrong is to admit failure, so the earth is flat ...

Gygax got it wrong. Why can't we just accept this and then fix things so that this sort of error is not repeated into the future by others ?

As for the word elf the plural is not elfs, but elves (my Webster's Dictionary says so) and the word gnome comes from the greek gnome meaning 'thought, intelligence', not 'law'.

 

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Goblins and orcs are whatever the author who uses them in his work decides them to be. For Tolkien, they were one and the same, fair enough. Gygax described them as different races, where's the problem? Don't forget that goblins and orcs don't exist. There is no "evidence" in the real world that they actually are the same creature. They belong to the realm of fiction. Although Tolkien's body of work is certainly a reference in the world of fantasy literature, other authors (or game creators, for that matter) should be free to use the terms "orc" and "goblin" as they see fit.

 

What's so difficult with the idea that Gygax borrowed some elements from Tolkien and invented others as suited the needs of the game? It seems almost certain he took "orcs" from Tolkien... but Tolkien has no ownership of the term "goblin". Why does the fact that certain people referred to orcs as goblins in Tolkien's books prevent Gygax from using an ancient and universal term as he saw fit?

It's possible he was confused about Tolkien's world, but you have in no way proven it. How do we know he didn't just open up his dictionary and use the following definition of goblin: "an ugly or grotesque sprite that is mischievous and sometimes evil and malicious."

Gygax used many terms that were also used by Tolkien and expressed them in different ways -- wizards, trolls. It was a process of picking and choosing -- it's not a translation.

You also suggest a failed assumption that this scenario causes distress and confusion for the masses. I assure you that most people are not in any way bothered. Most people are perfectly capable of compartmentalizing Tolkien and D&D. They realize that when they play D&D certain terms will mean one thing, and when they read Tolkien these terms will mean something else.

 

And so ...

I never wrote that Tolkien had ownership of the term 'goblin'. My point is that Gygax took 'orc' from Tolkien, and made it a separate race when in Tolkien it is not a separate race to the race of goblins, it is one and the same race. Since he took it from Tolkien he should keep it as Tolkien had it, another name for the race of goblins. In Tolkien's writings many of the beings and creatures had multiple names. Goblins had multiple names. So did dwarfs, Gandalf, elves, Sauron, and so on.

I never wrote that this error on the part of Gygax (which I believe was accidental, he just got confused) was causing 'distress and confusion for the masses'. I don't refer to people as 'the masses' normally anyway. Communists and die-hard lefties use this term in the main; I never used it in this thread.

If Gygax got his definition for 'goblin' from the dictionary, or some other non-Tolkien source, then fine, but the question then becomes: why call his new other humanoid race which he wanted to be different from goblins, 'orcs', when he must have known, in this case, that orcs were goblins in Tolkiens writings. It just doesn't make logical sense. Keeping the name 'orcs', knowing that in Tolkien, 'orcs' meant goblins, was inviting confusion or argument at some later date. He could have called his new humanoid race something non-Tolkienish and completely avoided this. Why didn't he ? The fact that he didn't lends weight to my argument that he simply thought that orcs were different from goblins. If he knew they were not then he was deliberately sowing the seeds for possible confusion and argument at a later date. I can't beleive Mr Gygax would have been that mean spirited or careless.

Why don't people, game designers, new AD&D DM's, and people writing fantasy related stuff simply do this, adopt a new name for 'orcs' which is not Tolkien derived ? I can't believe that so many people lack imagination to come up with a new name that would truly make what are now erroniously called orcs something else in name and so end this argument.

This is a tall order I admit. I think that orc as a name for some non-goblin humanoid race has become so ingrained into some people's brains that they cannot think of an alternative, but this doesn't cancel what I am saying, that using the name 'orc' for a non-goblin race is, given the source for that name (Tolkien), wrong. It's like having a race of creatures and calling them 'ents' (also from Tolkien) but giving them different characteristics from Tolkien. It can be done, but I would get upset about that as well. Especially if I knew that in so doing the person involved had otherwise kept a lot of Tolkien's creations intact in whatever these ents appeared in.

I think that you, Asimpkins, are an AD&D fan, player, DM or admirer, am I right ? You love the game, play or played it alot, and so hate it when someone criticises it, like me. You probably had goblins in your game, and orcs, out of the Monster Manual, or Monstrous Compendiums, or whatever passes for it now in AD&D, and so you have played all this time without even knowing or caring that originally orcs came from Tolkien and were goblins. And now I come along and raise a concern about it and this upsets you because it makes you uncomfortable. I have questioned your AD&D worldview, which you have probably immersed yourself in and live out in all your adventures. Am I right ? I bet I am close. Anyway this makes you uncomfortable and so you decided to have a go at me. OK, good for you.
But I still say Tolkien was plagiarised by Gygax, Gygax got it wrong with the use of the term 'orcs', and it is about time this mixup was addressed, whether you, Asimpkins, like it or not. This is my opinion. Others can say what they like, but my argument still stands and I am entitled to speak up about it, even if no-one else will.

Of course you are right in one sense. In an imaginary world anything can be called anything. But I am not arguing against this, only arguing that the current use of 'orcs' can be traced back to a mistake by Mr Gygax, perpetuated by others, defended by others, and still in use today in a public sense. In your own private world if you want to use 'orcs' to describe sea creatures with six legs, for example, or flying monsters with two heads, that is your own business. Just don't have a heap of other Tolkien related names in your works, leave these names attached to the descriptions Tolkien gave them, and then publish this and expect no argument from people like me.

That ain't gonna happen.

 

go to http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/enggreek

this is an english/greek online dictionary, once there, type in law.
you will get many translations including:

gnoimos=lawful
nomos=laws
nomia=lawfulness
nomikos=laws,lawyer

and seventeen other translations with the prefix nomo.

as for the elfs, i'm pretty sure i read it in LOTR but it's been about 10yrs. since i've read it. if anybody out there has the 411, let me know please.

as for your dictionary, they go to the rootword wich is in ancient greek, so you are about 3 thousand yrs behind in your tanslation.