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Are orcs over used?

Geldor

Scribe
Throughout fantasy there has been a generic foe for the heroes to fight before the main antagonist, usually these are orcs. This seems to be the 'safe' option for many fantasy writers out there but whenever someone does try to leave this cliche cult then they're whipped for it unless they do it correctly, and few do! Whatsmore over the years orcs have evolved in fantasy, from being the evil lackeys of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings with no emotion other than hate, to viewpoint characters of new novels that are heroic and morally good. I suppose my question is... are orcs overused and if so how could I change people's perception of them in my novel?
 

Edankyn

Minstrel
Personally, I think they are overused in respect to being the bad guys. Specifically, I think they are overused in regards to being intellectually inferior hordes for a hero to chop his way through. I've only ever read two stories that presented Orcs in an equally intelligent or morally good light. I'm not sick of Orcs by any means, and I understand the value in having a staple bad guy for authors to use without having to bring the reader up to speed.

As far as setting it apart in your novel I think you've already mentioned two possible ways. Make them heroic or morally good. Even if a few stories have already broken the ground on this, it doesn't make it any less distinctive for any story you write. Alternatively, just giving them genuine intelligence could go a long way. Flesh out their societal structure, gender roles, religion. Many authors use Orcs so that they don't have to flesh them out, but taking the time to do that can alter the reader's perception a great deal. You can even use the basis that other authors have established and then simply build or alter from there.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
If you must go with old-school warlike barbarian orcs, I second Edankyn's suggestion that you should make them intelligent. If they pose a genuine threat to your (presumably higher-tech) protagonists' culture, they ought to have something to compensate for their primitive technology. They could be cunning tacticians for instance.

That said, I prefer nobler or more sympathetic orcs myself.
 
Orcs in my stories aren't necessarily evil, they just have their own warlike culture. Some orcs live in the cities among the humans and dwarves, and some loathe the very concept of civilization. Orcs are just another race for writers to apply attributes to, its up to you as the writer to decide which attributes go to whom.
And as Steerpike said, if you write it well, your readers will be happy to accept whatever you write.
 

Guy

Inkling
My favorite orcs, by far, were the ones in Monster Hunter International. I have evil critters in my world, but humans are far and away the meanest and most evil. I'm firmly convinced no being in all the plains of existence can match us for sheer depravity.
 

jasperjheart

Dreamer
I think that you should make a sympathetic orc character, with a back story and a personality. An orc that was banished from his tribe because he had different views than his superiors. Then have him go on a quest for redemption, while also telling your main character's story. Could be cool.
 

Queshire

Auror
Skipping the other posts in this thread 'cuz I don't want to see if I'm gonna be repeating what other people said. Now, it seems to me that you're really asking about two different things in the original post.

1) The race of generic foes for the hero to slice through which Orcs are a common choice for, but could also be the likes of demons, goblins, werewolves, and so on.

2)Orcs as a race standing on their own. The potentially morally good Orcs / viewpoint of novel characters that you refer to.

This division makes me think of the TV tropes page on Orcs: Main/Our Orcs Are Different - Television Tropes & Idioms which divides Orcs into Tolkein Style orcs which fits the first category and Blizzard style Orcs which fit the second.

In reference to the first part, the generic foes for the heroes to cut through, I think that yes it can be done, however the average fantasy minion race tends to be pretty flat character-wise. I don't think that's enough to hold the interest of the average reader now a days, at least not as a center stage enemy. There's a sadly under rated manga that I love which features golems as monsters for the heroes to fight, in essence serving in the role of our "Orcs" but the Golems aren't the focus of the main conflict. The fight with the Golems serves as a back drop to the conflict and interactions between the heroes, the big good, and the big bad and in that role they served admirably. I think other always chaotic evil races such as Tolkein Orcs can fit in really well in a similar role.

For the Orcs as a race with the same treatment as elves or dwarves, well they suffer from the same problems as elves or dwarves. There's people that think they're boring, cliche, stereotypical. People that swear off all established fantasy races and choose to invent their own. There's nothing wrong with going that route, but I like to take dwarves and elves, and, while keeping their core Elf-y-ness intact, reinvent them and make them fresh. For example my Orcs were magically bioengineered as a slave race to serve as foot soldiers and laborers for the Elves but have broken free and now established a culture that's based on equal parts of ancient Rome and feudal Japan. However I'm starting to consider basing the culture more on Genghis Khan than Rome / Japan to better fit the core Orc-y-ness.
 

Ophiucha

Auror
It's a common fantasy race, but far less common than elves or dwarves. You're fine. They'd be more interesting if you don't follow the trend of making them culture-less mooks, but if you've got a good enough story, it's not the sort of trope that's going to cause groans of despair and putting the book down. At least not from most fantasy readers.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Of course orcs are overused. But so what? Many people still enjoy them.

If somebody's going to read a book that has the word "orc" in its blurb, then believe me, you don't have to worry about changing their perception of what an orc is and whether it's overused. In my opinion, if you want to use orcs, just go with it - find other ways to make your book your own.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Echoing what others have said, I don't think it's a question of whether orcs (or any other tropes) are overused, it's a question of whether they are used poorly.
 

Wormtongue

Minstrel
I don't use orcs. To me orcs and hobbits belong in Middle Earth.

I'm more likely to use humans than anything else when it comes to hordes of evil creatures. For smaller encounters trolls and ghouls are among my favorites.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
I'm more likely to use humans than anything else when it comes to hordes of evil creatures.
Same here. Most of my conflicts pit humans against humans. They still tend to be "interracial" in that the warring human factions look physically different and come from different continents. For instance, I may have Africans fighting Middle Easterners, or Northern Europeans fighting Greco-Romans. Intercultural conflict pops up as a major theme in some of my stories.

That said, sometimes I feel guilty about having to make one culture the villainous aggressors. Whether or not it's realistic, I can see why some might interpret that as racist. On the other hand I prefer my stories to center on hero-vs-villain conflicts.
 

Wormtongue

Minstrel
That said, sometimes I feel guilty about having to make one culture the villainous aggressors.

In my case the antagonist is orchestrating a war but the soldiers who fight on the "evil" side are no different than the soldiers on the "good" side. The antagonist has simply duped them into believing the other side is evil.
 

Bruce McKnight

Troubadour
If anything is overused, it's humans - they're in almost everything!

I'm a big fan of orcs, but, like anything else, they can be used poorly. Often then are just a nameless mass of evil creatures. Even if they are evil or bloodthirsty, give them some sort of motivation. Give them a war-demanding god, make them cannibals, send in a spaceship full of aliens that genetically modify them to be killing machines, but do something to explain why they are the way they are.

I think when authors use humans as the bad guys, they put a lot more thought into motivation, whereas it seems that when some of them use orcs, the only motivation they give them for anything is "they're orcs."
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
My orc-equivalents, the svartalfar, are not entirely a nameless horde. They are servants of an evil Lady who discovers a new world (Faerie), but first must eradicate its people. For this purpose She wages war on the Fae and their human allies. But not all of the svartalfar are interested in war. Most of them serve the Lady out of sheer fear, but there are some who rebel against Her in the hopes of gaining a better life elsewhere, whether because "any other life has to be better than this" or "I really just want to live in peace, but peace isn't an option with the Lady, so I might as well take the chance to leave." With probably a lot of overlap between the two.
 

Ireth

Myth Weaver
Out of curiosity, weren't the svartalfar in Norse mythology the dwarves?

There's a bit of overlap between them and the dokkalfar. To my knowledge, it's the dokkalfar who were closer to dwarves. I've always seen svartalfar as more akin to Drow, and that's basically what they're like in my book, at least in appearance. Altogether they're kind of a mishmash. Drowish coloration, elvish physique, dwarvish obligation to live underground, orcish brutality (in many but not all cases).
 

Noma Galway

Archmage
Okay. I was just curious, because I always heard it was the svartalfar who forged Brisingamen, so I thought they were the dwarves.
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
That said, sometimes I feel guilty about having to make one culture the villainous aggressors. Whether or not it's realistic, I can see why some might interpret that as racist. On the other hand I prefer my stories to center on hero-vs-villain conflicts.

Which is why I made the goblins/hobgoblins of my worlds the way they are. As presented in D&D and like gaming systems, orcs, goblins, and similar creatures are presented as automatically 'evil' with no real reason for them to be evil. (Tolkien at least had them the servants / creations of what amounted to a evil god).

I wanted a race that would have a legit reason for acting aggressively without the 'just because' tag. So, the goblins and hobgoblins of my worlds, while humanoid, have a very nonhuman internal anatomy.

First off, they're hatched, in groups of up to a couple dozen, not born.

Second, male goblins / hobgoblins outnumber the females by a hundred to one - yet the impulse to breed is very strong among the males.

Hence, the male goblins / hobgoblins seek to eradicate internal competition for mates - making 'murder' not a crime in many gobliniod societies, AND seek to prove their own worthiness, which often means raiding or invading other communities, be they goblins, humans, or some other race.
 
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