Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Needs Help
, started by SantosLHalper on Nov 30th 2018 at 1:54:12 AM
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "Later Orcs" or something? Realistically, a majority of orcs in Warcraft are still in the vein of evil cannon fodder Tolkienesque types, with only a small minority being "good"; even the lore suggests that prior to their demonic corruption, they were still as brutal and savage as anything else on their homeworld. Alternatively, it could be said that "Good Orcs" are more of an Elder Scrolls notion; Morrowind, which released around the time as Warcraft 3, also changed its view on orcs and debuted them as the 10th playable race of the franchise, and from that game onward, orcs in the Elder Scrolls franchise haven't been depicted as evil or narrow minded. Bethesda certainly ran more with the "noble savage" trope in orcs than Blizzard truly did.
I think we should split the orc appearance from the characterization one. There are sympathetic depictions of orcs that are pig like and Evil depictions that are simian.
There's also how humanoid they are depicted, skin color, ETC. which deserves mention.
Something like the four looks.
- Very humanoid with inhuman skin color and face with minimal monster features. Roughly regular person sized. Basically Tolkien Style.
- Larger humanoids with builds, more inhuman faces and tusks. Basically Warcraft Style.
- Ludicrously muscular and top heavy humanoids with very exaggerated tusks, proportions and posture. Basically Warhammer Style.
- Pigman. Basically JRPG style.
I don't really like it when tropes try to impose a "multiple types" segmentation to the trope, since the distinction between the types rarely holds up to scrutiny. Instead of fracturing the trope into a bunch of arbitrary subtropes, I think we should just join everything together. Orcs are orcs, and in each work, they're somewhat different in various ways.
Edited by CaptainCrawdad
Sounds good, we could just note the Pig thing was popularized by 1st edition DND/Dragonquest and that they generally tend to be a Monstrous Humanoid of roughly similar size to humans.
Edited by Monsund
The trope description was way too long and included too much specific discussion of works featuring of the trope rather than just outlining the various flavors of the trope itself. I've cut a bunch of unnecessary discussion in the trope description and moved some info down to the relevant works.
Who wrote that orc means "foreigner" in Old English? The etymology of orc is known and it doesn't mean that. The Old English word for "foreigner" is wealh, plural wealas, from which we get "Wales" and "Welsh" as it was applied to the Britons.
I'm assuming good faith here, but I had to correct it since it's probably derived from English white supremacist nonsense.
The page says "Ork" is the norm in Modern or Futuristic Fantasy but besides Warhammer 40,000 and Shadowrun, I can't find any other examples of the Ork spelling being used for such a setting. Are there any more? Being used in two series doesn't exactly make it the norm...
" the original model developed by J.R.R. Tolkien" - I take exception to this, Orc is a term borrowed from many places and there are many examples of prior use. The old English word 'orc' was a term for demon, the Orc-ne appears in Beowulf, there are many examples throughout Saxon and Norse literature to be found.
In the Malazan book of the Fallen the Jaghut make fairly poor Orc analogs, as they are solitary, and individually extremely magically powerful. The Bargast as the living desendants of the T'Lann I'Mass are the ones who fit the blizard mode of Orcs better. They are a numerous herding people, who are described as being heavily muscled with a sloping forehead and little chin. They fit the barbarian warrior model the best in the series.
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This page's description seems to be having a discussion with itself. I'm mentioning this rather than changing it because repairing it would involve some judgment calls I can't make offhandedly at least.
I don't like calling them just "Blizzard" Orcs. How about, "Blizzardic"? That's got a nice ring to it.
In MGE orcs are Cute Monster Girl Pigmen