Orcs are trending for very weird reasons and for once, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on why it’s happening and clear up some misunderstandings.

If you haven’t been exposed to this weird discourse, feel free to spend the moment just posting about your favorite orcs.

So, there seem to be a few angles floating around. One is “depictions of orcs have a racist history and that means orcs are bad, we should fix this somehow” which is uhhh kind of right but also have you not been paying attention the last five or six years? We’re already on it.

Orcs started out as Always 100% Evil, Made From Corrupted Materials, Irredeemable Monsters. The two biggest (but not first!) early contenders were Tolkien and D&D orcs.

Tolkien orcs have their defenders but it’s generally agreed there is some re-interpretation going on there.

The source of today’s spice lies mostly with D&D orcs. About new fans who are discovering (and being upset by) the canon there. Old fans who think nothing is wrong and you have to have Irredeemable Monsters. And people in the middle saying “it’s only racist if you bring it up”

Firstly: D&D orc lore kinda sucks! Sorry, but it does!

If you read Volo’s Guide to Monsters you can get the feeling the writers are trying to make the best of a bad situation after being chained to existing canon.

Wizards of the Coast COULD rewrite orc canon with a new edition but 5e is so successful at this point that it’s hard to take such a risk for a huge corporation. Why turn away longtime fans who like that lore for whatever reason? So, players have to work with what we have for now

And in the years since orcs first appeared in D&D and LOTR, fans have popped up and offered new interpretations on orcs and how they could be their own society and have their own culture. There’s a variety here, with contradictions, but most are an honest shot at complexity.

So, to draw a line from D&D orcs to [insert existing marginalized community here] is not only unnecessary, but downright incorrect.

Lindsay Ellis has a fascinating video essay on how Bright does this and why that’s one of the many reasons it SUCKS

Second, inventing a whole new species for the sake of abstraction into gameplay is already an exercise in futility, especially if you tie statistics to that species or race

(Truth be told I hate the term “race” in fantasy contexts and prefer ancestry but that’s for another time)

By quantifying race, especially in a space where people want to optimize their own characters or statistics, you invite comparisons between races and (probably unintentionally) make statements on the ceiling any given orc, elf, or halfling can achieve in intelligence or strength