What makes a compelling orc?
A few weeks ago I posed a question to the community: “What’s your favorite style of orc?” along with a bit of context of my own. In particular I like the seldom seen but quite artistically pleasing orcs from AD&D. They weren’t the “pig orcs” that were like the gamorreans from Star Wars, they weren’t copies of Tolkien’s orcs, and they weren’t yet the green skinned “himboes” (as somebody put it in response to the question) that evolved due to the influence of franchises like Warcraft.
This is the cover of Dragon Magazine issue #136, which was all about cities, merchants, rulers, and urban adventure. The original caption for the image inside said that not every city is ruled by a mayor or lord, some might be ruled by lamias and the city watch might well be orcs.
My choice was mostly aesthetic, but there was another element to it. The image above, beyond showing the style of orc that I enjoyed, also showcases the narrative flexibility of orcs. Sure, they might be servants of some evil necromancer or invading as a horde, but they can also be that guard who looks the other way when player characters rough up a common criminal or a drinking buddy.
I think there’s also a fun implication that a campaign might not be over even if the orcs win in the former scenarios.
In any case, my favorite response to the question actually came much later. Craig describes why orcs are useful in fantasy, what makes them compelling, and why the two orc styles he highlights are the strongest examples of that flexibility.
“...the orc has always been a way for [gamers] to play with and deal with the concept of the ‘other’ and what we don’t like and fear about ourselves and our base nature.”
So the first is the Tolkien Orc. Unlike 99.999% of nerds who like fantasy and role playing — I don't really like Tolkien. What started as something I could peacock around about in a punk rock ‘I'm super special smart different deep snow flake’ kinda way to avoid my guilt at not liking something that I'm supposed to has devolved in my old age to something I temper my shame with through avoidance rather than wearing it like a red badge of courage or an ironic t-shirt. But I DO like his Orcs. I like how they're the manifestation of the "other" — of the foreign "oriental" horde that has an "unreasonable" and undeserved power and competence when they should be mentally deficient at the very least and mentally, morally, and physically deformed to the point of weakness. However, they're not.
People are individuals and feel and express and experience life in exactly that way. But we have to take that away from the "other" — so Orcs are all the same- unless their more "orc-like” by being more strong or cruel or barbaric or cunning or less orc — by being weaker or exhibiting some non-orc emotion like weakness or contemplative wiseness for example. Orcs are a threat that threatens to overrun us and not culturally assimilate with us as actual conquerors do in real historic terms… they'll just roll over and destroy everything of value we have and treasure. Their horde has no place for things of value or worth, so we can project everything "bad" on them and also justify our own inhumanity and disagreeable acts and antics by denying their humanity further. They're basically, ugly, deformed, stupid, evil barbaric warriors who are cursed by nature to rape and pillage and be orky.
Of course in fantasy you can have a redemption story which generally either results in an orc being special and basically becoming a human.... the orc has always been a way for us to play with and deal with the concept of "the other" and what we don't like and fear about ourselves and our base nature. Sometimes the message is that of: were it not for Christ, civilization, tupperware, workers consciousness etc. etc. we'd all revert to our savage base - like orcs.
The Uruk-hai, by John Howe
So I like my orcs to be like Tolkien’s or the American western idea of the red savage — applying our own insecurities to bodies we don't really know or understand… all of which will allow us to kill, slaughter, exploit, enslave, dehumanize, or otherwise act out in our most bestial way with impunity all the while we deny our own base selves and deny the orc or the mongol or the chinese or the navajo any agency or humanity at all. It’s sick — but in D&D it’s cool because you CAN have an orc be an actual other and not a person. It’s fantasy so you can make them evil rabid animals if you'd like. That's just pornography and while comforting in how easy it is — it sucks and isn't at all interesting and makes for terribly banal stories.
Anyway, morality tales are for church sermons and afternoon specials not for fantasy story telling. that’s where the Brits got it right twice. The punks who came out of their poll tax riots, workers striking because their government was attempting to shut down their places of employment, an economy that was smaller than Italy's and threatened to drop down to fight Franco for poorest most miserable European country that wasn't currently hosting Red Army divisions at least had a literary tradition of biting amazing brilliant satire that had produced everything from convincing arguments to encourage the consumption of infants to prevent starvation and overpopulation in Ireland to fun music being played while a fat man on a small bicycle topples over. They created the BEST orc.
These things spoke like cockney soccer hooligans, [they] were violent idiots who used their own knocked out teeth as currency, [they] loved embarking on brutal bloody wars of violence for the sake of the violence AND while moronically dumb in a way that we've never even described people having multiple extra chromosomes or being from east Asia- could wish into existence all manners of impossible fantastic absurd killing machines, space ships, and powerful weapons. Oh! they also had no genders, and were basically reproduced in the same manner as an over active fungus. (in the sense of a fungus like athletes foot or jock itch- not truffles ok?) anyway- these orcs were so absurd and dumb they turned the long racist problematic literary tradition of the "other" like Tolkien's orcs right on its head.
They were unabashedly violent, simple minded, inane, violent, ignorant, hilarious, happy, and destroyed and killed everything. Of course the Empire of Mankind is a an overpopulated fascist empire that models its society off of some combination of an overgrown private for profit maximum security prison, fascist Italy with worse food and better martial technology and a large termite mound having a particularly aardvark free few months. Oh it was ruled by a ten thousand year old corpse artificially connected to a life support machine that ran on the souls of a thousand executed psychics a day and bionically enhanced super soldiers who went to war dressed up as various colored fire hydrants... but I digress.
Their orcs showed just how dumb and absurd our own nightmares really are. Warhammer is complex and dystopian but it is also cartoonishly brash and dumb and hilarious. Orcs literally believe they can make a big missile that can blow up an imperial battleship or a legitimate ten thousand year old demon and if there are enough of them, it works. If they think they are missing something they'll find some toothy mother fucker and knock all his teeth out and buy the bits they're missing from the orc who owns a junk yard that happens to have those bits. They're big. They’re green. They're literally the only honest happy civilization in the entire dystopic universe of Warhammer 40k, but they love to fight and kill. Win or lose, they'll be down to do it all again soon. If only we had such actual noble savages in horde form anywhere else in our literary canon.
The original post was a little longer, and I edited or cut some parts for clarity. I hope it was as interesting for you as it was for me. I may later make a Part 2 where I go in to orcs in my settings and might even release some relevant content.