orcs and goblins- what's the difference???

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Farael

I might be mistaken, but I understood that Uruk were the rather biggish fighting orc types created by Sauron and Uruk-hai were the "improvements" by Saruman.

As I noted above, Uruk simply means Orc. I believe that it is the word for Orc in the Black Speech, although I am not certain of that. It is generally used as an attentuated reference to Uruk-Hai.

Uruk-Hai were bred by Sauron, although Saruman also used them. The misconception that Saruman bred the Uruk-Hai comes, I believe, from the films.

The tracker Orc in Mordor is referred to as Snaga, which is a term used to refer to smaller Orcs. It comes from the Black Speech for "slave". Snaga seems to be a term of abuse, used by larger Orcs, rather than a separate "breed" of Orc.

[Thalion]

This should settle it:

Letters #131: To Milton Waldman:

[Tolkien is speaking about the end of the 1st age and how the history of middle earth plays out]

"Also the Orcs (goblins) and other monsters bred by the First Enemy are not wholly destroyed."

We can gather from this sentence that Tolkien considered the terms interchangable? to a degree as he clearly puts goblins in paraenthesis after Orcs...however, we also know that he was more fond of the term Orc rather than goblin, but none-the-less...they are the same thing...

Additionally, and more importantly, Letters #144: To Naomi Mitchison:

"Orcs (the word is as far as I am concerned actually derived from Old English orc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability) are nowhere clearly stated to be of any particular origin. But since they are servants of the Dark Power, and later of Sauron, neither of whom could, or would, produce living things, they must be 'corruptions'. They are not based on direct experience of mine; but owe, I suppose, a good deal to the goblin tradition (goblin is used asa translation in The Hobbit , where orc only occurs once, I think), especially as it appears in George MacDonald, except for the soft feet which I never believed in. The name has the form orch (pl. yrch) in Sindarin and uruk in the Black Speech."

Again, Tolkien himself uses the words interchangable, specifically saying that the translation used in Hobbit was mostly goblin, but once orc...the same creature

[Thalion]

Check out this thread for additional information regarding this...

[Morsul the Dark]

for the record the aragorn is a tall hobbit thing was a swipe at the "orcs and goblins were originally the same and therefore still are" theory

that is to say hobbits according to the text may have been originally a type of man so since they were once the same race according to orc-goblin logic they still are the same race.(it was a joke i of course was being sarcastic)

Everyone says there is little room for evolution and yet we see some men evolved into hobbits and also orcs(if we are to believe urks are just new versions of them as are goblins) also evolved into different categories. so either they are two different races or they have evolved....which is it?

so the word is interchanged every so often big deal.

It still stands that although they may be of the same race they are different subspecies

this thread by the way is one of the many many places goblin+orc=uruk-hai is mentioned

most notably

Originally Posted by Aerandir Carnesir

Willie, I agree with you for the most part, but I think goblins and orc were different. The goblins seem to be smaller(at least in the movies) than regular orcs. They were more cave dwellers. But they are very much the same. Saruman made the Uruk-Hai by cross-breeding Orcs and Goblin men. I'm not sure, but how can you get an entire breed of new orcs by using the same breeds to breed them? There's a difference, but I don't think that it's very big.

also more on the line(because youi'll all attack that by sayings its the movie not the book since its PJ's interpretation someone thinks thats what happened)

anyway more on the line is the relative powers list

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Formendacil, -
Elf
Uruk hai
Warg
Human
Dwarf
Orc
Gollum
Goblin
Hobbit
Spider

would you look at that goblins and orcs listed sepretely why would they do that if they're the same race hmmm....

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Morsul

... and also orcs(if we are to believe urks are just new versions of them as are goblins) also evolved into different categories. so either they are two different races or they have evolved....which is it?

There may be little room for evolution in terms of apes evolving into men, but I don't see why races should not become specifically adapted to particular living conditions over a few thousand generations. Maybe Morgoth even "created" them that way. Certainly, the Uruk-Hai did not evolve, but were specifically bred by Sauron.

Originally Posted by Morsul

... would you look at that goblins and orcs listed sepretely why would they do that if they're the same race hmmm....

I'm not sure what Formendacil is doing on the list( ) , but I believe that lmp has since removed Goblins as a separate category to take account of this very point. The list is, in any event, not definitive but represents lmp's opinion with input from those members participating in the debate. And there are some parts of it that remain rather hotly contested ...

[Thalion]

would you look at that goblins and orcs listed sepretely why would they do that if they're the same race hmmm....

Because the creator of that list is taking suggestions as to placement of persons/types and no one has gotten around to correcting him on that point yet...

[Formendacil]

Sweet!

I have my own place on LMP's Great List.

Albeit a lowish one...

However, to the subject at hand...

Morsul, I really hate to put it so bluntly, but using other Downers as an authority is absurd folly. If that were permissible, you could use yourself as an authority, and we would all have to agree with you- even though we don't- because you are a Barrow-Downer.

The only person who's words we can take as authoritative are those belonging to J.R.R. Tolkien. And, as far as I can see, there has been a lot of evidence presented on this thread that Tolkien used Goblin and Ork interchangeably (albeit the first dominated The Hobbit while the second dominated all other works). I have yet to see a smidgeon of evidence that Uruk-hai (meaning literally Ork-people) were in any was a crossbreeding of "Orks and goblins".

Mind you, since Orks and Goblins are one and the same, and Uruk refers, in colloquial ork-speech, to larger orks, it is entirely possible- though foolish to the point of tomfoolery, to say that Uruks are bred from Orks and Goblins. One could also say that Goblins are bred from Orks and Uruks, or that Orks are bred from Uruks and Goblins.

The three terms are interchangeable- save that Uruk, as applied in everyday Orkish, is used solely for the larger, more dominant members of the race. Snaga is the applicable term for the smaller ones.