Themed Collection: Orcs Are People

Tolkien's legendarium is sometimes criticized for a too-tidy binary of Good and Evil. While this is less true of The Silmarillion than the better-known Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, the criticism can ring true there as well, perhaps best exemplified by the Orcs, who are depicted in the book as uncomplicated pawns for pure evil with few humanizing traits that invite empathy or even for readers to consider them as human beings.

In the newest addition to our Themed Collection series, Cuarthol has assembled ten stories, essays, and works of art that challenge the idea of Orcs as purely evil or unthinking, unfeeling pawns of Melkor. Introducing the collection, titled with the plainspoken and (in some circles) radical title Orcs Are People, Cuarthol writes:

Whatever Tolkien’s final thoughts, his works depict Orcs with an undeniable humanity—they sing songs, chafe against Big Bosses, and even seek vengeance for deaths of family or comrades. Whether by intent or no, they were people beyond being mere pawns driven by a Dark Lord’s will.

Fanworks, of course, provide one powerful means to transcend the depictions of Orcs that we see in Tolkien's published works, considering what the lives of Orcish people were like and what the dismissal of those lives in works told from the points of view of Elves and Men show us about the insidious power of dehumanization in our own world.

You can find Cuarthol's collection "Orcs Are People" here. Our themed collections are viewed as a starting point for exploring fanworks centered around a topic, so we encourage adding your own favorite fanworks that seek to (re)humanize Orcs as a comment on the collection. And remember we are always looking for new themed collections; find out more about how to share a collection of fanworks on your favorite character, pairing, genre, or topic here!

Posted on 5 October 2024 (updated 5 October 2024) by SWG Moderators