are there she orcs??

[Lily Bombadil]

I figured orcs reproduced as Men and Elves, but it was always an alien topic with little meaning in my mind. Then, as I was flipping through one of my books...*pauses to retrieve said volume*

Alas! 'Tis lost to me! However, in one of my volumes, (perhaps one of you can help me on which volume) I believe Golfimbul the goblin was refered to as 'Golfimbul son of ____', and-seeing as how I cannot find the book-I do not remember the father's name. (If I am wrong, and Golfimbul is not the goblin in question, please don't impale me.)
However, an orc-or goblin, for that matter-being refered to as 'son of' gives little credit to the 'fish theory' because it implies that orcs do not entirely neglect their young (at least not immediately).

Do I make any sense whatsoever? If not, ignore me entirely. I merely felt up to blurting my thoughts.

[kboleen]

In The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1, Tolkien describes that when Elves die, they are reborn in later generations. Tolkien implies that there are a set number of Elves that neither increases or decreases.

Orcs are Elves that were desecrated by Melkor before the Valar became aware of them, so there must me a set number of Orcs. And when Orcs are killed they are reborn. I guess the real question should be are they reborn as Elves or Orcs?

Uruks, I've not read about thoughly so I don't yet know the origin of them only that they appeared out of Mordor in the late 3rd Age. The Encyclopedia of Arda puts this date approxiametly 2475. Does anyone know if any of the HoME series discusses Uruks?

It seems fairly obvious to me that there are she-orcs, but they stay at home doing all the cooking and cleaning and Tolkien, a man of his generation, didn't think the women worth mentioning. I would imagine they looked pretty much the same as the 'men'.

[Orcrist]

About the young orc thing...
Tolkien does mention young orcs in The Hobbit. He says that Gollum sometimes caught a small goblin imp. I don't know if that menas young orc, but its a place to start.

[The Only Real Estel]

Good point, Orcrist. He could've meant a smallish, punier one, but you may be right in guessing that he meant a younger orc.

[Amanaduial the archer]

It is also like the "she-dwarf" thing in the sense that they are rarely mentioned.

It may be that they are actually like 'she-dwarves' - like the dwarves, I seriously doubt the orcs simply "spring out of stone". So instead of simply not existing, it may simply have been unnecessary to mention them: they may not have done anything of particular note. Bear in mind that even in mention of the dwarves, only one female was ever named and noted, the mother of Kili and Fili.

And if, as is often and certainly stereotypically the case with humans, the female orcs were not as strong or physically able as the men, they may just have been counted as irrelevant - maybe they were much smaller than their male counterparts, and so just get beaten back into insignifigance. The Dark Lord didn't exactly seem to go in for a cuddly and politically correct approach: if there were female orcs and this was the case, they may simply have been used as breeding machines - simply a brutal way or achieving new warriors.

Still, producing orcs by means of a conventional union in the way of Men, Elves, Hobbits etc would probably be a little tiresome and slow for the ends of Sauron. It would take time not only for the actual union, meaning also that some orcs would have to be at the base to carry it out, but in a more long term sense, there is the problem of the orcs in childhood: during this time, they would not be able to fight, especially when very young. Surely this would seem a bit of a time-waster for Sauron. Maybe there was another way? Or, if not, how long is an orc 'childhood'? In this 'childhood', what sort of things would be done - certainly, I don't think the orcs could ever really be described as an 'educationally-inclined' race, but the hatred of the Free Races of Middle Earth, and especially of the elves, was certainly passed on somehow - how?

[Orcrist]

Sauron could have made orcs the way Saruman made Uruk-hai. He just breeds them in Barad-Dur. You know, like the birthing pits in the movie. There were no female Uruk-hai(I don't think) Actually, I've been thinking. Did Saruman or Sauron make Uruk-hai first? THe movie makes it seem like Saruman made them first. At little off the topic but it's an interesting point.

[suncrafter]

Yes, there are female Orcs...

Here is a page about orc reproduction that provides details:

[Link removed by moderator]

[Legolas in spandex]

she orcs...now there's a scary thought. Same as the males , except they get one hell of a PMS...O_<