According to LoTR and Tolkien Goblins and Orcs are the same

[1984]

Been reading the books and came upon the part where the company was chasing after the Sarumans orcs who stole the hobbits. The orcs were destroyed and burned by the men of Rohan and when Aragorn and Co. came upon the burial site, it says and I quote "Upon a stake in the middle was set a great goblin head; upon its shattered helm a white badge could still be seen"

He is referring to the mark of Saruman the Uruk Hai (High Orcs) wore as their insignia.

So Tolkien uses goblin as a way to describe orcs meaning ugly or as a synonym to the word orc.

I find this pretty cool because later on people started splitting up Orcs and Goblins into 2 different types of creatures. Goblins are usually small but Orcs are larger.

[AdahnGorion]

King Karp님이 먼저 게시:

Eh. Whatever. I prefer a different world that is now long dead and forgotten. The more time passes the more things get convoluted. Sad that these times the word "more" has become synonymous with "better". But I'll digress, I am clearly in the minority on the matter and this is a matter of personal taste and not really a subject worth arguing over.

It has nothing to do with more, but rather to do with quality tbh. If you want to use the word more, then DnD is "more" fleshed out as well. It is just a personal opinion ofc.

[Crazy Tiger]

People consider Tolkien to be overrated? I like the DnD interpretation of fantasy more as I find it to be more "rich", so to speak. That in itself doesn't say anything about Tolkien, though.

I'm not a fan of George RR Martin and I'm one of the (it seems) few people who think GoT is heavily overrated.

[HALO_run]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAp_luluo0
makes me think of this

[AdahnGorion]

King Karp님이 먼저 게시:

I also seem to have difficulty accepting how the world now belongs to a generation that considers a master of prose like Tolkien "overrated" and a mindnumbing bore like George RR Martin a "Giant". No wonder this species has been marked for deletion.

We don't. Comparing them would be like comparing banana and beer. So there is no reason to.
That does not change the fact that albeit very good written, Tolkiens lore still has alot of flaws

[AdahnGorion]

ZERO KAY PER CENT님이 먼저 게시:

King Karp님이 먼저 게시:

Eh. Whatever. I prefer a different world that is now long dead and forgotten. The more time passes the more things get convoluted. Sad that these times the word "more" has become synonymous with "better". But I'll digress, I am clearly in the minority on the matter and this is a matter of personal taste and not really a subject worth arguing over.

I like the fact that I discovered the Goblins and Orcs to be the same thing. I never read Tolkien before and I find this fresh.

King Karp님이 먼저 게시:

I also seem to have difficulty accepting how the world now belongs to a generation that considers a master of prose like Tolkien "overrated" and a mindnumbing bore like George RR Martin a "Giant". No wonder this species has been marked for deletion.

Why choose one when you can have both? I love both books. I love both writers. They are both quite good. (I have to say that Dance with Dragons) and later Martin books are not that good. But 1st 3 GoT books were amazing.

And there is another GREAT! In my OPINION LEGENDARY AUTHOR and STORIES his name is ROBERT E. HOWARD. Unfortunately, this poor guy killed himself at the age of 30 but boy is Conan a good series of short stories! And he wrote many more. I just love his writing. The way he presents Conan in the books, always so interesting.

The reason Martin is liked is because he tried to retrain some of the writing style of these legendary writers that are no longer here. Let's face it. Many new books are subpar in writing style. Too modern.

Darkie님이 먼저 게시:

If we compare the two, then Tolkien, albeit older is the McD. It is actually very lackluster and lacks alot of variety. But it is great for what it is and the time it was put in. 1 nerd does just not have a chance against 100 nerds.. obviously.

I mean Tolkien pretty much just copied Prose Edda, Norse mythology (various sources), a few Germanic books as well and made them abit more streamlined and easy to understand.

We can find many direct copies of not only characters from old sources, but also events in Tolkiens books, but one thing I do respect is that Tolkien does not hide this fact, he instead said open hearted that he did this.

Personally I also like the DnD universe alot better, their interpetertation of Ljósálfar and Dökkálfar is also much better tbh.



One thing is certain. Without Snorri Sturluson, none of the Tolkien books have existed, nor DnD as well know it.

That means that ENTIRE Fantasy: VIDEO gaming, TABLETOP gaming, Movies, TV series and books all based on Norse Lore. (excluding greek mythos and other mythos games, speaking of general fantasy).

So without the Vikings! The Norsemen. We would not have anything that we have right now. Pretty cool to dig so deep and know that all of this is based on a single culture. Like only the Nords can say that their entire Mythos made the Modern Fantasy

Not Vikings, Norsemen, Vikings are just what you called Norsemen what went out to raid, infact the vast majority of Norsemen were peaceful farmers and traders... But you know.. media makes people believe I guess.

But yes, Norsemen is responsible for many of the fantasy stuff you see. Then you have stuff like Mana (that can be traced back to several cultures, some often put it as a polynesian route, but that actually is also in Norse culture... Again.. Fantasy is loosly based on old cultures and their belieft, Tolkien took alot from Norse, but also plenty of others ofc.

Gandalf is pretty much also just Odin... Again this is not weird, we base characters of on other older characters all the time, just look at Jesus, he is almost a direct copy of Hercules. (I am not kidding) And the fun part is that Hercules ofc, is also based on, not one however, but several older characters (from Old Egyptian)


My point here is, that everything is based on or draws inspirations from older things, even stuff you find innovative and modern. In Scandinavian folklore you also have stufff like the Nøkken and Vættir.. or Huldra.. We could go on and on.. We could also talk about the kraken, but well.... lets not go there.

If we look at other cultures, they have similar "creatures" again, Norse culture is not the only one to have Wight´s ie... But Since we talked Tolkien primarity, he draws much of his sources from the Norse. But again ofc not exclusively.

[Masque]

^^

Dragons, as an aside, is an odd one, I think. Chinese and Western both have them, but they differ greatly from each other, even to the number of legs. Their existence in such a varied myth geography makes me wonder if they really did exist, and aren't just myth.

[AdahnGorion]

Boofalo Soja님이 먼저 게시:

^^

Dragons, as an aside, is an odd one, I think. Chinese and Western both have them, but they differ greatly from each other, even to the number of legs. Their existence in such a varied myth geography makes me wonder if they really did exist, and aren't just myth.

That and plenty of other cultures have them.

Níðhöggr and Jörmungandr could easily be depicted and classified as Dragons
I could list more "Dragons" from Norse culture, but well.

[Grendalcat]

Boofalo Soja님이 먼저 게시:

^^

Dragons, as an aside, is an odd one, I think. Chinese and Western both have them, but they differ greatly from each other, even to the number of legs. Their existence in such a varied myth geography makes me wonder if they really did exist, and aren't just myth.

I read somewhere that many of the ancient beasts of legend, such as dragons, came from people finding dinosaur bones and imagining the creatures these bones came from.

https://www.thoughtco.com/dinosaurs-and-dragons-the-real-story-1092002

This second article is the one I remembered:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/ancient-origins-legendary-griffin-001693