{"id":328,"date":"2004-01-11T11:10:25","date_gmt":"2004-01-11T16:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=328"},"modified":"2015-05-13T14:22:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T18:22:02","slug":"tolkien-scholars-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=328","title":{"rendered":"Where Orcs Come From"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0618056998&#038;asins=0618056998&#038;linkId=BEKUL4CFXIE5X26Z&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nIn the film, we see Orcs being &#8220;born&#8221; out of the mud of the earth.  It is as though Sauron is creating them, it seems as though the Orcs are being genetically engineered by the Dark Power, to be his own personal army.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t really get that impression from the book, however &#8211; and the letters of Tolkien seem to support that.<\/p>\n<p>Tolkien seems to suggest that Orcs already existed &#8211; but they were <i>corrupted<\/i> by Mordor &#8211; and encouraged to do the dirty work of Sauron.  They are genetically encouraged by Sauron to be bigger, stronger, more brutal.<\/p>\n<p>Are Orcs actually created from the mud of the earth, as depicted in the movie?  Or &#8211; (I feel supremely silly asking this): do Orcs have parents?  Are there mummy and daddy Orcs?<\/p>\n<p>What the hell is going on with the Orcs, is basically my question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the film, we see Orcs being &#8220;born&#8221; out of the mud of the earth. It is as though Sauron is creating them, it seems as though the Orcs are being genetically engineered by the Dark Power, to be his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=328\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[262],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101189,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/101189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}