Why does anyone in Middle Earth take the Orcs seriously?

Jacco

New member
May 1, 2011
1,738
0
0
The Orcs are simply not a credible threat. If a small band of people can take on and kill an entire battalion of them, how are they even a threat to an actual army? Even when they outnumber the good guys 10 to one, they still get slaughtered.

I just saw the Hobbit and it suffered from this "stormtrooper syndrome" just as badly as LOTR did.
 

Amethyst Wind

New member
Apr 1, 2009
3,188
0
0
Probably because they were very successful in zerg-rushing in the books, what with it taking an unkillable army of ghosts to save Gondor during the siege.
 

Rylot

New member
May 14, 2010
1,819
0
0
When not fighting major characters they have a better success rate. They also would've taken out all of Gondor and Rohan's suicide attack if not for the destroying of the ring... That doesn't need spoliers this long after does it?
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
Legacy
Jul 18, 2009
19,653
4,452
118
Well, only the main characters have the "hero's aura", that's why Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin can take on monstrous orcs two times their size.

Everyone who isn't a major character is fucked.
 

Friendly Lich

New member
Feb 15, 2012
431
0
0
Casual Shinji said:
Well, only the main characters have the "hero's aura", that's why Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin can take on monstrous orcs two times their size.

Everyone who isn't a major character is fucked.
This ^ they have "plot armor". In Game of Thrones nobody has plot armor.
 

cojo965

New member
Jul 28, 2012
1,650
0
0
Rylot said:
When not fighting major characters they have a better success rate. They also would've taken out all of Gondor and Rohan's suicide attack if not for the destroying of the ring... That doesn't need spoliers this long after does it?
Probably not, but it's worth remembering that most people could guess that's how it ends.
 

Redlin5_v1legacy

Better Red than Dead
Aug 5, 2009
48,836
0
0
It's a more of a case of really effective plot armor for the heroes than lack of battle savagery on the side of the orcs. Plot armor or not, if Gandalf hadn't come to the rescue the battle at Helm's Deep would have ended in a glorious charge into thousands of orcs.

Its not as if the main cast doesn't respect their fighting abilities. Gandalf always elects to flee battle until they get to better ground in the Hobbit.
 

NinjaDeathSlap

Leaf on the wind
Feb 20, 2011
4,474
0
0
They're mass produced conscripts, meant to overwhelm with sheer force of numbers rather than be a huge threat on their own. They are also deployed alongside things that really are heavy hitters, such as Uruk Hai and Cave Trolls.
 

sonofliber

New member
Mar 8, 2010
245
0
0
Friendly Lich said:
Casual Shinji said:
Well, only the main characters have the "hero's aura", that's why Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin can take on monstrous orcs two times their size.

Everyone who isn't a major character is fucked.
This ^ they have "plot armor". In Game of Thrones nobody has plot armor.
okay thats a lie, the only we could call main character in ASOFAI is eddard (and its been almost 20 years + 1 tv series), neither of the others that die where MC, they where well developed support cast
 

Esotera

New member
May 5, 2011
3,400
0
0
Because they're a bunch of racists. Everyone flat out states that orcs were created from 'corrupted' elves breeding, and there's nothing taboo about committing genocide, which is called hunting several times in the books and films. They're quite obviously a sapient race as they can talk to each other and have social structure, but they've been so downtrodden by everyone that they don't have the technology or organisation to fight anyone with anything except primitive tribal tactics.

Wake up sheeple!
 

Duskwaith

New member
Sep 20, 2008
647
0
0
Yet, in The Hobbit movie you see them beat the living crap out of a dwarven army and effectively routing it before Thorin goes hardcore. Thorin also rebukes Filli and Killi (I think) when they joke about an Orc night attack.

Not to mention the fact TH/LOTR they are always running away or facing huge odds when fighting the Orcs.
 

Cakes

New member
Aug 26, 2009
1,036
0
0
Amethyst Wind said:
Probably because they were very successful in zerg-rushing in the books, what with it taking an unkillable army of ghosts to save Gondor during the siege.
That deus ex machina shit is because of Peter Jackson. In the book it isn't even clear whether the ghosts can physically harm anyone.
 

CAPTCHA

Mushroom Camper
Sep 30, 2009
1,075
0
0
Esotera said:
Because they're a bunch of racists. Everyone flat out states that orcs were created from 'corrupted' elves breeding, and there's nothing taboo about committing genocide, which is called hunting several times in the books and films. They're quite obviously a sapient race as they can talk to each other and have social structure, but they've been so downtrodden by everyone that they don't have the technology or organisation to fight anyone with anything except primitive tribal tactics.

Wake up sheeple!
lol

If the Orcs had won the war of the ring, Middle Earth would be entering its industrial age. Instead the elves left and the world entered a dark age.
 

DoPo

"You're not cleared for that."
Jan 30, 2012
8,665
0
0
Esotera said:
Because they're a bunch of racists. Everyone flat out states that orcs were created from 'corrupted' elves breeding, and there's nothing taboo about committing genocide, which is called hunting several times in the books and films. They're quite obviously a sapient race as they can talk to each other and have social structure, but they've been so downtrodden by everyone that they don't have the technology or organisation to fight anyone with anything except primitive tribal tactics.

Wake up sheeple!
Which reminds me of a Warcraft 3 thread from GameFAQs a long time ago. Both the sheeple and the orcs thing

Blizzard is racist.

I'm talking about massive, obvious, degoratory racist features and unexplainable hatred from players against farm animals, and especially sheep.

Sheep are included in this game, yes, so basically this makes it impossible to argue with Blizzard about being anti-sheep at all? WRONG! What are sheep portrayed as in this game?

-They're weak. They can't attack in WC3, but I tell you, if you've ever been to a farm, you know that you don't wanna **** with G's like that.

-They're frail. One blow basically kills them off. But that is as far away from reality you'll ever be. Sheep aren't killed with one single attack in real life. I tried it, but naturally it didn't work. Also, I'm sure that if you'd just walk in on a farm somewhere and kill off a sheep, you'd have to face the consequences. But not in WC3! Blizzard is trying to convince us killing sheep doesn't bring you any consequences.

-They're stupid. An example from Gnoll Wood, where you can find sheep walking around in shallow waters. I'm no sheep expert but I can safely claim that no sheep would ever willingly walk into a sea or a river. They're portrayed as stupid. And again, an unrealistic feature -- sheep can't breath under the surface of water.

-They're very ugly. This speaks for itself. It is my opinion that sheep are very pretty IRL, and also very, very intelligent.

-If you click enough times on them, they explode. This gives the basement-residing WC3 players of our community another surreal image of sheep.

-They're always in the way. IRL, they most often walk around on open areas, making it impossible for them to be in someone's way.

-Mech critters (VERY CONVENIENTLY displayed as mechanical sheep on the item interface) are more useful than regular sheep. It's obvious that Blizzard are trying to sublimely tell us that in the future, regular sheep will be widely replaced by mechanically engineered sheep, or perhaps CLONED sheep.

-They're more useful when KILLED. How? Undead can use their corpses for raising Skeletons or for Meat Wagons to pick up their corpses which makes the former purpose easier. And again, this is just REMOTE usefulness. Double minus for our sheep.

And our WC3 community encourages the use of the last mentioned paragraph.
Horses are also unappreciated in the game. While they are a part reason to why Knights are so useful, they aren't even seen in the Knight's interface icon. Though all the other animal warriors are more recognized than horses, the rest are still merely fantasy beasts. I take it that Blizzard don't want animals to exist in reality.

---

And Orcs! Believe it or not, but Blizzard are obviously portraying them as their own racist image of NEGROES.

-Orcs are COLORED. They may be green, but they are still not of the same color as Humans in the game. They are different. This means that Blizzard thinks black people are either inhuman or more likely a LESSER KIND of humans!

-Orcs have big jaws. 'Nuff said.

-Orcs are mainly butt ugly. While an ugly person doesn't remind you of a black man, an ugly person DOES remind you of an Orc. And Orcs are portrayed as "negroes" by Blizzard, meaning that Blizzard think that black people are butt ugly.
I can see that this image of black people is already starting to affect our fellow Warcraft players. In the term before the last one, a classmate of mine was away from class installing braces. Keep in mind that he was somewhat of an hardcore WC3 player back then. He barged into the classroom with bloody jaws and roared:
"RRRR! I'M AN ORC!!!"
He looked very UGLY indeed.

-In the campaign, Orcs are violent and, so to speak, out of control. We see both Thrall and Grom PREMATURELY attacking Humans (aka white people) and making racist remarks against Humans in general. They also try to convince foreign creatures (Tauren) that Humans are evil. (Blizzard is accusing black people spreading racist propaganda against white people.)

-Orcs deal with creepy Wolves and other creatures. Blizzard are trying to make black people seem weird, like the Orcs are. They also have a spell which, again very conveniently, is named Bloodlust...

-Orcs are connected to voodoo. Orcs - Trolls - Shadow Hunters and Witch Doctors --> Black people - black magic (VOODOO). 'Nuff said again.

-Orcs were the weakest, the most USELESS race through most of ROC and early TFT. Then, Blizzard must've been accused of racism and conveniently buffed Orc to cover up the scandal. They knowingly made Orcs the exceptionally strongest race, a PROBLEM in the game. And they seem intent on keeping it that way.

We must take action against Blizzard before it continues to affect the players of our community, which happens to consist mostly of 12-year-olds without experience with neither sheep nor black people whatsoever! This is a very serious matter. It is my opinion that we should all:
-Stop killing sheep. In fact, maybe we should build Farms close to them so they can eat more.
-Boycott Orcs until Blizzard explain themselves about the innuendo and remove Orcs as a race in order to neutralize their racist opinion on black people.

Peace.

I just thought it amusing and saved the thread. It's from 2005, so, as I said - along time ago.
 

Twilight_guy

Sight, Sound, and Mind
Nov 24, 2008
7,131
0
0
You do realize that most movie battles either involved the heroes in a stronger position (i.e. behind big walls) or having champions (i.e. unstoppable baddass main characters who can't die for dynamic reasons). Even then though tons of generic dudes got killed by orcs. I think there ability to kill your dudes is enough reason to be afraid of them.
 

Supertegwyn

New member
Oct 7, 2010
1,057
0
0
DoPo said:
Esotera said:
Because they're a bunch of racists. Everyone flat out states that orcs were created from 'corrupted' elves breeding, and there's nothing taboo about committing genocide, which is called hunting several times in the books and films. They're quite obviously a sapient race as they can talk to each other and have social structure, but they've been so downtrodden by everyone that they don't have the technology or organisation to fight anyone with anything except primitive tribal tactics.

Wake up sheeple!
Which reminds me of a Warcraft 3 thread from GameFAQs a long time ago. Both the sheeple and the orcs thing

Blizzard is racist.

I'm talking about massive, obvious, degoratory racist features and unexplainable hatred from players against farm animals, and especially sheep.

Sheep are included in this game, yes, so basically this makes it impossible to argue with Blizzard about being anti-sheep at all? WRONG! What are sheep portrayed as in this game?

-They're weak. They can't attack in WC3, but I tell you, if you've ever been to a farm, you know that you don't wanna **** with G's like that.

-They're frail. One blow basically kills them off. But that is as far away from reality you'll ever be. Sheep aren't killed with one single attack in real life. I tried it, but naturally it didn't work. Also, I'm sure that if you'd just walk in on a farm somewhere and kill off a sheep, you'd have to face the consequences. But not in WC3! Blizzard is trying to convince us killing sheep doesn't bring you any consequences.

-They're stupid. An example from Gnoll Wood, where you can find sheep walking around in shallow waters. I'm no sheep expert but I can safely claim that no sheep would ever willingly walk into a sea or a river. They're portrayed as stupid. And again, an unrealistic feature -- sheep can't breath under the surface of water.

-They're very ugly. This speaks for itself. It is my opinion that sheep are very pretty IRL, and also very, very intelligent.

-If you click enough times on them, they explode. This gives the basement-residing WC3 players of our community another surreal image of sheep.

-They're always in the way. IRL, they most often walk around on open areas, making it impossible for them to be in someone's way.

-Mech critters (VERY CONVENIENTLY displayed as mechanical sheep on the item interface) are more useful than regular sheep. It's obvious that Blizzard are trying to sublimely tell us that in the future, regular sheep will be widely replaced by mechanically engineered sheep, or perhaps CLONED sheep.

-They're more useful when KILLED. How? Undead can use their corpses for raising Skeletons or for Meat Wagons to pick up their corpses which makes the former purpose easier. And again, this is just REMOTE usefulness. Double minus for our sheep.

And our WC3 community encourages the use of the last mentioned paragraph.
Horses are also unappreciated in the game. While they are a part reason to why Knights are so useful, they aren't even seen in the Knight's interface icon. Though all the other animal warriors are more recognized than horses, the rest are still merely fantasy beasts. I take it that Blizzard don't want animals to exist in reality.

---

And Orcs! Believe it or not, but Blizzard are obviously portraying them as their own racist image of NEGROES.

-Orcs are COLORED. They may be green, but they are still not of the same color as Humans in the game. They are different. This means that Blizzard thinks black people are either inhuman or more likely a LESSER KIND of humans!

-Orcs have big jaws. 'Nuff said.

-Orcs are mainly butt ugly. While an ugly person doesn't remind you of a black man, an ugly person DOES remind you of an Orc. And Orcs are portrayed as "negroes" by Blizzard, meaning that Blizzard think that black people are butt ugly.
I can see that this image of black people is already starting to affect our fellow Warcraft players. In the term before the last one, a classmate of mine was away from class installing braces. Keep in mind that he was somewhat of an hardcore WC3 player back then. He barged into the classroom with bloody jaws and roared:
"RRRR! I'M AN ORC!!!"
He looked very UGLY indeed.

-In the campaign, Orcs are violent and, so to speak, out of control. We see both Thrall and Grom PREMATURELY attacking Humans (aka white people) and making racist remarks against Humans in general. They also try to convince foreign creatures (Tauren) that Humans are evil. (Blizzard is accusing black people spreading racist propaganda against white people.)

-Orcs deal with creepy Wolves and other creatures. Blizzard are trying to make black people seem weird, like the Orcs are. They also have a spell which, again very conveniently, is named Bloodlust...

-Orcs are connected to voodoo. Orcs - Trolls - Shadow Hunters and Witch Doctors --> Black people - black magic (VOODOO). 'Nuff said again.

-Orcs were the weakest, the most USELESS race through most of ROC and early TFT. Then, Blizzard must've been accused of racism and conveniently buffed Orc to cover up the scandal. They knowingly made Orcs the exceptionally strongest race, a PROBLEM in the game. And they seem intent on keeping it that way.

We must take action against Blizzard before it continues to affect the players of our community, which happens to consist mostly of 12-year-olds without experience with neither sheep nor black people whatsoever! This is a very serious matter. It is my opinion that we should all:
-Stop killing sheep. In fact, maybe we should build Farms close to them so they can eat more.
-Boycott Orcs until Blizzard explain themselves about the innuendo and remove Orcs as a race in order to neutralize their racist opinion on black people.

Peace.
I just thought it amusing and saved the thread. It's from 2005, so, as I said - along time ago.
I love you.

OT: Because there are thousands of them ready to swarm any pathetic human village in their way.
 

Auberon

New member
Aug 29, 2012
467
0
0
Serious threats like Morgoth, Ancalagon, Glaurung and Sauron are effectively dealt with so standards have dropped. And numbers, as mentioned previously. Even heroes tire out before endless hordes.
 

SonOfMethuselah

New member
Oct 9, 2012
360
0
0
*shrug*
If you look at the big picture, (the entirety of the history of Middle-earth, not just what's contained in LotR and the Hobbit), Orcs are threatening enough. Remember that, in the Second Age, it took an all-out alliance of Men and Elves marching on Mordor, not to mention a lucky strike by Isildur, to turn aside the threat. Orcs were pretty much the status quo of Sauron's bag of tricks then, so they would have been a big part of the hordes marching across Middle-earth. Even when you're looking at LotR/Hobbit stuff (and, as I recall, so far as the book is concerend, Goblins were more prevalent in the Hobbit than Orcs were), it's usually a case of right place/right time/right circumstance that lets the members of the Fellowship escape fights with Orcs alive, and it's never without pretty huge losses.
 

Imp_Emissary

Mages Rule, and Dragons Fly!
Legacy
May 2, 2011
2,315
1
43
Country
United States
Esotera said:
Because they're a bunch of racists. Everyone flat out states that orcs were created from 'corrupted' elves breeding, and there's nothing taboo about committing genocide, which is called hunting several times in the books and films. They're quite obviously a sapient race as they can talk to each other and have social structure, but they've been so downtrodden by everyone that they don't have the technology or organisation to fight anyone with anything except primitive tribal tactics.

Wake up sheeple!
>_< Careful!


Anyway, as many people said before, the reason the main people in the story can beat the orcs is because they have "plot armor", and never face a REALLY large number of them by themselves.