D&D General Identity of Monsters Post-Alignment (+)

[AbdulAlhazred]

As far as the whole "cowardly" part of kobolds, Moldvay Basic describes them as:



They are also given a morale of 6 (8 with a chieftain present) which means they have the lowest morale of any humanoid. All other humanoids range from 7-12. In fact, the only monster in Basic D&D with a lower Morale score is a normal rat. Non-combat humans also have a morale of 6.

So, cowardly is part of the race from very early days.

As I said, drawn DIRECTLY from Chainmail, where they share the lowest possible morale rating with untrained peasant levies. Basically they fight as well as a random person with a stick shoved in their hands and grouped into a formation and told to march. As such they are close to worthless in battle.

 

[dave2008]

Numerous times, it was the first thing I ever read. lol.

I don't recall any section of The Hobbit which contradicts the depiction of Orcs in LotR. More than that, LONG before Tolkien wrote The Hobbit he had firmly established the mythology and history of Middle Earth, and orcs place in it is quite clear.

I could be wrong, but my understanding was that he wrote the Hobbit (published in 1937) and then really fleshed out the world as he was writing LotR (published 1954). In fact the Hobbit wiki states:

"The publisher was encouraged by the book's critical and financial success and, therefore, requested a sequel. As Tolkien's work progressed on its successor, The Lord of the Rings, he made retrospective accommodations for it in The Hobbit. These few but significant changes were integrated into the second edition. Further editions followed with minor emendations, including those reflecting Tolkien's changing concept of the world into which Bilbo stumbled."

I am not going to look up the exact passages, but IIRC, the Orcs/Goblins are fairly civil with the dwarves and bilbo until they realize they possess foehammer and/or goblin cleaver, i.e. orc-slaying swords. Then it goes downhill from there.

Also, from the Silmarillion wiki:

"After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher Stanley Unwin requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the stories that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I could be wrong, but my understanding was that he wrote the Hobbit (published in 1937) and then really fleshed out the world as he was writing LotR (published 1954). In fact the Hobbit wiki states:

"The publisher was encouraged by the book's critical and financial success and, therefore, requested a sequel. As Tolkien's work progressed on its successor, The Lord of the Rings, he made retrospective accommodations for it in The Hobbit. These few but significant changes were integrated into the second edition. Further editions followed with minor emendations, including those reflecting Tolkien's changing concept of the world into which Bilbo stumbled."

I am not going to look up the exact passages, but IIRC, the Orcs/Goblins are fairly civil with the dwarves and bilbo until they realize they possess foehammer and/or goblin cleaver, i.e. orc-slaying swords. Then it goes downhill from there.

Also, from the Silmarillion wiki:

"After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher Stanley Unwin requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the stories that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings."

OK, I don't know what changes there were in The Hobbit between 1937 and about 1969 when I read it (and I doubt I was reading a 1937 edition). OTOH the material which eventually formed Quenta Silmarillion was already extensive and had gone through a number of reworkings even before 1937. Certainly the origins and nature of orcs was a part of his world building that was long established, as their role in late First Age events is pretty much set from the start.

Tolkien himself is hard to classify. He seems to have been quite anti-racist and anti-fascist, yet you can draw a rather racist picture from Middle Earth, with its "geography of morality" (West -> Good, East -> Evil), etc. He even addressed this in a few places himself, and explicitly rejected any theory of racial or inherent ideological superiority, stating that "there are orcs on all sides" WRT the moral dimension of WWII (while also being very clearly anti-Nazi).

Even so, he DID equate orcs to a sort of exaggerated version of Mongols, which is not exactly PC by modern standards. Still, I would accept a version of the Third Age under which goblins/orcs, having been released from the bondage of Sauron 1000's of years previously, have asserted their own moral nature. Maybe they're hard to get along with, but they CAN form part of a multi-racial society, albeit perhaps a more warlike part.

I'd also note that the Dwarves don't exactly come off as saints either, nor the Elves, at least in the later versions of The Hobbit.

 

[dave2008]

OK, I don't know what changes there were in The Hobbit between 1937 and about 1969 when I read it (and I doubt I was reading a 1937 edition). OTOH the material which eventually formed Quenta Silmarillion was already extensive and had gone through a number of reworkings even before 1937. Certainly the origins and nature of orcs was a part of his world building that was long established, as their role in late First Age events is pretty much set from the start.

Tolkien himself is hard to classify. He seems to have been quite anti-racist and anti-fascist, yet you can draw a rather racist picture from Middle Earth, with its "geography of morality" (West -> Good, East -> Evil), etc. He even addressed this in a few places himself, and explicitly rejected any theory of racial or inherent ideological superiority, stating that "there are orcs on all sides" WRT the moral dimension of WWII (while also being very clearly anti-Nazi).

Even so, he DID equate orcs to a sort of exaggerated version of Mongols, which is not exactly PC by modern standards. Still, I would accept a version of the Third Age under which goblins/orcs, having been released from the bondage of Sauron 1000's of years previously, have asserted their own moral nature. Maybe they're hard to get along with, but they CAN form part of a multi-racial society, albeit perhaps a more warlike part.

I'd also note that the Dwarves don't exactly come off as saints either, nor the Elves, at least in the later versions of The Hobbit.

I agree with the vast majority of your post, I did want to point out that JRRT evidently wrote a lot about the origin of Orcs after completing the LotR. Again from the Silmarillion wiki:

"In the late 1950s, Tolkien returned to The Silmarillion, working mostly with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the work rather than with the narratives. By this time, he had doubts about fundamental aspects of the work that went back to the earliest versions of the stories, and it seems that he felt the need to resolve these problems before he could attempt a "final" version.[T 16] During this time he wrote extensively on such topics as the nature of evil in Arda, the origin of Orcs, the customs of the Elves, the nature and means of Elvish rebirth, the flat world and the story of the Sun and Moon.[T 16] In any event, with one or two exceptions, he wrought little change to the narratives during the remaining years of his life.[T 16]"

PS Thank you for letting me know he had started a good deal of it before the Hobbit. I had previously thought it was written between the two. I also didn't realize that he had wanted it to be published. I always thought it was basically draft mythology for LotR (and the Hobbit). It was still a draft mythology, but he had hoped to publish it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree with the vast majority of your post, I did want to point out that JRRT evidently wrote a lot about the origin of Orcs after completing the LotR. Again from the Silmarillion wiki:

"In the late 1950s, Tolkien returned to The Silmarillion, working mostly with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the work rather than with the narratives. By this time, he had doubts about fundamental aspects of the work that went back to the earliest versions of the stories, and it seems that he felt the need to resolve these problems before he could attempt a "final" version.[T 16] During this time he wrote extensively on such topics as the nature of evil in Arda, the origin of Orcs, the customs of the Elves, the nature and means of Elvish rebirth, the flat world and the story of the Sun and Moon.[T 16] In any event, with one or two exceptions, he wrought little change to the narratives during the remaining years of his life.[T 16]"

PS Thank you for letting me know he had started a good deal of it before the Hobbit. I had previously thought it was written between the two. I also didn't realize that he had wanted it to be published. I always thought it was basically draft mythology for LotR (and the Hobbit). It was still a draft mythology, but he had hoped to publish it.

Yeah, it is all very interesting, and I had forgotten a good bit of what you are pointing out. Tolkien was of course very interested in spiritual/theological questions. He was best friends with C. S. Lewis of course, and Lewis himself was the acolyte of George MacDonald, who was a minister and probably the father of modern fantasy. All of them were extremely intellectual and talented people. I don't think any of them had simple ideas, quite the opposite. Even if Tolkien did portray orcs in a fairly simple "these guys are evil" light in LotR (which is pretty much true) I'm sure his ideas were a lot deeper than that.

I think it is also fair to say that LotR was, for him, really just an exercise in presenting a more generally relatable story. The tales of Beleriand, and the myths of the creation of the world and deeds of the Noldor and Edain were to him the real meat. Still, he never seems to have written a sympathetic orc character, maybe outside of The Hobbit. Interesting.