In The Hobbit it is said that ¾ of all orc warriors of the North died in The Battle of Five Armies. If we say that 15,000 orcs participated in the battle, then it would mean that in total there were 20,000 orc warriors of the North (of course, it wasn’t like someone counted the orcs, so it might have been that less than ¾ died in that battle).With “the North” I understand the Grey Mountains and the Misty Mountains down to Moria. -Kindly regards: Gustav (to be continued).

Wow, Gustav. I gotta say I’m impressed. I’m certainly no math whiz, but this all sounds good to me. We know that Morgoth and his orcs were certainly a presence east of the Blue Mountains. Of course, much of Eriador was covered in forest at the time, but in the far north there certainly could…

Racism and Middle Earth: Part 3/6: Tolkien and the Men of Darkness

Okay, this is part of an ongoing series, and also a draft (the final, complete version will be offered as a downloadable pdf.) As such there are a couple un-attached pages that you will probably want to know about:

• My overall disclaimer and outline of the series
• Part I of the series (“People of Color in Middle Earth”)
• Part II of the series (“The Numenorean Hierarchy of Men”)

This is the segment I was the most intimidated by, and hesitant to write, so I’ll be especially grateful for any feedback (as mentioned, this is a draft, so any feedback could be used during revision, before I offer the completed series as a download.) But, of course, keep in mind that this is part 3 of 6, so if you feel I’ve left something out, there’s a chance I’ve already talked about it in a previous part (links above.)

‘Sharkey’? Seriously?

So, for those of you who haven’t actually read Lord of the Rings, you may or may not be familiar with the fact that a large part of the ending wasn’t included in the movies – the Scouring of the Shire. You can read more about it in this post, but basic idea is that,…

Orcs and Emotions

During the course of the stories, we see orcs get angry, scared, and (sort of) happy, but I can’t think of any time when we see them get sad. So whether or not their emotional range is this broad is mainly up to your own interpretation of them. But I do have this information to…