(Reposted from Tumblr posts)
The discourse around Orcs and evil races in fantasy can be goofy at times.
One reason being because of the “wait, WHO is comparing fantasy monsters to black people again?” part but also because evil monsters can either mean something else (Diseases, natural disasters, etc) or nothing and be equivalent to cannon fodder or Goombas in Mario.
I was thinking of a hypothetical example where someone’s first exposure to vampires would be Twilight and then get mad at other stories portraying them as evil monsters.
(And maybe whether or not typical YA audiences ditched Twilight and went towards fantasy stuff).
Like a theory where some people’s first exposure to Orcs as not-evil creatures was “someone’s OC of a female orc amazon muscle girl”.
Maybe one could look into how Orcs came to be: Like Tolkien’s war experiences and taking the name “Orc” from a book called “Princess and the Goblin” or something, but also how he bounced around ideas of how Orcs came to be or whether or not he did rethink them as a whole.
Because then stuff like DnD, Warcraft etc probably affected how they came to be portrayed in other stuff.
Some works could “humanize” them in interesting ways, others make fantasy races allegories to real life races and one or the other planted the seeds for the “discourse” (Maybe that otherwise forgotten movie with Will Smith).
I also am not sure if I have a horse in this race because of my characters, so I could elaborate on the Herrko stuff in Nortubel:
I call them “Horgs” (And others Ghalbeen and Yevlen) for a lot of reasons.
- Being a bit too overconscious over how Orcs and others are used in fantasy a lot of times.
- And even how they’re portrayed.
- Maybe whether or not the Tolkien state or whatever they’re called would trademark “Orc” and go after anyone using them.
- Maybe how Tolkien refers to his Dwarves’ plural as Dwarves to seperate them from Disney’s Dwarfs.
Because there’s some truth that some of my characters are inspired by other people’s on the internet, so they’re essentially “OC” to some degree.
(And also because I like having attractive, pretty characters even if Nortubel’s actual art is not so much that).
Obviously, there’s the tall muscular female “Horg” and the shortstack cute “Ghalbeen” girl.
But besides taking stuff from games/shows/manga/comics, I do try to take stuff from real life/history/etc.
Besides the names, another specific thing I wanted to settle on is presenting Horgs/Ghalbeens/Yevlens as “subspecies”, not “races”.
Because to me, their differences is like how we humans are the Homo Sapiens and then you have these other human “species” that are extinct: If Neanderthals for example were still alive, they would be the Orcs to our Elves (Or Horgs and Yelven but you get that).
With “race”, you have how Pebble looks different from the NPC Pinto or how Euloria looks different from Dirlindu.
Other than that, these characters coexist like different civilizations and all.
I also thought of animal elements: Horgs have the “walrus tribe”, they swim a lot and eat a lot of fish while Ghalbeens have long arms so they swing around in trees and vines and eat bananas.
Another element to make them unique is their backstory: It came from an idea of “what if the reason why Elves have long ears is because they come from a species with weird anatomy, where the ears were supposed to be something else?”.
This explains the fingers on Dirlindu’s ears (Since he is older than other characters, he’s aware of Herrko’s people and their origins) and the statues in HerrkoLevel4.
Like if we humans found out we came from weird aliens that barely looked human (And this in the same level where I tried copying Druillet and Moebius).
So basically, even though I added Orcs/Goblins/Elves in my game, it’s also like I technically didn’t: They’re called something else, have a different backstory and they’re even refered as “subspecies” not “races” like how most people do.
You can even consider specific traces like the Ghalbeens’ arms.
It’s like the Schrodinger’s Orc: If someone makes a list about female Orcs in games, maybe Uulga deserves a shout out (If I give her a Herrko based game) but if someone complains about how Orcs are recently portrayed, I go “Technically Horgs are a different species from Orcs).
And you do have the actual evil red versions of them as enemies, which are ugly and you can kill as they’re products of actual evil forces.
In a way, the "real Orcs/Goblins”.
Honestly, I might as well make it so they barely think of their differences in races/species, mainly because everyone in Herrko is busy with stuff (The exception being Prescillia having a crush on Uulga or something lol).
But speaking of vampires, I do have Kalub and Aliss and I didn’t make up a word for them… not like it matters anyway.
Either way, I think with fantasy as a genre and the meaning of that word: You should be allowed to have cartoony evil creatures that happen to look a bit humanoid and likewise, some idealized characters, hence the manly barbarians and nice looking amazon ladies.
If you don’t make Orcs or Goblins the bad guys, at the very least, make them cool or interesting in other ways.
That’s my TED talk, I guess.
Also, I recall Miyazaki hating Orcs (And apparently being a bit ignorant over LOTR) but at least it came from a place of simply hating inherently evil groups in stories, which leads to also having a certain opinion about a certain real group (And believe it or not, it still makes him more consistent than Extra Credits lol).
(And speaking of said real group: Of course Nortubel has an evil faction based on them in chapter 6).
(Second post)
Going back to that post I wrote about non-evil Orcs.
I do think some fantasy races are more fitting for certain classes or jobs, so I think some “typecasting” makes more sense.
What I mean is that “orc mages” is a weird concept because Orcs seem more suited as barbarians or fighters or whatever.
Like those with heavy armor carrying a giant hammer or others with a caveman aesthetic.
And of course, female amazon Orcs.
Life, an Elf obviously works as a knight or mage because they’re the most basic race in most portrayals.
Maybe it’s because we expect fantasy races to have more specific differences and Orcs are portrayed as being bigger and stronger physically.
Some people already complain when non-evil Orcs are “just green Elfs with tusks” so when you make like a pyromancer mage that happens to be an Orc, that probably affects their “Orc status” as opposed to making one dressed like a half-naked viking wearing a necklace with bones and carrying a giant mace.
But that’s probably just me.
