You misread my first post and seem to think I said "halfling" was created or used by Tolkien by Tolkien, I did not, I said it was likely created (in relation to being a fantasy race) due to how closely affiliated with Tolkien the word hobbit is. I know he created them, but just because someone created something does not mean with the public and cultural consciousness that they are associated with, nor the sole property of the said author that only they can use, this the concept that you and I differ on, and is resulting in most our issues, and you seem to have "orc" as a fixed, immutable conceptt. I don't know how many pieces of media within the fantasy genre you've interacted with, as you literally quoted Wikipedia instead of telling me what it meant to you, not what Wikipedia gave. I already know pretty much everything about Tolkien's orcs, and was trying to gather information on what people though, not a website definition.
Well, it's hard to get more closely related than if he actually created the word. But Tolkien used a lot of folk tales and research to create his creatures - For example, "Orc" - he reinvigorated an old world. And some of the modern "orc" depictions are more or less Tolkienesque than others. I think it's a bit of a jump to say we're "creating a race of copycat authors". Authors have always borrowed from each other and from mass culture, and there have always been certain books that have been hugely influential and really affected the cultural landscape, at least in limited areas. I don't personally read much high fantasy, but that doesn't mean the people who write it are copycats any more than the people who write scifi are copycats for following the conventions of their genre, or the people who write murder mysteries are copycats for following their conventions ("ugh, another murder? why must there always be a murder?"). It's interesting when people switch things up a bit (The last "western" I read was set in Oregon rather than the plains, and that was nice, but there were lots of other clues that made it clear I was reading a western, albeit a modernized one), but I don't think it's intellectual theft if they don't. If the main characters are boring and derivative, I have a problem. But if the secondary characters and the the setting are familiar? That's genre.
Well, I am sorry if I insulted anybody with the word 'copycat.' However, there is a difference (to me, anyway) between somebody reinvigorating an archaeic term or myth, and somebody snaffling a term AND its usage that has been coined by a living or recently dead author. EVERY single bit of investigation I've done attributes the modern monster that is now called 'orc' by nearly everybody to Tolkien's appropriating part of the latin-root name for sea monster. He is the one who gave 'orcs' the characteristics that most fantasy people now picture them to have. I don't recall any of Tolkien's orcs being sea creatures, though. Again, I'm not going to turn blue over this issue, but I do find it a bit shocking that folks seem to think it's okay—because it's fantasy—to grab something Tolkien created and decide to use it in their own fantasy adventures. Orcs, as Tolkien created them, are not legendary creatures, the way elves, dwarves and dragons are. He didn't totally invent the name, but he did invent their characteristics. And I'm afraid that's what people are starting to copy. Not the name. The characteristics. And these are Tolkien creations. Of course he's dead, so he's not going to object, is he? He might even be flattered. Who knows? He only died in 1973. But maybe that's long enough for his works to become 'legend.' It's not quite long enough for them to have entered the legal public domain, but hey. I'm not saying it's wrong, or that it shouldn't be done. It's just that, to me, it feels like a rip-off.
Jannert, the meaning of words change over time, genres grow and develop. Tolkein birthed the fantasy genre so his work became the archetype and, not only are the varieties of orc distinct now, there's so many of them that there's no one figure to rip them off of. Not to mention that, if you apply that logic to other genres and conventions, then everything is a rip off. Any Rom Com where the character have a misunderstanding and break up at the end of the second act? Rip Off. Sci Fi where there's a group of different species working together? Rip Off.
It's not a black-and-white issue—but as I asked earlier, where would YOU draw the line? Sorting Hats? Ewoks? I do think people could be a bit more original—like Tolkien was—and not copy an idea that came straight from another author's work. But as usual, I'm not winning this kind of argument, am I. Ach well. Before Tolkien, even Elves were different. Most people thought they were little fey people ...thinner and less substantial than dwarves. In fact, the word 'elfin' as in 'elfin' face, wouldn't conjure up Elrond or Galadriel, would it? It would be a wee creature, kind of like a pixie or leprechaun, the kind that fill Santa's workshop and you find depicted on Christmas cards. Tolkien's the one who made them tall, strong, immortal, etc. Again, his creation. And now his vision of Elves is considered the standard for fantasy. I don't know. It just bothers me. A romantic comedy is just a plot type. Like a tragedy, or a mystery, or a thriller. Those are standard plot devices, and haven't been recently created from scratch by known authors. Who wrote the first Rom Com plot? Who knows. And that's my point. We DO know Tolkien. And JK Rowling. And George Lucas. At what point will it be okay to take their ideas and specific names and characteristics for things they created, and assume they are now part of the fantasy genre? You tell me?
This. So many kinds of this. No one needs to lecture me as to where Tolkien sourced his Orcs. No one needs to get harrumphy with me that the idea existed prior to Tolkien so it's fair game for anyone to use (cross arms in front of chest and raise chin in a "So there!" look of smug triumph). For DECADES after originally reading his books and seeing the original animated movies, Orcs lived only in Middle Earth. There's really no way for me to personally engage something called "Orc" and not feel like Tolkien's creation has been infringed upon. And yes, I feel the same about Hobbits, Ents, Wargs, etc. They belong to Tolkien. Of course other writers are going to create similar beings. So easy to just name them something else.
I researched elves a long time ago and discovered that they weren't always thought of as small. Some traditions said they were taller than humans, some smaller, and some were indistinct from fairies. Tolkien might have invented a lot of the modern thought process about elves, but he didn't invent them being tall, magical, or beautiful.
Being the multi-nerd that I am, "orc" doesn't have one single meaning for me. It can be the cruel, twisted creatures serving a dark master from Tolkiens work, it can be the old, proud, tribalist warrior culture of Warcraft or it can be the genetically modified, algae/mushroon-spliced, latent psychic, genderless "Orks" of Warhammer 40k. There are just so many different takes on the idea of "orcs" by now that it's hard for me to just give on description of them...and I enjoy all of them in their own way. And no, they do not belong to Tolkien, no matter how much you cross your arms and insist they do...he made one version of them that's his...it's one of many and it's not "the real one" or "the right one".
Actually, I was attributing the crossed arms and smug look to people who feel that Orcs are fair game for anyone to use, not to my take that they belong to Tolkien's world. It's very probably just a generational thing. Again, for longer than I can remember Orcs only existed in Middle Earth, and then one day I started seeing them on other venues and franchises. And clearly I'm not alone in this. When you associate a thing with a particular author for the better part of your life and then suddenly others are using it, the use feels like infringement.
Yes, Tolkien used to feature them more heavily...but that doesn't mean he has the "true" orcs. Tolkiens also have trolls in his story, does that mean he's ripping off Scandinavian folklore?...I mean, the entirety of Middle Earth is inspired by and in some cases based on folklore and ancient civilisations. I don't really see the difference between him using folklore etc as an inspiration and others using Orcs as an inspiration.
The difference is that well before and well after Tolkien, trolls and elves existed outside of his works in abundance. Those words and the things they define were/are clearly common nouns. The word Orc is not a word I ever encountered outside of Tolkien's work until more recent times. To me it feels like a unique coinage of his. I know where he sourced them from, I do, I don't need it explained to me, but it doesn't change the way I feel about that word, Orc. For me it falls into the same category as Hobbit. Clearly, obviously, plainly, other writers before and after Tolkien have created halflings similar to Hobbits, but no one to my knowledge has dared to actually call their creation a Hobbit because that word belongs to Tolkien. I feel the same about the word Orc as I do about the word Hobbit. Therein lies the difference.
@Wreybies Fair enough, but couldn't you say the same about John Polidori being the "owner" of the modern vampire, and about Carmilla and Dracula being infringement?
Nope. Because I'm not talking about the concept, but the word. I know that's splitting hairs, but it's a split hair that I cannot fail to notice. Had I ever come across the word Orc in some other story, in some other context not having to do with Middle Earth, at some point closer than the last 10 years, I would feel differently. In Lord Foul's Bane there are creatures somewhat similar to Orcs that are described, and also in Kirith Kirin, but they are given unique names for their respective stories. Fantasy as a genre is clearly bound to reinvent beings similar to Orcs over and over again, but actually calling them Orcs is where I feel a line has been crossed.
In similar fashion, the other day I was watching the latest episode of The Magicians on SyFy. It's not a show I regularly watch. Really I was just waiting for The Expanse to start because I'm addicted to that show. Anywho.... in the episode one of the magicians refers to non-magical people as muggles. I have no idea how often they use this word in this show because, again, it's not a show I watch, but hearing that word stuck out to me like a real line-crosser. Maybe once as a cute little hat-tip to Rowling is cool, but if they constantly refer to non-magicals as muggles, that's the kind of thing that would make me not like this show out of ethical reasons. That word belongs to Rowling and to the world she created. Obviously, in any story where only some people have magical gifts, everyone else doesn't, so people without magical gifts are everywhere, but that word, muggles, is a very unique coinage.
But this is how words come about...sort of like how Richard Dawkins first used the word "meme". Maybe "muggle" will just be a common used word for non-magical people...if I had come up with a word like that and it spread in such a way, I would feel extremely proud. If anything, it's high praise that someone goes "wow, that's a great word, I'm gonna use that too".
I'm sorry, but this is a false parallel. Dawkins coined a word to describe something in the real world with every hope that his coinage would catch on to describe the concept. The creation of words to describe elements of a fictional world that one spends time and takes pains to make unique is not the same thing at all. Not in the least. And if they do make use of this word on a regular basis in this show, then clearly Rowling has signed off on it. This doesn't change the fact the word is her unique coinage over which she has rights as regards its usage. Not every author feels this way about their work. Storm Constantine created an entire publication house just for people who write fan fiction in her Wraeththu world because she looooves fan-fic. R.R. Martin has a very different take on fan-fic written in his world and I don't see anyone getting away with using his unique coinages without some litigation.
I'm thinking about using the word "muggle" too... as an explicit – not implied, stated outright – reference to the fact that Rowling's work is so ubiquitous that she's dominated the supernatural world's pop culture as completely as she's dominated that of the mortal world. I'm not going to start with the word itself, I'm going to start with a guy new to magic asking if the supernatural world have their own words for non-magic people, and somebody from the supernatural world talks about how "mortal" used to be the most popular – despite not technically being accurate because most people in the supernatural world can be killed to – but how "Next thing you know, JK Rowling's such a household name that everybody's using her word instead." Like when Nick Fury said that Loki's staff turned a bunch of Fury's men into Loki's personal flying monkeys. Steve Rogers who has been frozen in an ice cube for 70 years shoots his hand up with a grin on his face "Oh, I get it!" because that's the first pop-culture reference he's understood since waking up.
What you describe and the reference to Steve knowing about flying monkeys are both kinda' meta-references. They acknowledge their source. If you're clever and witty enough to make it happen without it feeling like a patch to cover up what could be perceived as a failure to come up with your own words, I would buy that. Also - and just to readdress my original comment - there's no way for me ever, in this lifetime, to not think of the word muggle as belonging to Rowling. All I'm talking about in this thread is the way I would (and do, in the case of Orc) engage these words when I come across them. In 200 years' time, muggle may well be so divorced from its origin that no one would think twice about using it in a common way, like flying monkeys. But I don't live 200 years from now. I live now, and I'm old enough that the films that introduced me to that word still feel like recent films that have barely had time to cool. For someone much younger than me who may have seen these films as the target audience, very young, they may feel differently. I can only address my own engagement.
I wonder from what has been posted on this thread, if some younger folks know that the word 'orc' (to mean the kind of creature Tolkien meant) was actually COINED by him? The fact that so many are saying ..but there are elves and trolls... Perhaps they don't (or didn't) realise that Tolkien is the first person to use that word to mean the kind of creature he assigned it to. So in other words, folks think it's an old mythological word that's okay to appropriate? I don't know. Where does the line get drawn? When the author is dead and can't sue, or doesn't care, or thinks getting ripped off is the sincerest form of flattery? I know when I see fantasy with 'orcs' in it, I immediately have a negative reaction. If that's been snaffled from somebody else's work, then what ELSE is also 'borrowed?' I've said it elsewhere, and I'll say it again. Fantasy is a genre where the writer can invent anything they want. Anything. So why copy somebody else? However, if they didn't know any better, fair enough. I do know, though, if I'd written a book with 'orcs' in it, not knowing this term came directly from Tolkien, and somebody pointed this out to me—I'd quickly invent another name to use in my story.
Couldn't agree more. Maybe it's just my own taste, but I enjoy fantasy that isn't afraid to be extremely unique. I think that's why my taste mix well with sci-fi too. It just seems like a great genre to explore and tinker with the vast complexity of human experience.
My first orcs were Tolkien's, so I tend to compare all other orcs to them. I mean, unless you count dark elves or goblins, Tolkien essentially invented the orc. When comparing orcs to men or elves, say (in generic fantasy), I see them as being more brutish, more warlike, less intelligent perhaps, but by no means less artistic or without culture. I tend also to see them as being less graceful than elves but more durable than men. Some are also more cowardly or selfish.
Only in the anglosaxon world. Icelandic elves (alf) have always been at least as tall and strong as humans. At least the light elves. Snorri describes the dark elves as something similar to large and strong dwarves living under ground. As to Warg, that is simply an old germanic word for wolf. In Norway we use it mostly in songs and fairy tales, while the Swedes use varg as their main word for wolf. Stories of strong and evil talking wolves are as old as mankind, e.g. Fenris.
Not one of ours as far as I know, but Wikipedia says there are som Scottish roots for words describing teenagers. Tolkien was a good scholar, who could read the old stories from most of the west European countries in their original form, so he drew from the Edda, Beowulf, and the old fairy tales. Apparently he got critizised because he used too much of the old stories. Sounds familiar?
