Male and Female Orcs

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

)
Yes, but my point is that the purely physical differences between Elves, Orcs and Men do seem to be greater than that between real-world ethnic groups; at the same time they can all interbreed, so must be essentially the same species. "Subspecies" seems like a good compromise to me.

Fair enough. I've never seen the term "race" being used in biology or botany and therefore thought it was solely used on human ethnic groups, but clearly I was wrong. Subspecies sounds good.

Originally Posted by Gal55

It's also possible that Tolkien emphasized the physical differences to demonstrate the inner differences. For example, we see how snake-like Grima really looks (and acts).

Yes, Tolkien does that quite a lot. Just think of Gollum, who is essentially a Hobbit. Also, if we see LotR as written by Frodo, he too is likely to have exaggerated the Orcs' beastly looks and behaviour in my opinion (though this is contentious, granted). I do think that the physical or visual differences between Orcs and Men are much smaller that what people typically believe.

When the Elves first came across the Orcs in the First Age they came to the conclusion that the Orcs must be Avari gone savage in the wilderness, or something to that effect.* This recognition of kinship suggests that the two peoples weren't all that different (at least not then). Also, isn't one of the Southerners in Bree (the squint-eyed?) suspected to be a half-orc, or having orcish blood? Yet he is a man, living among Men, and, as it can be assumed, looking like one.

Yes, I think that Tolkien's Orcs should be pictured looking much more like Men and much less like the standard image of an Orc that has been developed by popular culture long after the prof. left us (RPGs, Comp. games, the films etc etc). Not saying they look just like men, mind.

*don't remember exactly where this is written, but I do remember reading it.