Honestly I find the idea of "Fungally-spawned, self-organizing armies with belief-based technology" like Warhammer's at the very least an interesting take on orks
"What if English football hooligans were eight feet tall, green, built spaceships, and expanded all through space looking for someone to have a good drunken punch up with?"
LOTR is the OG and still the best. Orcs and Elves both have very specific roles in LOTR that is deeply tied in to the history and cosmology of the setting. Most attempts to do Orcs and Elves in other media have problems because they're trying to use Tolkiens orcs and elves, but their world doesn't have the back ground that justifies why Orcs and Elves exist.
There is no good depiction of orcs in fiction.
Orks on the other hand are krumpin' and based, light itself, perfect beings.
I would say LOTR since it has the most details about them and stuff. Take this opinion with a grain of salt since I haven't read all of the LOTR stuff
Also the That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime has orcs have pig style heads. I think one of the orcs become captain of the guard and he's cool
Agreed on LOTR. Orcs fit in to LOTR better than almost anything else because in LOTR they serve the narrative purpose of being the physical example of Sauron's power and malice. I think Sauron isn't ever directly seen, so you have to learn about him from what the protagonists say about him and what his minions do. Orcs aren't characters in the story, per se. They're part of Sauron's character, to show what kind of world Sauron wants to create.
has orcs have pig style heads
This is really common in Japanese stories, and it seems to have migrated to the country by way of the Japanese translation of the original Dungeons and Dragons manual, which is interesting.
They also interpret Kobolds as dog people instead of dragon people. Same reason.
The sea monster in orlando el furioso has tusks and a pig snout, is the color of fungus and is called an orc. It is also real big. But is generally interpreted to be more like a dragon.
Wich may be some pun involing the words porco( pig in italian) and orca.
I like Shadowrun orks even though they're often a clumsy metaphor for Jews or black people in a world where the mundane type of racism still exists.
I like how they came into existence with no culture or community of their own and had to cobble something together. By the 2050s they had started constructing their own language too. But not every ork is onboard. A lot of orks just wanna grill. You're considered weird and punk if you speak Ork language and play Ork music, so I like the tension there. Is there a real Ork community or are some simply adopting a rebellious aesthetic? What actually binds them together? Are they just posers? How do they deal with their own nebulous identity in a world dominated by a single digit number of mega corporations?
Imo orsimer from the Elder Scrolls series. Instead of the typical "nobel savage" bullshit you see with your typical portrayal of orcs, orsimer culture is split between nomadic tribes and stronghold orcs who live in fortified compounds on account of the neighboring peoples constantly attempting to commit genocide on them. Some of their larger strongholds like the capital of Wrothgar, Orsinium have begun to industrialise in a setting where pretty much every surviving society is still feudal (and it's revealed in ESO'S Wrothgar dlc that this isn't the first time they tried, having lost a lot of their manufacturing infrastructure during an invasion).
The orc king in Daggerfall tries to use part of a dead machine god to rewrite the universe to remove racism.
Especially with orcs, it’s always “revels in violence” or proud noble savage tribals, even in Bright.
Which is always weird because Tolkien's orcs are mostly well organized and militaristic. In so far as they represent anything they represent the inhumanity of industrialized warfare. Like Tolkien's orcs have nothing meaningful in common with Warcraft Orcs. They're not green, they're not "tribal", they're not spiritual, they don't have "Shamans".
I get the feeling Warcraft's version of Orcs was designed specifically to subvert the Tolkien aesthetic, and then that went on to be a highly influential strain of the idea. But then again the Warcraft orcs take inspiration from the Warhammer 40K Orks, who were a parody of football hooligans that were iterated over time into their own thing.
I hate the concept of fantasy races in general. They are always monolithic, which literally interpreted is unrealistic and when metaphorically interpreted, problematic. Especially
I'm begging Hexbear fantasy enjoyers to read Malazan: Book of the Fallen. It is a direct anathema to the fantasy problem of monolithic cultures and fantasy races. As you piece together the history you see how cultures have evolved, splintered, language and beliefs changed over centuries. There are a few races which are Orc-like (big muscles, big tusks, grey or green) and they get a nuanced treatment as well. All the cultures and societies depicted have layers and are multifacted.
I like the orcs in Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: https://grimgar.fandom.com/wiki/Inhabitants_of_Grimgar#Orcs
Unfortunately the show only got a single season, so you don't get much about their society. But they're mostly just different looking humans. The main problem the series has is that the writing is too realistic, it doesn't appeal to audiences in isekai anime to have humanised characters that have teamwork that sucks ass and serious problems working together as a party who have to figure out their issues to succeed, it's much too human for its own good. I do strongly recommend it though.
It is of course an isekai into a videogame world though so the rules of how ""society"" works in this place is more like a videogame than the economics of reality. They are however the most humanised orcs I have seen.
Shinsekai Yori (The New World) has Queerats which are also a fantastic depiction of a fantasy race with a hive queen. They are subjugated by humanity who holds their queen captive in order to subjugate their race and they carry out a liberation war. They're supposed to be viewed in a pretty ambiguously grey light but I think it's extremely easy to sympathise with their revolutionary struggle. The writing and world building of Shinsekai Yori is excellent.
I am the kind of person that watches a show and holds off on the source for years in hope of not spoiling myself for continuation of the show. Unfortunately I think you're right and I'll have to read that one.
Grimgard was very good. I felt the levels of the characters clashed with the otherwise realistic story.
I tried to watch the second one but all the lolis put me off. Ill give it another try
Shinsekai Yori? I don't remember any "loli" content? It is an extremely serious story with some pretty uncomfortable moments. The show starts with the characters as children and follows them for their entire lives, they are adults later in the story.
them being litle kids put me off, i tougth it was another loli show and droped it but you make it sound interesting. And your taste seems good so i will give it another try.
Nope, definitely not. I think there is a scene where they show that their society has an unusual approach to sexuality in that the society promotes homosexuality when they are teenagers to avoid the complications of pregnancy (created by something I can't spoil) whereas in adults they promote heterosexuality. There is a fluidity to the sexuality in the show and I can guess that it was the section with the teenagers having relationships that probably make you think it was sus? I'm not sure if you even got to that part though and it's not really done for sexual purposes it's just a part of worldbuilding that is important to understanding their (fucked up) society.
The show is one that should be viewed from a worldbuilding perspective. Extremely unusual world and circumstances that mostly grounds itself in material causes.
Glad to hear that. Thank you for the long and tougthfull response. I will definatley watch it now.
In my opinion it is one of the best examples of worldbuilding in anime. The fact that it manages to find material reasons for the structure and outcomes of this incredibly fucked up society with psychic powers is extremely impressive as you go through it and the various mysteries are unravelled. You will probably be confused at various parts throughout as it does play various things as mysteries, the point however is "why is our society structured this way and how did it come to be?" and it does an excellent job of guiding you on the journey the kids go through in learning all the things that produce it.
It also poses a bunch of other questions I can't really go into without spoilers. I'm about to post a video about it in !anime@hexbear.net but it's spoilerific and you should definitely blind watch this show.
What are you looking for? I think the Jackson movies have a phenomenal portrayal of the classic orc. If you want a typical modern subversion of orcs, those are the standard nowadays. Any fantasy book that's got orcs in the last ten years will have them as basically normal people who are very strong.
40k they are still bio-engineered fungus aliens who manifest reality through collective belief
I read an airport novel called "Orcs" a while ago that I liked in an edgy teenager kind of way. The first scene is the main cast attacking a group of humans with vivid descriptions of swords bisecting people, later scenes have the Orc queen doing dark magic, all together a fun romp even if it didn't stick with me very well (I could not tell you any of their names lmao).
CW for torture and SA during those dark magic scenes though, that's one thing I do remember.
Actually shocked no one mentioned this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
