D&D General Why are "ugly evil orcs" so unpopular?

[Deset Gled]

You can call them a different species than human all you want, but that doesn’t accurately describe the way they are actually depicted. The relationship between various humanoid “races” in D&D is more like the relationship between different breeds of dog than it is like the relationship between dogs and cats.

Edit: found a better picture.

 

[Charlaquin]

Going even further down the rabbit hole, "mongol" used to be a medical term for Down's Syndrome. It was used to describe the physical aspects of the syndrome, long before the chromosomal link was understood. Wikipedia shows that it appeared in scientific journals as late as 1961.

So, at the time, Tolkien was actually using a more "scientific" physical descriptor, rather than a simple racial term. The M word was an acceptable phrase then. It's not now. See also: idiot, hysteria, etc. There's lots of cases to be made of racism in orc history, but this is a particularly weak example.

Again, the case being made isn’t “Tolkien’s orcs were racist.” It’s “Tolkien’s unconscious biases are present in his work. We should acknowledge them so as not to inadvertently continue to perpetuate them.”

 

[Bolares]

So, at the time, Tolkien was actually using a more "scientific" physical descriptor, rather than a simple racial term. The M word was an acceptable phrase then. It's not now. See also: idiot, hysteria, etc. There's lots of cases to be made of racism in orc history, but this is a particularly weak example.

Well, the scientific term was racist at it's roots wasn't it?

 

[Charlaquin]

So if you described a race of beings as "beautiful", "refined", "elegant", "cultured" and other terms NOT "used by colonizers to dehumanize and oppress indigenous people" THEN it would be ok to say they are all evil?






...like the Drow?

I would say no, because you’re still treating evil as a product of nature rather than action. It’s less problematic than orcs (well, the drow aren’t, because associating dark skin with evil has just as much baggage as “savagery,” but some hypothetical race that didn’t have such baggage) but it would still be problematic.

 

[Bolares]

And even if we ignore the social and historical problems with all ugly all evil races, I find them so..... boring. They end up as shallow as a puddle, and you lose a lot of fun complexity and drama that you could have explored.

 

[your_mother]

What, me unpopular?

 

[the Jester]

The "different species" argument is severely weakened by the existence of half-orcs.

The "different species" argument also ignores how humans are all one species, but show enormous differences in culture, attitude, and behavior over time and space - so "different species" that is used to support monoculture has issues.

Is it, though? We're talking about a world in which things as diverse as demons and dragons can breed with humans.

And different species need not support monoculture, but rather a different breadth of cultures than human.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, the scientific term was racist at it's roots wasn't it?

Yes. John Langdon Down used it to describe people with the syndrome that’s now named after him, because he believed the syndrome caused them to regress to “a more primitive state of humanity” - the state of being Mongolian. He based this, seemingly, on purely superficial similarities between common facial features of people with Down’s Syndrome and people of Mongolian descent, and his own racist views about such people.

 

[Deset Gled]

Well, the scientific term was racist at it's roots wasn't it?

Not in the way that we describe things as 'racist' today.

Also, just because a word has a root doesn't mean that meaning is preserved. See: bohemian, flanger pedal, etc.

 

[Mind of tempest]

They're orcs. They're not human.
Look at cats. Look at dogs. No matter how very different an individual cat or an individual dog can be, ALL cats have certain behavioural traits and ALL dogs have certain have certain behavioural traits.
So we can say all humans have certain traits, and all orcs have certain traits.

When you think of orcs as humans, it's like you're saying "a golden retriever is superior to a dobermann". Now that is silly, and I understand how it can be considered racist.

But when you do not think of orcs as humans, you're saying "dogs are different from cats" which is true.

In fact, I shouldn't call them a race, so I could make my point clearer: I should say orcs are a species.

Again, I understand my cultural background is very different from that of an American, so there's some things I say without realizing they may be perceived differently by another culture like America's. So let me make it clear, I see orcs as a different species. I don't want any comparison with human phenotypes. If I wanted that I'd just make a town of humans and make them warmongers or whatever.

This is also why I describe orcs as savage and such: I intend they ARE quite literally beasts.

orcs can successfully breed with homo sapiens and produce viable fertile offspring so they are like neanditles logically they are homo horridus.