Fan Art commissioned by EJ of Monster Romance Reviews and created by Le Corgo: www.LeCorgo.com
Monster Romance Author is Finley Fenn who wrote one of my top favorites, The Duchess and the Orc: https://finleyfenn.com/
Orcs, the Garlic of Monster Romance Monsters
Monster Romance’s take on orcs is a perfect example of the female gaze in popular culture. Most Western audiences are familiar with orcs as interpreted by Peter Jackson’s take on J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Dungeons and Dragons, or even World of Warcraft. I find the Monster Romance genre ransacks from all these franchises and even more. The resulting orcs are the grumpiest, cuddliest, horniest teddy bears literature can offer.
What Monster Romance does with orcs can hugely vary. I like to think of them as the vanilla or garlic of Monster Romance. They go with about everything and you can never have too much.
Orcs can be from space, fantasy realms, or alternative dimensions. Their skin varies in shades of coal to leafy green. They can have knots, piercings, magical seed, and/or fun textures down there. Their race’s females may exist, be dwindling, or just aren’t biologically possible. They can have fated mates. Sometimes they ride wolf-like creatures of some kind. Sometimes their bodies are powerful enough to transport themselves across distances. These characteristics and more are for the monster romance reader to manipulate and embellish as they want for the sake of their storytelling.
That isn’t to say that orcs across Monster Romance have no common traits. They are always huge in body and, well, body. They are always aggressive in some way. They always have pointed ears and claws. Those claws can be retractable, which is quite useful. They typically possess fangs, tusks, or both. These characteristics are conveniently flexible enough that I find you can fit orcs into most romance scenarios.
Orc-y Origins
Orcs are European in cultural origin. They don’t have the same folkloric background though as creatures such as goblins, fairies, elves, or trolls. It seems generally accepted though that they are primarily an invention of J. R. R. Tolkien and they are a race borrowed from goblins and evolved to be distinct from them.
Outside of Middle Earth, orcs can be found in the following franchises: Warcraft, Warhammer, Magic: The Gathering, The Elder Scrolls, and Dungeons and Dragons. Of course, that list is constantly growing. What they all share though is that they come after the publications of Tolkien’s Middle Earth books. If one were to build off of the most original orc folklore they can, it is Tolkien where one should start.
As a professional academic philologist, it is no surprise that Tolkien based his fantasized creatures on old European languages and their stories. In the case of the word “orc”, there happens to be the Latin word, Orcus, which refers to a goblin or evil spirit.
For more…
Shippey, Tom (1979). "Creation from Philology in the Lord of the Rings". In Salu, Mary; Farrell, Robert T. (eds.). J. R. R. Tolkien, scholar and storyteller: Essays in Memoriam. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 291. ISBN 978-0-80141-038-3.
It is generally accepted from Tolkien's letters and books themselves that Tolkien modeled his orcs on goblins. In the books, he uses the words orcs and goblins almost interchangeably but makes a strong change from preferring “goblin” in The Hobbit to “orc” in The Lord of the Rings. It is also noted from his collected letter that Tolkien's orcs were influenced by George MacDonald's 1872 The Princess and the Goblin.
For more…
Gilliver, Peter; Marshall, Jeremy; Weiner, Edmund (2009). "Part III. Word Studies. Orc.". The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. pp. 174–175. ISBN 9780199568369.
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (1981). The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-31555-2.
Notes
Culture(s) of origin: Western Europe
Notable Cultural References:
Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit
Warcraft
Warhammer
Magic: The Gathering
The Elder Scrolls
Dungeons and Dragons
Common Attributes
Big
Fangs or Tusks
Athletic
Aggressive
Competent with weapons
Pointed Ears
Enhanced senses
Shades of green to grey
Did I say big yet?
Human-like scale
[ ] 1 - Almost indistinguishable from humans
[ ] 2 - Subtle differences present (such as pointed ears)
[x] 3 - Clearly different from humans (possessing some non-human body parts)
[ ] 4 - Completely different from humans (very few or no relatable body parts)
For further reading…
Housekeeping
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