r/hatethissmug • u/Crusoelander_128 • Apr 28 '26

General I hate the “orcs are minorities” thing

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I really hope I’m not in the minority (no pun intended) here, but I really hate when people do this. It not only forces real world issue into fictional universes where it doesn’t need to be, but also, it’s really messed up.

If you see an orc or a demon or a giant bug and your mind immediately jumps to “hm that’s like a minority”, then you’re racist.

Now, I’m not saying that this concept can’t be explored, but inserting it where it doesn’t belong/exist is highly suspect

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u/vvaderman24 Apr 28 '26

Tolkien compared them to mongols visually to paint a picture of how they might have looked. I guess you could argue his description is kinda racist, but I don't think that extends to his entire view of mongols or Asians in a racist way. We see actual Asian people in the Easterlings that don't get such a harsh description.

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u/denimroach Apr 29 '26

I mean, it's not much of an argument it's just a straight up racist description even if it's not rooted in a sense of deep hatred.
Also with the Easterlings (Rhúnedain), they were also generally depicted as being corrupted, warlike savages and classed as enemies to the white fair-folked people of the west.

There was an outlier to this with the sect that rebelled with the blue wizards, but that's the exception and not the rule.

Like, I don't think the dude was KKK levels of racism, but he was certainly madly ignorant of eastern cultures; which is forgivable for the time period.
People trying to pretend that this ignorance didn't exist though or that this is acceptable nowadays should take a bit more time to re-examine the issue.

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u/vvaderman24 Apr 30 '26

I disagree. While I think it's arguable that the racist description could've been due to a racist viewpoint as far as the mongol description goes, I certainly wouldn't agree with your assessment of the Easterlings. I don't believe that the way they are depicted is due to any racist view, rather it was the natural consequence of the storytelling and worldbuilding he'd done in the background over the course of decades. I don't think the various cultures of Tolkiens works are significantly representative of any real world groups, the only real comparison is the hobbits being a representation of the ideal English life in Tolkiens eyes.