In fantasy stories, how do the Big Bad Guys always get the massive armies of loyal followers fighting for them?

I asked this on the LOTR thread and got no serious answers but... do Orcs have genitals?

so, okay, Sauron (or Saruman, whatever) creates them through some combination of magic and science (orcs were originally elves, right?) and makes a whole bunch of them. afaik there's no orc women. so do orcs have genitals? It seems like it would make sense that they could do a little raping along with their pillaging and murdering or do some homo-bonding a la Roman centurions. On the other hand, having genitals and not reproducing is nonsensical.

Raping would have detracted from the pillaging and murdering, so Sauron had the foresight to create them genital free.

I asked this on the LOTR thread and got no serious answers but... do Orcs have genitals?

can't believe no one took this question seriously

I know!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Myy&q=lotr+do+Orcs+have+genitals%3F&btnG=Search

google is not helping, either

Orcs have no genitals. One could consider their oft-mentioned acts of cannibalism a primordial attempt at satiating their psychosexual desires.

the real question is whether orcs have belly buttons

(obv no)

Dan how do you do this? I'm seriously embarrassed posting on threads with this screenname.

I feel like such a puritan now.

Dan/Alex slash orc dork porn.

really you should be more embarrassed at revealing your gender prejudices by assuming that orcs would have dicks instead of some other form of genital ;)

hahahaha quite honestly I stop paying attention to my screenname approximately 7 nanoseconds after changing it

Results 1 - 10 of about 187,000 for orc porn

i thought they just budded like amoeba

(also vadges are much less embarrassing than orc dicks)

Ladies and gentlemen, A Band of Orcs.

Greetings Humans, Allow me to introduce myself.

They call me Gruesom Grimp. I am the Chaos Pundit and Manager for A Band of Orcs. If you have not yet heard of A Band of Orcs, methinks that is due to the fact that their meteoric rise has not quite yet exploded into your consciousness. Allow me to remedy this...

Gogog Bloodthroat--Vocals and Power Presence
Cretos Filthgrinder--Filthy Leads and Crushin' Guitars
Hulg ElfR.I.P.per--Undead Guitars
Gronk!--Bass guitar & Shamanism
Oog Skullbasher--drums & other bangings
Lukacs--Agent of Chaos, Chronicler & Illustrator
You--the fans proselytising the wicked, carrying the war-banner into battle, and crushin' lame music everywhere

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/63/l_3d0e4a3e887e43a9af088dd30a0d3282.jpg

You'd think it takes the orcs who weren't there at big battle days or weeks to find out Sauron has died?
the appendices to 'the lord of the rings' chronicle how kings aragorn and eomer get together periodically to go smoke out remaining bad guy strongholds. no naked orc pix though unfortunately

so, orcs can be dicks, but we still don't know if they have dicks

we need the lyrics to "Procreation (Of the Wicked)" -- that should answer all these questions.

"(also vadges are much less embarrassing than orc dicks)"

Esp. when they are worked up.

yes, I believe quite a few of them were originally named Richard xxp

Lukacs?

see, it's SCAKUL backwards...

we need the lyrics to "Procreation (Of the Wicked)"

Well here's them performing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly-3XUahobY

Oh goodie, individual band member bios:

http://abandoforcs.com/Fear_the_Orcs____.php

Gogog hails from the Gore-Stained Axe Tribe of orcs. He has killed over 300 worthy and unworthy opponents, including 50 elves. His pastimes include breaking bones, pillaging villages, watching things burn, slapping around the slaves and watching monster trucks crush smaller cars. He prefers fist-fighting to weapons, but uses a two-handed axe in war, when necessary. His moniker comes from the fact that he once took an elf's arrow to the throat. He got better and now screams his way to superior Rock God Status.

orcs: british soccer hooligans
uruk-hai: cockney factory workers
hobbits: irish belle and sebastian fans
elves: swedish royalty
dwarves: vikings
"men": british middle class
wild men: canadians?

wild men: canadians?

real answer is a bit more racisty methinks

He never did like the Scots.

Wizards: dudes with degrees in ancient literature

"Like in Lord of the Rings, it seems all hostilities stop after Sauron dies, because apparently all the orcs and evil men and other followers of Sauron are mere puppets who cannot function at all once their master is gone. You'd think it takes the orcs who weren't there at big battle days or weeks to find out Sauron has died?"

Wasn't there a whole part of ROTK (the book) where the Hobbits come home and have to mop up a bunch of orcs who hadn't gotten the memo yet?

Sorta but they were Saruman's henchmen.

and but so anyway

http://marvel.com/universe3zx/images/3/31/Taskmaster_Head.jpg

'taskmaster_head.jpg'?

"If we were orcs, wouldn’t we, at a racial level, imagine ourselves to look like elves?”

Actually not seeing any real-world shortage of Big Bad Guys with armies of loyal followers, y'know?

but it's the FEW, the proud...

http://www2.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/2tGxgrg9q1Hc.jpg

Wait, if orcs don't have genitals, how does Sauron come up with new orcs to replace the dead ones?

don't they just grow out of the ground or something? They did in the film.

that said, I think the Orcs do have genitals, but not for procreation.

THIS is Frankfort on the Main, November 1960. I am taking a look at the 9 p.m. performance in a little suburban cinema. The seats are hard and uncomfortable. My knees are crammed painfully against the wall of what the woman in the ticket office calls 'the V.I.P. Box'. From under the door cold gusts of mist blow into the hall. UGH! Those two lovers clamped together in the corner of my "box". They are devouring each other with the cannibalistic Salivation of mating frogs. And their moans! Ugh and Ugh again.

But I stay on.

On the screen is a thriller drama about the last war. It is all booming guns, marching steel helmets, Secret Service, and bombs. Yes, this is Frankfort, November 1960. And this, presumably, is what the German public wants. Or what the film producers think it wants.

The German Wehrmacht, it seems, was fighting two enemies during the last war, the allies and the Nazi Party. Brave young heroes from the Army, the Kriegsmarine, and the Luftwaffe, are constantly shooting it out with the Gestapo and the SS. It is just like listening to one of those speeches of old man Adenauer, when he is talking about the Eichmann affair. The Germans were all against Hitler-all except a small Nazi minority. The rest were victims of Hitler and Himmler, just like the Jews and the Poles.

http://www.seftondelmer.co.uk/1.htm

I am ashamed, but I actually checked wikipedia and apparently orcs do reproduce, there are probably female orcs off-screen, and there's some stuff about orc/human crossbreeding, but Tolkien thankfully didn't confirm how that works.

Didn't Sauron have some level of mind control or even direct control of those in his service? I seem to remember all of the orcs under his control kind of scattering and being generally useless after his destruction. So, mind control is a big one for the thread question, along with promises of money, power, etc.

I'm pretty sure the people screaming about "death panels" in the US right now are working for some sort of force for ungood or at least chaos, so it just goes to show that misinformation and passion about "alternative viewpoints" are a good rallying cause, too.

Wait, if orcs don't have genitals, how does Sauron come up with new orcs to replace the dead ones?

After having finished playing The Shadow of War, this question still bugs me, because all the orcs in Mordor you see in the game are without exception male, or at least male-presenting. Where do new orcs come from, canonically?

Dropped off by the storc, presumably.

Suspend disbelief, embrace sorcery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVgVB3qsySQ

I’ve never read it but I bet The Last Ringbearer has a take on this.

that sounds kinda great tbh

It’s free to read online in English if you google!

Grudging respect for the language and anti-capitalism/industrialism, but Tolkien is such a racist colonialist anti-miscegenation mess.

royalist and sexist should probably be in there too.

idk, I think Eowyn killing the witch-king makes up for a lot on the gender front imo.

it's definitely the most "fuck YEAH" moment in the film adaptation (with extra castration imagery)

but there's no arguing about all the "swarthy" = evil language and the royal bloodline crap

Most Brit fantasy seems to do the true blood trope - see CS Lewis, JK Rowling and even Philip Pullman.

Moorcock otoh