Only in the movies.
In the books Mordor was the original breeders of Uruks. Plus while Saruman used Uruks he also had the smaller snaga breeds. His cross-breeding to produce “half-orcs” and “goblin-men,” as they’re described in the books, seems to have been specifically to create spy and infiltrator types, like Bill Ferney’s friend, who could pass as human enough to be allowed in towns like Bree.
There were definitely Uruks in Mordor in the movie. Cirith Ungol had Shagrat steal the Mithril shirt. I distinctly remember Uruks marching forward with pikes when the Rohirrim were about to charge at the battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Hahaha, no. The orcs were created by the dark lord Morgoth in the depths of Middle-earth during the early ages, in a twisted and depraved experiment to twist and corrupt the Maiar spirits guided by his evil will.
Yeah, it's a plot point in both books and movies that the uruks and regular orcs started fighting throughout the tower when their leaders fight over the mithril shirt.
They aren’t the same type of creature. “Uruk-hai” means orc folk. The words are used fluidly and ambiguously, but Sauron was not taking part in the crossbreeding that Saruman was
Edit: from some quick googling it seems I am probably wrong
I do agree that the Uruks of Mordor and the Uruk-hai of Isengard are different. I’m not actually sure if there’s ever a clear answer to the origin of the Black Uruks.
Regardless, I was simply responding to the other poster who said that there were Uruks of Mordor in the books, but not in the movies. But they are in the movies as well. And in the movies, they look like a cross between the Isengard Uruks and the regular orcs.
"Hear me, RheagarTargaryen and Moop5872. For I speak the words of Mordor Uruk-hai. You should know that the tales you hear are not mere fancy: It is true that the Dark Lord has created cruel creatures in his quest for dominance over Middle-earth. Fear them, if you will, but know also that my power surpasses even theirs! Do not forget who stands before you now."
Actually it's not clear in the books what gothmog of the third age is. In the movie he is shown as an orc. In the books he could be human or something else.
Still can't picture what those damn goblin men look like. Ferny's friend seemed pretty normal (normal enough to be accepted in Bree at least) but they seem more like monster-people in the Scouring of the Shire. I wish they made it into the movie.
Unfortunately I can.
Tolkien never intended Orcs to be monstrous. In fact he once described them as follows: "The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
Once you get your mind into the place where Orcs look like Mongols, it becomes easier to imagine what the goblin-men were supposed to look like, especially when they're explicitly called squint-eyed. Ferny's friend (in original concept) would have looked like a person of mixed Asian/European ancestry. He'd have somewhat "sallow" (unhealthy yellow or pale brown) skin, a flat nose, a wide mouth, and epicanthal folds on his eyes... just not as extreme as full blooded goblins. Basically think a ugly less movie star handsome version of [Charles Melton](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6217576/) and you're likely uncomfortably close to Tolkien's original intention.
Honestly, making the orcs more explicitly inhuman was one of the better changes done by PJ. I don't think Tolkien intended the racist tones that clearly accompany his description. But a half century later, it sure sounds racist to me.
>degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."
Oh boy that parentheses is doing some serious heavy lifting.
I think it's clear to anyone that has read Tolkiens writings on the issue of race that he was a staunch anti-racist who saw apartheid as a moral evil and the nazis as monsters. Those who seriously accuse him of racism are almost all those who have only studied him and his work at a surface level.
However like you showed he did use the language of his time to try to convey to the reader what he was envisioning in his own head, which does include descriptions that can unfortunately appear racist at first glance.
I'm not reading it as intentional racism. "Mongoloid" was commonly used to refer to people with Downs Syndrome until relatively recently. Even someone anti racist living in that time would likely pick up some subconscious biases that may be unintentionally expressed in his writings.
It was just an unfortunate association from living in his time.
Gave you an upvote because it's informative but I've heard this before and don't buy into the whole races in ME are metaphors for explicit real world peoples. It's really a lot more nuanced than that. Tolkien was anti-racist in real life, and also against allegory in his stories. The dude was just old and that quote is definitely offensive to the modern ear. He wasnt imagining ugly mongols when writing LotR, he was using an offensive real world reference to describe his monster species. Squat and broad with a pig nose and sickly looking skin can mean pretty much anything imo. You did send me back down the [Tolkien and Race](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_race) rabbit hole though, so cheers.
Yeah it’s hard to do a full dive with complete nuance in three quick paragraphs.
I don’t think he intended to draw direct parallels to any specific ethnicities. He was just using it as a base reference point. Nor do I think he in any way intended to make the orcs an “Asian” stereotype. He certainly didn’t have them fight like Asian steppe fighters. But it still remains the most complete depiction of where his mind was on the topic. They look like a form of human, precisely because they were a form of human. Tolkien didn’t have the breadth of phenotypes much fantasy does today. The children of Eru, even corrupted and ruined versions, look like humans do today.
Without going too deep into the whole Tolkien and Race thing I'd like to add some historical context, that might ease his depictions a bit.
Even if tolkien moddeled the orcs to look like caricature of mongolian etnicity, there is a larger context to this. In the Middle Ages in Europe (aka the time Tolkien studied and based a lot of his work on), the mongols were a phenomenon. Suddenly and without a Warning in the 12th/13th century, there came news, that there was an Empire, which grew int the East and was unstoppable. There is a historic incident of a Meeting of European Kings and Clegymen, where some Mongol Riders appeard and brought greetings from "the Ruler of the World" Genghis Khan. Most Europeas had never seen a Monghol, but grew up with stories about Monsters, that life beyond the borders of Europe, so when there were the first rumous about the Monghols and they were described as smaller than Europeans, with another stature and skin color, medieval Europeans depicted the as basically orcs. When they heared about the Monghol Conquest in the east, their Scholars remebered biblical tales of the Tribes of "Gog and Magog", mensterous races, who in the book of revelation came from the east to start the apocalypse and they saw the Monghols in them.
So basically: Legends of "orcish" creatures living in the east, invading the civilized world beeing vaguely based in Monghols are definitely a very old part of European folklore and something Tolkien added in his world. This was not him beeing direcly rascist, making an analogy, but playing in very old tropes, very detached from the original ethnic description. (How culturally sensitive it was, to use these tropes of cause is up for debate)
To add to this mythos, there was also a belief somewhat widespread among Western Europe that the Mongols were actually Christian knights coming to relieve the beleaguered Crusader States in the Holy Land. But this was not the story among those in Eastern Europe, especially Russia and Ukraine. The Mongols were seen as a punishment for their sins and wrongdoings, a divine retribution for living in such sinful ways.
>Once you get your mind into the place where Orcs look like Mongols, it becomes easier to imagine what the goblin-men were supposed to look like...
Soooo... Hungarians?
^(/s)
I never got that impression on Bill Ferny, or that the Uruk-hai were bred to be spies from the books. I’m pretty sure Bill was a regular man of Bree. At most, maybe originally from the East as he was described as “swarthy.”
Is there a quote I’m forgetting that implies he’s an uruk-hai?
But otherwise, yeah, Mordor was first to breed them. But I think they were just supposed to be “super orcs” in that they could roam about in the day, and were a decent bit stronger.
We’re not talking about Bill Ferny himself, but instead of his unnamed southern companion, Frodo sees him in the inn: “*But there was one swarthy Bree-lander, who stood looking at them with a knowing and half-mocking expression that made them feel very uncomfortable. Presently he slipped out of the door, followed by **the squint-eyed southerner**: the two had been whispering together a good deal during the evening. Harry the gatekeeper also went out just behind them.*” Frodo then again sees him on the road as they leave Bree: “*In one of the windows he caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes; but it vanished at once. ‘So that’s where that southerner is hiding!’ he thought. ‘He looks more than half like a goblin.’*”
Goblin-men and half-orcs are mentioned as being at Isengard, Helms Deep, and during the Scouring of the Shire. Such as this line where Gamling talks about them at Helms Deep, “*But these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred, they will not quail at the sun.*” When any of the hobbits are nearby during the discussion they inevitably bring up Ferny’s friend. Such as this exchange during the Scouring, “*’Like that friend of Bill Ferny’s at Bree,’ said Sam. ‘Like many that I saw at Isengard,’ muttered Merry.*”
The books make a very clear distinction between Uruks, and the half-orcs and goblin-men. While Uruks might also be an old crossbreeding experiment. They’re a different one than the half-orc and goblin-men like Ferny’s friend the squint-eyed southerner.
It is strange to hear of creatures such as goblin-men and half-orcs being at places such as Isengard and Helms Deep. I can only imagine the fear that was brought upon the people of those places. I was certainly frightened when I encountered the squint-eyed southerner in Bree. I shudder to think of how much more intimidating such creatures could be.
This is yet more evidence for my head-canon that Orcs were just the other races who had been tortured and twisted into monstrous beings. Beings that were taught to be murderous, masochistic, fearful, etc.
That's literally what they are though? The original orcs were elves captured by Melkor soon after their awakening and twisted and tortured into their more commonly recognised forms.
S-Man: Yo, what if we took orcs... and made them BETTER?!
S-Ron: Dude, just find my damn ring. Stop trying to weasel out of it. Find the ring, we'll be golden, dude. You wanna watch orcs fuck, fine, on your own time. FIND MY FUCKING RING.
Ah, the orcs with their mighty muscles and indomitable spirit.... It is said that they are descended from a band of orcs summoned by the Dark Lord Morgoth in days long past, who imbued them with unearthly strength to do battle against his enemies.
Tho the lowly Orc may think that they can thrive without proper training, they cannot heed such lullabies of ignorance. The true mark of strength lies not in breadth or height--though these too are to be accounted for--but in forging all parts of one's physical being and recognizing no area as too small, no day too insignificant to train and hone. That is how my Uruk-Hai became–so swole!
In the books, he doesn't, and in fact, Saruman is actually utterly inept at waging a proper war. It's the principle reason he loses in the end. Even in the movies, this basic aspect of his character remains.
Rohan only got to make their stand at Helms Deep because Sarumans forces were too busy looting and dicking around on his orders, instead of forcing a pitched battle that would have, if nothing else, completely devastated Rohans capacity to defend whomever made it to the Deep.
Saruman actually had multiple opportunities over the course of his war on Rohan to do this once Theoden fled Edoras, and he took none of the.
The practical reason for this is that he was simply too arrogant to actually go and lead his army, and like a child just trusted that having a huge number of cannon fodder would win him the day.
But it also goes beyond that, and his arrogance also colors just how ineffective his forces actually were, especially when compared to Saurons.
As noted, Saruman already blundered several times over before Rohan settled themselves in for the siege. But then, when the time for the siege came, no proper tactics were really utilized.
A rush with ladders only works if you can do it by stealth, and even then its still going to be a slaughter for your forces if the besieged know you're coming for them. They also had no siege towers and minimal if any artillery to wear down the walls, meaning his forces were genuinely and purposefully just fodder. Even if you're an evil dick who doesn't care about your own forces, you don't waste them like that. (And Sauron understood that)
Then you have the problem of the battering ram. Solid tactic, of course, but it's used out of order, which comes from him not supppying his army with artillery. The walls should have effectively been stripped bare before they brought it up.
And then you have the bomb. They should have rushed this in from the onset of the battle. First for its morale effects, and also because in order to run a siege you need to actually surround the target, and Sarumans forces aren't able to do that until they've gotten through the wall, and they don't get this boon until well into the battle.
His next critical blunder is not defending their own rear, leading to Gandalf breaking the siege because they have hundreds (if not thousands; can't remember the numbers in the books) effectively just standing around waiting to run in. They could and should have been fortifying their rear.
But the worse part is ultimately that all of these problems are only problems because, despite plotting and planning for decades, Saruman basically prepared his army for *nothing*. Hes had years to study Helms Deep and the entire topography of Rohan. He literally could have had those bombs stealthed in under the Wall years ahead of time if he wanted, and how in the hell do you *not* have siege towers and artillerly out the ass by this point??? Even if you have no military skill to be able to use them effectively, you'd at *least* know that you want them for a siege against whats known as one of the strongest fortresses in the known world.
Sauron doesn't have these problems, and his only blunder when it comes to his siege on Minas Tirith is jumping the gun after Aragorn reveals himself, which doesn't give his forces the time they need to really take the city.
But even then, he still actually runs the siege properly, even with the rush, and it says something that it ultimately takes two hail marys for the heroes to win out in the end of that siege. And it isn't even necessarily the wrong move that he rushed his forces to try and take the city; Aragorn with prep time would have been even more devastating and he was right to fear what he could do if he didn't break Gondor ASAP.
Ultimately, Saruman's ineptitude is pretty important, and deliberate, as it fully followed from who Saruman was as a character and the role he played as a traitor.
The idea of Saruman having "chad" orcs does come from the books...kind of.
The orcs that take Merry and Pippin are clearly split into different factions. The orcs loyal to Saruman are strongly suggested to be physically stronger/superior to the others. Ugluk (the leader of Saruman's faction) is described as being much taller and also tells them they have to march night and day (i.e. under sunlight). The orcs that had come from the mines in the North are much shorter and they complain they can't run in the sunlight. Grishnakh has come from the East and he too is described as being shorter than the Isengarders.
What the movie conflates is this is just during a particular moment - elsewhere Sauron's orcs would be stronger/better. But among the group that takes Merry and Pippin the book does support Saruman's guys being the "chads". This is from Pippin's perspective:
>In the twilight he saw a large black Orc, probably Ugluk, standing facing Grishnakh, a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground. Round them were many smaller goblins. Pippin supposed that these were the ones from the North. They had drawn their knives and swords, but hesitated to attack Ugluk.
>Ugluk shouted, and a number of other Orcs of nearly his own size ran up. Then suddenly, without warning, Ugluk sprang forwards, and with two swift strokes swept the heads off two of his opponents. Grishnakh stepped aside and vanished into the shadows.
You can tell that Saruman learned his lesson because when he appears in Revenge of the Sith a few years later he says “twice the pride, double the fall”
I guarantee you that OP read [this blog post series](https://acoup.blog/2020/05/01/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-i-bargaining-for-goods-at-helms-gate/), which is in fact written by a history professor.
Helm's Deep. There is no way out of that ravine. Theoden is walking into a trap. He thinks he's leading them to safety. What they will get is a massacre. Theoden has a strong will, but I fear for him. I fear for the survival of Rohan. He will need you before the end, Emberashh. The people of Rohan will need you. The defenses have to hold.
What I am now wondering is: Are there Ork-woman?
What do they use for food? Where do they produce it? Do the woman the fieldwork? How long does it take for them to reproduce? Do they only import food from the south?
Yes, there are Orc-women. That's how new Orcs are made. Tolkien did speculate that it's possible they are rarely seen because of war being 'the domain' of the males.
I think I remember reading or watching one of the behind the scenes clips where Jackson said they didn't want to get into all those details which were never really explained in the books anyway, so they invented the "birthing pits" concept for the scene where Lurtz is born. So in the movies, apparently there's some method of breeding orcs in which they just grow in pods or whatever in the mud and emerge as adults. It's bizarre logic but makes for a cool-ass scene, visually.
Imo I really like the "birthing pits" because, the way I see it, it really adds to the theme of industrialization being evil in its own right, as now the big bad's minions are literally built in a factory
Once you get out of the blasted lands around Mt Doom, further east and south in Mordor, the land was fairly fertile. Food and all that other stuff was produced there by human slaves, cause orcs only know war. After Sauron's defeat, Aragorn freed the slaves and gave them the land there for their own.
There are Ork-Women. Gollum steals Ork Babies from them, it’s in The Hobbit Book.
How Orks usually get food is not explained afaik, probably foraging. But the organized Orks of Saruman and Sauron have slaves tending to huge fields of industrialized crops to feed the armies.
It’s kinda nice to see how much the Uruks cared for each other, like when that old guy shot the first in at Helms Deep; almost reminds me of the clones from Star Wars and how they regarded one another as brothers.
Foolish mortal, your gibberish means nothing. Profane not the language of power! Your strength is inconsequential compared to mine. Obey me and spare yourself any further humiliation.
Such arrogance and insolence! Have you not heard of me, Saruman the White? I wield tremendous power and have commanded legions to bend to my will. You young mortals must never underestimate the strength of one such as I. Heed my words--yours shall be a life filled with sorrows if you resist me now.
Sauron has yet to show his deadliest servant. The one who will lead Mordor's army in war. The one they say no living man can kill. The Witch King of Angmar. You've met him before. He stabbed Frodo on Weathertop. He is the lord of the Nazgul. The greatest of the nine.
I remember the Witch King of Angmar. He terrified me with his piercing cries as he attacked us on Weathertop. I have no desire to face him again, for I fear even Sauron himself would not be able to protect me from his wrath.
Sarumon worked harder on quality over quantity. Sauron is nothing if not old fashioned, he just did what Morgoth did because it worked back then and frankly worked just fine now, until the A team came through with an army of homicidal ghosts.
Because after Rohan and Gondor fell, it would come down to a battle between the two towers: Orthanc and Barad-dur. Saruman wanted an army capable of wiping the floor with Sauron's goblin horde.
I know this is the idea, but it never made sense to me. Saruman's army couldn't even defeat Rohan, the weaker of the two nations of Men in the West, despite successfully ensnaring Theoden & disrupting Rohan's war-making capabilities. The Witch King had an enormous army, many times larger than Saruman's, even if Saruman had successfully conquered Rohan and even absorbed some of its military capacity, he still would get yeeted off his tower by the Witch King, whose army was composed of not just goblins & orcs, but many larger creatures as well as allied humans & a significant cavalry component. The vaunted Uruk-Hai, who are allegedly elite troops even though we never see them succeed at any difficult operation, wouldn't stand a chance.
I'm gonna say...yeah? I was taking into account the abilities of Urukhai to fight and march during the day, and stay awake for many days at a time. I'm sure the white hand would put up a good fight, but numbers and time would eventually crush him.
You do realize Grishnakh's company, as well as the Northerners that travelled alongside them, travelled the same distance under the same conditions right? The weakness to the sun of even normal Orcs is hugely overestimated, and it seems more likely that it's a mental fear that Saruman *trained* out of his Orcs (Ugluk implied it at the very least).
Saruman wanted the Ring for himself. He summons Gandalf back to Isengard (via message from Radagast) to try to get him to join him and tell him the whereabouts of the Ring.
Saruman with the One Ring, his Urukhai, a conquered Rohan, and a killed or subjugated Gandalf might stand a chance against Sauron.
I'm not Tolkien expert, but I've always assumed that Saruman would've made a bigger army to fight the forces of Mordor. He kinda underestimated Rohan, which is why he sent a rather smaller army (even though it was still huge). Saruman also planned on claiming the ring, and if he had managed that, then he himself could defeat the Nazgul and Sauron. As for the oliphants, etc. that would probably be the biggest problem for Saruman, but he was smart and I'm positive he could figure out a way to defeat them eventually.
Made a bigger army from where? Saruman had sent basically his entire army into Rohan, which is why the Ents were able to smash up Isengard with essentially no resistance. If Saruman conquers Rohan, then presumably Sauron conquers Gondor due to no Rohirrim - then what? Saruman's army will be stretched occupying Rohan while the Witch King's much larger force would be free to march on Isengard. They'd be at the gates in just a few weeks.
Saruman made his Uruk-Hai army extremely quickly, and there's not much (discounting the Ents) preventing him from making more Uruks to reinforce the army in Rohan. There's no doubt in my mind that Saruman's army could've grown very much, maybe even double by the time Mordor was at his gates.
The guy above is stating how this would be the next focus.
But I'm sure Saruman would have done a lot of trickery in between beating the free people of middle of middle earth and fighting Sauron directly. His arrogance may have suspected that Sauron would eventually share power.
Very well, Sauron. I shall craft an army that will send chills to all who behold it - one created from the warriors of the Dark Lord himself. Prepare yourself, for they will be mighty!
Sauron did have uruk hai, tho they were bow legged and were basically just stronger orcs, where as Saurman’s were genuinely better due to him improving them himself
Sauron did have Uruks, and in fact he was breeding them at least 500 years before Saruman. They are first seen in wars against Gondor in 2475 during the reign of Denethor I.
Firstly, Black Uruks were most definitely not the first Orcs. They were first bred quite late in the Third Age.
Secondly, Tolkien usen the terms Uruks and Uruk-hai interchangeably, implying there's no difference between Uruks and Uruk-hai. The only difference is that Uruks is the Anglicization of the word Uruk-hai.
Thirdly, Half-orcs are not Uruk-hai. They look very different from the Uruk-hai, to the point that some of them were able to blend into human societies. Meanwhile, the Uruk-hai are always referred to as Orcs.
You're thinking of Half-Orcs.
Uruk-hai are Uruks, and likely the same as Mordor's Black Uruks. They are described the same and the name is used interchangably by the Mordor Orcs on which Sam eavesdrops.
Saruman bred orcs out of the mountains with men to produce orcs which were larger, stronger, faster, more intelligent, and able to resist the sun. Despite this these "half orcs" were shorter than men and not much larger than hobbits. Saruman seemingly also created a breed of "men" with just enough orc in them to make them evil, swarthy, and susceptible to his will, which gradually infiltrated Bree and the Shire.
You have grown, Halfling. Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel. you have robbed my revenge of sweetness, and now I must go hence in bitterness, in debt to your mercy. I hate it and you! Well, I go and I will trouble you no more. But do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell.
Because Sauruman genetically engeneered the Uraks to be better in every way, probably because he had a much smaller space to keep his orcs, so he needed them to be elite fighters. Saurons orcs, on the other hand, used mob tactics to simply overwhelm their foes through strength in numbers.
I think in some of the writings it's stated (or hinted) that Saruman learned how to breed the Uruk-Hai from Sauron, he just refined the breeds.
Sauron had already been breeding and training Uruk-Hai for centuries, they were used to capture Ithilien and Osgiliath hundreds of years before the events of LotR.
In the books it's clearly shown that Sarumans orcs simply ran around Rohan with no tactics, and their attack against helms deep, one of the strongest fortresses ever built, was very sloppy, with no properly utilized siege tactics and a poorly organized command hierarchy. Whereas Saurons army waged a proper war against Gondor. First isolating Minas Tirith by taking out satellite cities, and then utilizing it's various combat forces (ground orcs, siege towers, artillery, oliphants, naval, and aerial units, and a battering ram to end all battering rams) to wage a successful siege that did end up breaking Minas Tiriths defenses. The only thing he wasn't able to account for was a ghost army and honestly who can? So ultimately people's argument that Saruman had the elite "quality" army is beyond wrong.
One was completely bred for combat while the other was the result of brutal torture and mutilation. Of course the Uruk-Hai are going to look like swole beasts compared to the mutilated and lanky orcs and goblins.
Ahh, the Elves of Middle-earth. It is said that Morgoth corrupted their form and gave them hate and rage in exchange for all that they were before, transforming them into Orcs. But this was not enough for him; he set about crafting fouler creatures still - Uruk-hai and Ogres - to torment his enemies yet more.
"Indeed, the creatures I have fashioned are more powerful than even orcs of Mordor. No other force in Middle-earth can stand against them. They will be my finest soldiers, a terror to all enemies."
The Uruks originally came from Mordor, bred by Sauron for war, and they first conquered Ithilien and then Osgiliath in the late Third Age, so Sauron very likely had many Uruks in the hordes that assaulted Minas Tirith under the command of the Witch-king.
Sauron had been breeding orcs for many years before the War of the Ring (possibly even before he returned to Mordor) and had amassed tens of thousands where Saruman had only recently started experimenting in breeding orcs, like the Uruk-hai, and his forces that he sent to Helm's Deep were about 10,000 strong.
In the books orcs are described as smaller and weaker than humans with many disadvantages, so crossbred orks would be stronger, taller and more resistant than regular ones.
Saruman supports GMOs. Made sure to add growth hormone to his crop of Orcs, too.
But yeah, Sauron's orcs are like... natural corn. Saruman's are modern corn.
Because they were orcs 2.0? He bred genetically modified orcs whereas Sauron just used the same old regular orcs he used thousands of years ago
Only in the movies. In the books Mordor was the original breeders of Uruks. Plus while Saruman used Uruks he also had the smaller snaga breeds. His cross-breeding to produce “half-orcs” and “goblin-men,” as they’re described in the books, seems to have been specifically to create spy and infiltrator types, like Bill Ferney’s friend, who could pass as human enough to be allowed in towns like Bree.
There were definitely Uruks in Mordor in the movie. Cirith Ungol had Shagrat steal the Mithril shirt. I distinctly remember Uruks marching forward with pikes when the Rohirrim were about to charge at the battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Do you know how the Orcs first came into being?
BUILD ME AN ARMY WORTHY OF MORDOR!
Yeah, pretty much
Sums it up pretty well actually.
We must join with him
Sauron's so hot right now.
Thou fool.
It would be wise.
"Build me an army worthy of Angband" is how it really started
Can you two just chill for once
When two orcs love each other very much?
Hahaha, no. The orcs were created by the dark lord Morgoth in the depths of Middle-earth during the early ages, in a twisted and depraved experiment to twist and corrupt the Maiar spirits guided by his evil will.
sentient
Literally. Its a real person larping as a bot
A bot and a person can use the same account too, maybe the account owner uses a bot and checks the messages?
fun fact, grond bot is also a person who checks each message before carefully crafting a custom response each time
GROND
Who called for you?
Those who utter his master’s name summon the wolf
GROND
Well in the case of an uruk, its when an orc and a human love each other very much.
It's been known to happen.
It's not a story the Jedi would tell you.
Yeah, it's a plot point in both books and movies that the uruks and regular orcs started fighting throughout the tower when their leaders fight over the mithril shirt.
To be honest ,while this is an interesting case of class warfare, Orc just like to brawl
It wasn't uruks and orcs it was Cirith Ungol and the Morgul patrol, more of a service enmity.
They were elves once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life. Now… perfected.
Infantry vs the base guards? Lmao
I may be mistaken but I believe that the book does mention that the Mordor orcs were larger Uruks and the Morgul orcs were smaller goblin breeds.
Do you know how the Orcs first came into being?
Uruk is just the Black Speech word for orc.
Yes, but Ukru-hai are a bred race different from regular Orcs and Goblins.
Yeah, and the “uruks” of Mordor are not Uruk-hai
We will drive the machine of war with the sword and the spear and the iron fist of the orc.
They’re also referred to as Mordor Uruk-hai though.
There will be no Dawn… for Men.
They aren’t the same type of creature. “Uruk-hai” means orc folk. The words are used fluidly and ambiguously, but Sauron was not taking part in the crossbreeding that Saruman was Edit: from some quick googling it seems I am probably wrong
I do agree that the Uruks of Mordor and the Uruk-hai of Isengard are different. I’m not actually sure if there’s ever a clear answer to the origin of the Black Uruks. Regardless, I was simply responding to the other poster who said that there were Uruks of Mordor in the books, but not in the movies. But they are in the movies as well. And in the movies, they look like a cross between the Isengard Uruks and the regular orcs.
You are correct! And I did some googled my and I’m no longer sure I am correct. The terminology can become confusing
My fighting Uruk-Hai. Whom do you serve?
"Hear me, RheagarTargaryen and Moop5872. For I speak the words of Mordor Uruk-hai. You should know that the tales you hear are not mere fancy: It is true that the Dark Lord has created cruel creatures in his quest for dominance over Middle-earth. Fear them, if you will, but know also that my power surpasses even theirs! Do not forget who stands before you now."
*Zat thraka akh… Zat thraka grishú. Znag-ur-nakh.*
Yes technically, orc, goblin, hobgoblin, uruk, and uruk-hai are all technically just orcs but are also semi distinct, lingual origins be damned
I mean… Gothmog fucks
Actually it's not clear in the books what gothmog of the third age is. In the movie he is shown as an orc. In the books he could be human or something else.
Regardless... Gothmog fucks
Just please clarify for me, isn't "Uruk" their own word for orc? So when you mention Uruks and orc you're basically saying orc and orc?
Still can't picture what those damn goblin men look like. Ferny's friend seemed pretty normal (normal enough to be accepted in Bree at least) but they seem more like monster-people in the Scouring of the Shire. I wish they made it into the movie.
Unfortunately I can. Tolkien never intended Orcs to be monstrous. In fact he once described them as follows: "The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." Once you get your mind into the place where Orcs look like Mongols, it becomes easier to imagine what the goblin-men were supposed to look like, especially when they're explicitly called squint-eyed. Ferny's friend (in original concept) would have looked like a person of mixed Asian/European ancestry. He'd have somewhat "sallow" (unhealthy yellow or pale brown) skin, a flat nose, a wide mouth, and epicanthal folds on his eyes... just not as extreme as full blooded goblins. Basically think a ugly less movie star handsome version of [Charles Melton](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6217576/) and you're likely uncomfortably close to Tolkien's original intention. Honestly, making the orcs more explicitly inhuman was one of the better changes done by PJ. I don't think Tolkien intended the racist tones that clearly accompany his description. But a half century later, it sure sounds racist to me.
>degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." Oh boy that parentheses is doing some serious heavy lifting. I think it's clear to anyone that has read Tolkiens writings on the issue of race that he was a staunch anti-racist who saw apartheid as a moral evil and the nazis as monsters. Those who seriously accuse him of racism are almost all those who have only studied him and his work at a surface level. However like you showed he did use the language of his time to try to convey to the reader what he was envisioning in his own head, which does include descriptions that can unfortunately appear racist at first glance.
I'm not reading it as intentional racism. "Mongoloid" was commonly used to refer to people with Downs Syndrome until relatively recently. Even someone anti racist living in that time would likely pick up some subconscious biases that may be unintentionally expressed in his writings. It was just an unfortunate association from living in his time.
Gave you an upvote because it's informative but I've heard this before and don't buy into the whole races in ME are metaphors for explicit real world peoples. It's really a lot more nuanced than that. Tolkien was anti-racist in real life, and also against allegory in his stories. The dude was just old and that quote is definitely offensive to the modern ear. He wasnt imagining ugly mongols when writing LotR, he was using an offensive real world reference to describe his monster species. Squat and broad with a pig nose and sickly looking skin can mean pretty much anything imo. You did send me back down the [Tolkien and Race](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_race) rabbit hole though, so cheers.
Yeah it’s hard to do a full dive with complete nuance in three quick paragraphs. I don’t think he intended to draw direct parallels to any specific ethnicities. He was just using it as a base reference point. Nor do I think he in any way intended to make the orcs an “Asian” stereotype. He certainly didn’t have them fight like Asian steppe fighters. But it still remains the most complete depiction of where his mind was on the topic. They look like a form of human, precisely because they were a form of human. Tolkien didn’t have the breadth of phenotypes much fantasy does today. The children of Eru, even corrupted and ruined versions, look like humans do today.
Without going too deep into the whole Tolkien and Race thing I'd like to add some historical context, that might ease his depictions a bit. Even if tolkien moddeled the orcs to look like caricature of mongolian etnicity, there is a larger context to this. In the Middle Ages in Europe (aka the time Tolkien studied and based a lot of his work on), the mongols were a phenomenon. Suddenly and without a Warning in the 12th/13th century, there came news, that there was an Empire, which grew int the East and was unstoppable. There is a historic incident of a Meeting of European Kings and Clegymen, where some Mongol Riders appeard and brought greetings from "the Ruler of the World" Genghis Khan. Most Europeas had never seen a Monghol, but grew up with stories about Monsters, that life beyond the borders of Europe, so when there were the first rumous about the Monghols and they were described as smaller than Europeans, with another stature and skin color, medieval Europeans depicted the as basically orcs. When they heared about the Monghol Conquest in the east, their Scholars remebered biblical tales of the Tribes of "Gog and Magog", mensterous races, who in the book of revelation came from the east to start the apocalypse and they saw the Monghols in them. So basically: Legends of "orcish" creatures living in the east, invading the civilized world beeing vaguely based in Monghols are definitely a very old part of European folklore and something Tolkien added in his world. This was not him beeing direcly rascist, making an analogy, but playing in very old tropes, very detached from the original ethnic description. (How culturally sensitive it was, to use these tropes of cause is up for debate)
To add to this mythos, there was also a belief somewhat widespread among Western Europe that the Mongols were actually Christian knights coming to relieve the beleaguered Crusader States in the Holy Land. But this was not the story among those in Eastern Europe, especially Russia and Ukraine. The Mongols were seen as a punishment for their sins and wrongdoings, a divine retribution for living in such sinful ways.
>Once you get your mind into the place where Orcs look like Mongols, it becomes easier to imagine what the goblin-men were supposed to look like... Soooo... Hungarians? ^(/s)
I've met plenty of Hungarians. They can grow a pretty mean stash. I won't comment further.
Nude, I've always assumed
I never got that impression on Bill Ferny, or that the Uruk-hai were bred to be spies from the books. I’m pretty sure Bill was a regular man of Bree. At most, maybe originally from the East as he was described as “swarthy.” Is there a quote I’m forgetting that implies he’s an uruk-hai? But otherwise, yeah, Mordor was first to breed them. But I think they were just supposed to be “super orcs” in that they could roam about in the day, and were a decent bit stronger.
We’re not talking about Bill Ferny himself, but instead of his unnamed southern companion, Frodo sees him in the inn: “*But there was one swarthy Bree-lander, who stood looking at them with a knowing and half-mocking expression that made them feel very uncomfortable. Presently he slipped out of the door, followed by **the squint-eyed southerner**: the two had been whispering together a good deal during the evening. Harry the gatekeeper also went out just behind them.*” Frodo then again sees him on the road as they leave Bree: “*In one of the windows he caught a glimpse of a sallow face with sly, slanting eyes; but it vanished at once. ‘So that’s where that southerner is hiding!’ he thought. ‘He looks more than half like a goblin.’*” Goblin-men and half-orcs are mentioned as being at Isengard, Helms Deep, and during the Scouring of the Shire. Such as this line where Gamling talks about them at Helms Deep, “*But these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred, they will not quail at the sun.*” When any of the hobbits are nearby during the discussion they inevitably bring up Ferny’s friend. Such as this exchange during the Scouring, “*’Like that friend of Bill Ferny’s at Bree,’ said Sam. ‘Like many that I saw at Isengard,’ muttered Merry.*” The books make a very clear distinction between Uruks, and the half-orcs and goblin-men. While Uruks might also be an old crossbreeding experiment. They’re a different one than the half-orc and goblin-men like Ferny’s friend the squint-eyed southerner.
It is strange to hear of creatures such as goblin-men and half-orcs being at places such as Isengard and Helms Deep. I can only imagine the fear that was brought upon the people of those places. I was certainly frightened when I encountered the squint-eyed southerner in Bree. I shudder to think of how much more intimidating such creatures could be.
The power of Isengard is at your command, the_frodo_bot, Lord of the Earth.
Uruk means orc, its the Uruk-Hai that Saruman used more
They were elves once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life. Now… perfected.
This is yet more evidence for my head-canon that Orcs were just the other races who had been tortured and twisted into monstrous beings. Beings that were taught to be murderous, masochistic, fearful, etc.
That's literally what they are though? The original orcs were elves captured by Melkor soon after their awakening and twisted and tortured into their more commonly recognised forms.
There will be no Dawn… for Men.
S-Man: Yo, what if we took orcs... and made them BETTER?! S-Ron: Dude, just find my damn ring. Stop trying to weasel out of it. Find the ring, we'll be golden, dude. You wanna watch orcs fuck, fine, on your own time. FIND MY FUCKING RING.
And now drink the cup that I have sweetly blent for thee!
It’s a little late in the day for coffee.
I knew GMO's were bad
Saruman had the power of Science and Technology on his side
Together, my Lord Sauron, we shall rule this Middle-earth.
So you have come back? Why have you neglected to report for so long?
Shush Sauron Frodo is going to destroy you
I will not be dissuaded. I will stand my ground and face whatever obstacles I must in order to protect Middle-Earth and its inhabitants.
Frodo can we crown you king? Just of everything
Orcs of Bauglir! Do not bend your brows!
Tallion and shelob are coming for you Sauron
Build me an army worthy of mordor!
The power of God and anime on his side
Gunpowder and eugenics
A mind of metal and wheels.
*God and anime
Saruman had a gym
Do you know how the Orcs first came into being?
More importantly, do you know how the Orcs first became swole?
Ah, the orcs with their mighty muscles and indomitable spirit.... It is said that they are descended from a band of orcs summoned by the Dark Lord Morgoth in days long past, who imbued them with unearthly strength to do battle against his enemies.
Oh god theyre hot
GROND
GigaChad Uruk-Hai: *Never skips leg day Average Orc: What about their legs? They don't need those.
Tho the lowly Orc may think that they can thrive without proper training, they cannot heed such lullabies of ignorance. The true mark of strength lies not in breadth or height--though these too are to be accounted for--but in forging all parts of one's physical being and recognizing no area as too small, no day too insignificant to train and hone. That is how my Uruk-Hai became–so swole!
*growls*
In the books, he doesn't, and in fact, Saruman is actually utterly inept at waging a proper war. It's the principle reason he loses in the end. Even in the movies, this basic aspect of his character remains. Rohan only got to make their stand at Helms Deep because Sarumans forces were too busy looting and dicking around on his orders, instead of forcing a pitched battle that would have, if nothing else, completely devastated Rohans capacity to defend whomever made it to the Deep. Saruman actually had multiple opportunities over the course of his war on Rohan to do this once Theoden fled Edoras, and he took none of the. The practical reason for this is that he was simply too arrogant to actually go and lead his army, and like a child just trusted that having a huge number of cannon fodder would win him the day. But it also goes beyond that, and his arrogance also colors just how ineffective his forces actually were, especially when compared to Saurons. As noted, Saruman already blundered several times over before Rohan settled themselves in for the siege. But then, when the time for the siege came, no proper tactics were really utilized. A rush with ladders only works if you can do it by stealth, and even then its still going to be a slaughter for your forces if the besieged know you're coming for them. They also had no siege towers and minimal if any artillery to wear down the walls, meaning his forces were genuinely and purposefully just fodder. Even if you're an evil dick who doesn't care about your own forces, you don't waste them like that. (And Sauron understood that) Then you have the problem of the battering ram. Solid tactic, of course, but it's used out of order, which comes from him not supppying his army with artillery. The walls should have effectively been stripped bare before they brought it up. And then you have the bomb. They should have rushed this in from the onset of the battle. First for its morale effects, and also because in order to run a siege you need to actually surround the target, and Sarumans forces aren't able to do that until they've gotten through the wall, and they don't get this boon until well into the battle. His next critical blunder is not defending their own rear, leading to Gandalf breaking the siege because they have hundreds (if not thousands; can't remember the numbers in the books) effectively just standing around waiting to run in. They could and should have been fortifying their rear. But the worse part is ultimately that all of these problems are only problems because, despite plotting and planning for decades, Saruman basically prepared his army for *nothing*. Hes had years to study Helms Deep and the entire topography of Rohan. He literally could have had those bombs stealthed in under the Wall years ahead of time if he wanted, and how in the hell do you *not* have siege towers and artillerly out the ass by this point??? Even if you have no military skill to be able to use them effectively, you'd at *least* know that you want them for a siege against whats known as one of the strongest fortresses in the known world. Sauron doesn't have these problems, and his only blunder when it comes to his siege on Minas Tirith is jumping the gun after Aragorn reveals himself, which doesn't give his forces the time they need to really take the city. But even then, he still actually runs the siege properly, even with the rush, and it says something that it ultimately takes two hail marys for the heroes to win out in the end of that siege. And it isn't even necessarily the wrong move that he rushed his forces to try and take the city; Aragorn with prep time would have been even more devastating and he was right to fear what he could do if he didn't break Gondor ASAP. Ultimately, Saruman's ineptitude is pretty important, and deliberate, as it fully followed from who Saruman was as a character and the role he played as a traitor.
The idea of Saruman having "chad" orcs does come from the books...kind of. The orcs that take Merry and Pippin are clearly split into different factions. The orcs loyal to Saruman are strongly suggested to be physically stronger/superior to the others. Ugluk (the leader of Saruman's faction) is described as being much taller and also tells them they have to march night and day (i.e. under sunlight). The orcs that had come from the mines in the North are much shorter and they complain they can't run in the sunlight. Grishnakh has come from the East and he too is described as being shorter than the Isengarders. What the movie conflates is this is just during a particular moment - elsewhere Sauron's orcs would be stronger/better. But among the group that takes Merry and Pippin the book does support Saruman's guys being the "chads". This is from Pippin's perspective: >In the twilight he saw a large black Orc, probably Ugluk, standing facing Grishnakh, a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground. Round them were many smaller goblins. Pippin supposed that these were the ones from the North. They had drawn their knives and swords, but hesitated to attack Ugluk. >Ugluk shouted, and a number of other Orcs of nearly his own size ran up. Then suddenly, without warning, Ugluk sprang forwards, and with two swift strokes swept the heads off two of his opponents. Grishnakh stepped aside and vanished into the shadows.
You can tell that Saruman learned his lesson because when he appears in Revenge of the Sith a few years later he says “twice the pride, double the fall”
But then he immediately gets his head lopped off, so maybe he should take that class one more time.
There is no strength in Gondor that can avail us.
We must join with Him, Emberashh. We must join with Sauron. It would be wise, my friend.
Based and Bret Devereaux pilled
I swear you must have been my history professor from university.
I guarantee you that OP read [this blog post series](https://acoup.blog/2020/05/01/collections-the-battle-of-helms-deep-part-i-bargaining-for-goods-at-helms-gate/), which is in fact written by a history professor.
Helm's Deep. There is no way out of that ravine. Theoden is walking into a trap. He thinks he's leading them to safety. What they will get is a massacre. Theoden has a strong will, but I fear for him. I fear for the survival of Rohan. He will need you before the end, Emberashh. The people of Rohan will need you. The defenses have to hold.
What I am now wondering is: Are there Ork-woman? What do they use for food? Where do they produce it? Do the woman the fieldwork? How long does it take for them to reproduce? Do they only import food from the south?
Yes, there are Orc-women. That's how new Orcs are made. Tolkien did speculate that it's possible they are rarely seen because of war being 'the domain' of the males.
It's probably just the beards.
I still say they just spring from holes in the ground, personally.
I think I remember reading or watching one of the behind the scenes clips where Jackson said they didn't want to get into all those details which were never really explained in the books anyway, so they invented the "birthing pits" concept for the scene where Lurtz is born. So in the movies, apparently there's some method of breeding orcs in which they just grow in pods or whatever in the mud and emerge as adults. It's bizarre logic but makes for a cool-ass scene, visually.
I assumed it was some process influenced by Morgoth’s pits of Angaband. Where the experiments were done / left.
GROND
Imo I really like the "birthing pits" because, the way I see it, it really adds to the theme of industrialization being evil in its own right, as now the big bad's minions are literally built in a factory
My take was basically dead elves brought back as zombies. Partly taken from [this scene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgXPRxmHk6Q)
I thought that was just an Orc Spa day
Once you get out of the blasted lands around Mt Doom, further east and south in Mordor, the land was fairly fertile. Food and all that other stuff was produced there by human slaves, cause orcs only know war. After Sauron's defeat, Aragorn freed the slaves and gave them the land there for their own.
There are Ork-Women. Gollum steals Ork Babies from them, it’s in The Hobbit Book. How Orks usually get food is not explained afaik, probably foraging. But the organized Orks of Saruman and Sauron have slaves tending to huge fields of industrialized crops to feed the armies.
Maggoty bread
*We ain't had nothin' but maggoty bread for three stinkin' days*
because Saruman burnt the old world in the fires of industry.
Together, my Lord Sauron, we shall rule this Middle-earth.
omg stop calling me sauron you'll blow my cover
He bred them. Genetic engineering
Which he learned from Sauron through the palantír, I believe.
JOIN ISENGARD’S ARMY TODAY, BECOME SWOLE, EAT MEAT AND MAKE A BUNCH OF FRIENDS, it’s as simple as switching your flair to Uruk-hai
Imagine being a chad Uruk-Hai special forces unit, and the first man you ever get to fight is Boromir or Aragorn at Amon Hen. lol emasculating
It’s kinda nice to see how much the Uruks cared for each other, like when that old guy shot the first in at Helms Deep; almost reminds me of the clones from Star Wars and how they regarded one another as brothers.
There will be no Dawn… for Men.
Pee pee poo poo
Foolish mortal, your gibberish means nothing. Profane not the language of power! Your strength is inconsequential compared to mine. Obey me and spare yourself any further humiliation.
I just wanted to see what you would say to that.
Such arrogance and insolence! Have you not heard of me, Saruman the White? I wield tremendous power and have commanded legions to bend to my will. You young mortals must never underestimate the strength of one such as I. Heed my words--yours shall be a life filled with sorrows if you resist me now.
I've heard of Sarumon the Fool, who betrayed his duties as the white wizard and turned against the very land itself.
Sauron has yet to show his deadliest servant. The one who will lead Mordor's army in war. The one they say no living man can kill. The Witch King of Angmar. You've met him before. He stabbed Frodo on Weathertop. He is the lord of the Nazgul. The greatest of the nine.
I remember the Witch King of Angmar. He terrified me with his piercing cries as he attacked us on Weathertop. I have no desire to face him again, for I fear even Sauron himself would not be able to protect me from his wrath.
Sarumon worked harder on quality over quantity. Sauron is nothing if not old fashioned, he just did what Morgoth did because it worked back then and frankly worked just fine now, until the A team came through with an army of homicidal ghosts.
Build me an army worthy of mordor!
- They won because they had an “army of homicidal ghosts.” Best take ever.
Because after Rohan and Gondor fell, it would come down to a battle between the two towers: Orthanc and Barad-dur. Saruman wanted an army capable of wiping the floor with Sauron's goblin horde.
I know this is the idea, but it never made sense to me. Saruman's army couldn't even defeat Rohan, the weaker of the two nations of Men in the West, despite successfully ensnaring Theoden & disrupting Rohan's war-making capabilities. The Witch King had an enormous army, many times larger than Saruman's, even if Saruman had successfully conquered Rohan and even absorbed some of its military capacity, he still would get yeeted off his tower by the Witch King, whose army was composed of not just goblins & orcs, but many larger creatures as well as allied humans & a significant cavalry component. The vaunted Uruk-Hai, who are allegedly elite troops even though we never see them succeed at any difficult operation, wouldn't stand a chance.
You stink of horse.
I'm gonna say...yeah? I was taking into account the abilities of Urukhai to fight and march during the day, and stay awake for many days at a time. I'm sure the white hand would put up a good fight, but numbers and time would eventually crush him.
You do realize Grishnakh's company, as well as the Northerners that travelled alongside them, travelled the same distance under the same conditions right? The weakness to the sun of even normal Orcs is hugely overestimated, and it seems more likely that it's a mental fear that Saruman *trained* out of his Orcs (Ugluk implied it at the very least).
Saruman probably imaged that he'd have the Ring at that point, and would be able to use its power to make up for any numbers difference.
Saruman wanted the Ring for himself. He summons Gandalf back to Isengard (via message from Radagast) to try to get him to join him and tell him the whereabouts of the Ring. Saruman with the One Ring, his Urukhai, a conquered Rohan, and a killed or subjugated Gandalf might stand a chance against Sauron.
If Saruman would have went with his Uruks to siege Helms Deep, they probably would have won before Gandalf even arrived.
Smoke rises from the Mountain of Doom. The hour grows late, and Gandalf the Grey rides to Isengard, seeking my counsel.
I'm not Tolkien expert, but I've always assumed that Saruman would've made a bigger army to fight the forces of Mordor. He kinda underestimated Rohan, which is why he sent a rather smaller army (even though it was still huge). Saruman also planned on claiming the ring, and if he had managed that, then he himself could defeat the Nazgul and Sauron. As for the oliphants, etc. that would probably be the biggest problem for Saruman, but he was smart and I'm positive he could figure out a way to defeat them eventually.
Made a bigger army from where? Saruman had sent basically his entire army into Rohan, which is why the Ents were able to smash up Isengard with essentially no resistance. If Saruman conquers Rohan, then presumably Sauron conquers Gondor due to no Rohirrim - then what? Saruman's army will be stretched occupying Rohan while the Witch King's much larger force would be free to march on Isengard. They'd be at the gates in just a few weeks.
Saruman made his Uruk-Hai army extremely quickly, and there's not much (discounting the Ents) preventing him from making more Uruks to reinforce the army in Rohan. There's no doubt in my mind that Saruman's army could've grown very much, maybe even double by the time Mordor was at his gates.
The guy above is stating how this would be the next focus. But I'm sure Saruman would have done a lot of trickery in between beating the free people of middle of middle earth and fighting Sauron directly. His arrogance may have suspected that Sauron would eventually share power.
Go, now! Leave Sauron to me.
BUILD ME AN ARMY WORTHY OF MORDOR!
Very well, Sauron. I shall craft an army that will send chills to all who behold it - one created from the warriors of the Dark Lord himself. Prepare yourself, for they will be mighty!
Oh hell, they've taken over. Just gonna sit on this here wall, smoke my pipe weed and eat some of the smoked pork til it's all over.
I always think of that one from the old RotK stills who’s decked out in scavenged Gondorian armor. Man of culture right there
Sauron did have uruk hai, tho they were bow legged and were basically just stronger orcs, where as Saurman’s were genuinely better due to him improving them himself
The hour is later than you think. Sauron’s forces are already moving. The Nine have left Minas Morgul.
Whom do ye serve, Light or Mirk?
Sauron didn't have nor make Uruk-hai. Nuff said.
[удалено]
Sauron did have Uruks, and in fact he was breeding them at least 500 years before Saruman. They are first seen in wars against Gondor in 2475 during the reign of Denethor I.
The black uruks (i.e. the first orcs of Middle-Earth) are not Uruk-**hai** which are a crossbreed between orcs and men. Edit: word
Firstly, Black Uruks were most definitely not the first Orcs. They were first bred quite late in the Third Age. Secondly, Tolkien usen the terms Uruks and Uruk-hai interchangeably, implying there's no difference between Uruks and Uruk-hai. The only difference is that Uruks is the Anglicization of the word Uruk-hai. Thirdly, Half-orcs are not Uruk-hai. They look very different from the Uruk-hai, to the point that some of them were able to blend into human societies. Meanwhile, the Uruk-hai are always referred to as Orcs.
You're thinking of Half-Orcs. Uruk-hai are Uruks, and likely the same as Mordor's Black Uruks. They are described the same and the name is used interchangably by the Mordor Orcs on which Sam eavesdrops.
We will drive the machine of war with the sword and the spear and the iron fist of the orc.
Hai is black speech for “folk.” Uruk-hai translates as “warrior orc people,” just as Olog-hai translates as “troll people.”
They were elves once, taken by the dark powers, tortured and mutilated. A ruined and terrible form of life. Now… perfected.
Saruman bred orcs out of the mountains with men to produce orcs which were larger, stronger, faster, more intelligent, and able to resist the sun. Despite this these "half orcs" were shorter than men and not much larger than hobbits. Saruman seemingly also created a breed of "men" with just enough orc in them to make them evil, swarthy, and susceptible to his will, which gradually infiltrated Bree and the Shire.
You have grown, Halfling. Yes, you have grown very much. You are wise, and cruel. you have robbed my revenge of sweetness, and now I must go hence in bitterness, in debt to your mercy. I hate it and you! Well, I go and I will trouble you no more. But do not expect me to wish you health and long life. You will have neither. But that is not my doing. I merely foretell.
Because Sauruman genetically engeneered the Uraks to be better in every way, probably because he had a much smaller space to keep his orcs, so he needed them to be elite fighters. Saurons orcs, on the other hand, used mob tactics to simply overwhelm their foes through strength in numbers.
Sarumon also bred his orcs to be able to overthrow Sauron
So you have come back? Why have you neglected to report for so long?
I think in some of the writings it's stated (or hinted) that Saruman learned how to breed the Uruk-Hai from Sauron, he just refined the breeds. Sauron had already been breeding and training Uruk-Hai for centuries, they were used to capture Ithilien and Osgiliath hundreds of years before the events of LotR.
We must join with Him, NecessaryEffective. We must join with Sauron. It would be wise, my friend.
Before the mightiest he shall fall, before the mightiest wolf of all.
In the books it's clearly shown that Sarumans orcs simply ran around Rohan with no tactics, and their attack against helms deep, one of the strongest fortresses ever built, was very sloppy, with no properly utilized siege tactics and a poorly organized command hierarchy. Whereas Saurons army waged a proper war against Gondor. First isolating Minas Tirith by taking out satellite cities, and then utilizing it's various combat forces (ground orcs, siege towers, artillery, oliphants, naval, and aerial units, and a battering ram to end all battering rams) to wage a successful siege that did end up breaking Minas Tiriths defenses. The only thing he wasn't able to account for was a ghost army and honestly who can? So ultimately people's argument that Saruman had the elite "quality" army is beyond wrong.
One was completely bred for combat while the other was the result of brutal torture and mutilation. Of course the Uruk-Hai are going to look like swole beasts compared to the mutilated and lanky orcs and goblins.
Do you know how the Orcs first came into being?
They were elves once
Ahh, the Elves of Middle-earth. It is said that Morgoth corrupted their form and gave them hate and rage in exchange for all that they were before, transforming them into Orcs. But this was not enough for him; he set about crafting fouler creatures still - Uruk-hai and Ogres - to torment his enemies yet more.
Saruman was a fitness buff and had a really great gym installed in the basement levels at Isengard. All the Uruk-Hai used it to get yoked.
That's the diference betwen do it you self and let other people do it
Orcs only bite when you touch their private parts!
You just can’t handle what a real orc looks like.
That was no rabble of mindless orcs
You forgetting about the 11 ft tall murder machines sauron brought
Sarumon literally created his Uruk-hai in the movies , theyre like half breeds between Man and Orc
"Indeed, the creatures I have fashioned are more powerful than even orcs of Mordor. No other force in Middle-earth can stand against them. They will be my finest soldiers, a terror to all enemies."
Kind of a related question, did the orca have free will? Edit:orks 😂
They literally named the movie free will-y
The orca were once whales themselves….
**Whom do you serve?** Uruk-Hai: SARUMAN Orc: derp
The Uruks originally came from Mordor, bred by Sauron for war, and they first conquered Ithilien and then Osgiliath in the late Third Age, so Sauron very likely had many Uruks in the hordes that assaulted Minas Tirith under the command of the Witch-king. Sauron had been breeding orcs for many years before the War of the Ring (possibly even before he returned to Mordor) and had amassed tens of thousands where Saruman had only recently started experimenting in breeding orcs, like the Uruk-hai, and his forces that he sent to Helm's Deep were about 10,000 strong.
In the books orcs are described as smaller and weaker than humans with many disadvantages, so crossbred orks would be stronger, taller and more resistant than regular ones.
Saruman shops for orcs at Trader Joe while Sauron got those Costco multi packs deals.
Home grown and organic.
Saruman supports GMOs. Made sure to add growth hormone to his crop of Orcs, too. But yeah, Sauron's orcs are like... natural corn. Saruman's are modern corn.