Originally Posted by Warlocke
Originally Posted by Merlex
Not to get into real world politics or religion, because this is a fantasy game. But when Tolkien portrayed Orcs, they weren't about beasts vs humans. Nor were they some underhanded attempt to be racist about about non white ethnicities. Tolkien based Orcs and Goblins on fallen Angels and Demons, and his Elves on Angels of God. That's why they were portrayed as so evil, and Elves as so good.


Elves in Tolkien have nothing to do with angels. The Wizards are angels, Sauron is a fallen angel. And I don’t mean inspired by angels. The Judeo-Christian God exists in Tolkien, though is only just barely mentioned outside of the Silmarillion. So Gandalf is an actual angel of God and Sauron is a lieutenant to Satan.

Tolkien’s elves are personifications of the highest human qualities.

"The Elves represent, as it were, the artistic, aesthetic, and purely scientific aspects of the Humane nature raised to a higher level than is actually seen in Men.” -Tolkien, letter 181

So if orcs represent a subversion, it would be of that. Not angels.


That sounds more right. It's been over 40 years since I studied LotR, so I probably remember somethings wrong.


Originally Posted by Warlocke
Interestingly enough, Tolkien himself agonized about the very subject matter of this topic. He went through several iterations of an origin for the orcs, trying to decide if they had free will, if they could be Saved (Tolkien was very Catholic after all) and what it meant for a race to be evil. Tolkien, though certainly subject to all of the implicit racial biases of the culture and time he grew up in, was profoundly against Nazi ideology and only denounced racial pseudoscientific theories.

So, it’s a complex issue. I think it is worth it for WotC to look into their lore and re-examine the validity of some of their tropes. Goblins, Orcs, Gnolls, Drow and the like don’t need to be inherently evil. In fact, the FR setting is arguably more compelling if they aren’t. So why keep them that way?

There will still be evil monsters to fight; plenty of illithids, lichs, beholders, and demons. But for more mundane, non-eldritch entities, we can have good and bad goblins the same way we have good and bad people.


While I see reality in more strict terms of good and evil, I like my entertainment to be more morally gray. But that wasn't the point of my post. There has been this fallacy going around some circles, that Orcs represent people of color. That's not what Tolkien intended when he created them. And while Tolkien "is not the final arbiter of fantasy" @Sordak, he did invent Orcs. At least in literature. And he didn't do it as a backhanded slap to any specific ethnicity.