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Post #617648

Author
Akwat Kbrana
Parent topic
The OT.com J. R. R. Tolkien & Middle Earth Discussion Thread
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/617648/action/topic#617648
Date created
4-Jan-2013, 1:29 PM

Ah, I knew of the few different breeds of half-orcs, but I thought goblin-men was used to describe Uruk-Hai when told from the perspective of characters who didn't know what a Uruk-Hai was. I took it as more of a descriptive name for something that appears to be a cross between an orc/goblin and a human (which of course, was a Uruk).

I looked into this a little further. Evidently, the term "goblin-men" only occurs once in Tolkien's writings. It's mentioned by Gamling during the Battle of the Hornburg:

But these creatures of Isengard, these half-orcs and goblin-men that the foul craft of Saruman has bred, they will not quail at the sun...

So, since the reference is pretty ambiguous, there's room for interpretation. On the one hand, would Gamling really have extensive knowledge of orc breeds? On the other hand, he seems to regard at least two different "types" in Saruman's army, which he would've been looking directly at. So perhaps there were two or more visually distinct breeds of half-orc in the attacking army...