# Orcs vs Goblins



## agarwaen (Jan 26, 2003)

are orcs and goblins considered the same thing??

just curious...


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## Brent (Jan 27, 2003)

Yes it says so in the Hobbit, now Uruk Hai on the other hand - quick grab your tin helmet and head for the cellar, here they come !!!


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## Aulë (Jan 27, 2003)

The following quote from the foreword to The Hobbit sheds some light on this: "[The word 'Orc'] occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)."(Hence the statement above; 'especially the smaller kinds'). This entry concentrates on the goblins of the Grey and Misty Mountains simply because it is these Orcs that Tolkien most frequently refers to by the term 'goblin'.


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## ??? (Feb 5, 2003)

To me they are different. an orc is stronger than a goblin.


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## Aulë (Feb 5, 2003)

As I said before- a goblin is a species of orc, but it is the weakest species


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## redline2200 (Feb 13, 2003)

> _Originally posted by ??? _
> *To me they are different. an orc is stronger than a goblin. *



Have you ever read The Two Towers?


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## Inderjit S (Feb 16, 2003)

I think they are one and the same. Tolkien veered away from 'Goblin', which he used in BoLT and the Hobbit, after LoTR, he used Orc, or as some spell it 'Ork'.


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## aragil (Feb 20, 2003)

I think that if you look at the history of Tolkien's writings, there are periods where he considered Orcs to be a large variety of goblin. However, by the time of publication of LotR he had decided to use them more or less synonymously.

You may now remove your tin hats.


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## Celebithil (Mar 8, 2003)

I always assumed that they were the same thing and that the difference in name arose because of differences in languages.

You say Tomayto I say Tomahto
You say Potayto I say Potahto
You say Goblin I say Orc


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## Melko Belcha (Mar 14, 2003)

Here's some quotes that might help.
LOTR Prologue 4 Of the Finding of the Ring.


> The party was assailed by Orcs in a high pass of the Misty Mountains.......ans so it happened that Bilbo was lost in the black orc-mines....


Appendix A The Stewards


> In the last years of Denethor I the race of uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor, and in 2475 they swept across Ithilien and took Osgiliath.


Appendix F Of other races


> In Sindarin it was orch. Related no doudt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soilder-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard



Hope this helps
Letters #131


> Also the Orcs (goblins) and other monsters........


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## BlackCaptain (Mar 14, 2003)

I know that in the movies, PJ makes the goblisn slightly more gollumish orcs. He used women and children to play goblins, while he used men to play Orcs. So to PJ, they were different, but i think that they are pretty much the same


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## pgt (Mar 18, 2003)

Not being a linguist I don't know.

But is it possible that because the words are phonetically similar, 'Uruk' is a proper term for 'orc' which is in turn a common usage in the vernacular?

just a thought.


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## Melko Belcha (Mar 18, 2003)

Letters #144


> The name has the form orch (pl. yrch) in Sindarin and uruk in the Black Speech.


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## FrankSinatra (Mar 18, 2003)

*Easier*

I think 'Goblin' was ued in Hobbit because it was an easier term for the child audience the book was aimed at to relate to.


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## jallan (Mar 18, 2003)

I have a feeling that in _The Lord of the Rings_ that _goblin_ is a slightly more disparaging term than _orc_.

Otherwise they are indeed used interchangeably.

In the index to _The Book of Lost Tales 2_ (HoME 2), occurs an entry by Christoper Tolkien:


> _Goblins_   Frequently used as alternative term to Orcs (cf. _Melko’s goblins, the Orcs of the hills_ 157, but sometimes apparently distinguished, 31, 230.


CT’s references are to the phrases “the Orcs and goblins of the hills” and “Moreover he gathered about him a great host of the Orcs, and wandering goblins, ...”

I know I have encountered somewhere a technical term for oratorical differentiation of terms that are identical in meang, but can recall neither the term now nor any examples other than the prejudicial “Indians and savages” where no distinction of meanings is intended.

Pgt posted:


> But is it possible that because the words are phonetically similar, 'Uruk' is a proper term for 'orc' which is in turn a common usage in the vernacular?


In _The War of the Jewels_ (HoME 11), “Quendi and Eldar” Appendix C, Elvish name for the Orcs, Tolkien derives all words related to _orc_ from an ancient Eldarin stem *RUKU seemingly originally:


> ... vague in meaning, referring to anything that caused fear to the Elves, any dubious shape or shadow, or prowling creature. In Sindarin _urug_ has a similar use. It might indeed by translated ‘bogey’. But the form _orch_ seems at once to have been applied to the Orcs, as soon as they appeared; and _Orch_, pl. _Yrch_, class-plural _Orchoth_ remained the regular name for these creatures in Sindarin afterwards.
> <snip>
> The form in Adunaic _uruk_, _urkhu_ may be direct from Quenya or Sindarin; and this form underlies the words for Orc in the languages of Men of the North-West in the Second and Third Ages. The Orcs themselves adopted it, for the fact that it referred to terror and detestation delighted them. The word _uruk_ that occurs in the Black Speech, devised (it is said) by Sauron to serve as a lingua franca for his subjects, was probably borrowed by him from the Elvish tongues of earlier times. If referred, however, specially to the trained and disciplined Orcs of the regiments of Mordor. Lesser breeds seem to have been called _snaga_.


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## Melko Belcha (Mar 18, 2003)

When Tolkien wrote The Hobbit he didn't consider it part of his larger mythology even though he used names from it. He used the name goblins because they were already familiar with them.


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## jallan (Mar 21, 2003)

The word _goblin_ in _The Hobbit_ doesn’t have much relation to the goblins of folklore, more likely to be something like what we would today be more likely to call poltergeists.

The idea of goblins as an ugly subterranean race may have begun with George MacDonald’s _The Princess and the Goblin_, and Tolkien admitted the influence.

_Goblin_ appears often in his early writings, and in _The Hobbit_ “goblins” ” and Gondolin are already mentioned in connection with the swords fround in the trolls hoard, one of which is Orcrist, translated as ‘Goblin-cleaver’. 

So from the beginning the _goblins_ in _The Hobbit_ were the Orcs and goblins of Tolkien’s earlier writing, who in _The Hobbit_ recognized the swords held by Thorin and Gandalf as famous Elvish swords from Gondolin.

That said, obviously Tolkien’s non-use of _Orc_ except in one passage, is best explained by a wish in this book to use a more familiar term.


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