The archetypical ‘pure evil’ race (no, not that kind of race) in fantasy is the orc, as inspired by (ripped off from) Tolkien, often by way of D&D. If you’re interested in writing fantasy, you almost certainly have some thoughts about the orc. Maybe you like their potential; maybe you don’t; maybe you think they’re useful, but not to your current endeavors. Regardless, the orc and its ilk brings up some interesting questions. What is the moral-theological rectitude of using pure-evil races? What about the artistic concerns? Isn’t moral complexity better writing?

Nope, Not (Necessarily) Racism

Let’s get this bit out of the way: orcs are not innately an allegory for black people or Arabs or non-whites or Germans. That is not to say that they cannot be used so. Certainly many progressive writers think of them as such; if those progressive writers were to write a story with orcs in it, said orcs would most likely be allegories or stand-ins for Generic Racial Minority, complete with systemic oppression and revolutionary race-consciousness. On the other hand, a racist in the other direction, against black people instead of whites, could absolutely use orcs are a way of communicating his racism (as stand-ins for black people). Most likely it’s been done. But as a matter of fact, the orc is not necessarily a stand-in for a ‘racial minority,’ particularly with how variable orcs and orc-equivalents can be across fiction.

That Variety

Before we dive in farther, we need to acknowledge how many sorts of orcs and orc-equivalents there are. We have Tolkien’s originals, with their own variants that have differing physiology but not differing moral status (a moral status they share, it seems, with Tolkien’s trolls). We have D&D orcs, pastiches of Tolkien that everybody else has borrowed. We have Warcraft orcs which (I don’t play the game, so I’d going off vague impressions) seem to have more moral variability, if a general darker tendency. We have Warhammer orks, creatures innately combat-obsessed and evil as a result of that, rather than their combativeness being an aspect of their evil.

Then we can branch out to ‘orc-equivalents,’ species or races that fill a similar moral and dramatic niche. Fangs of Dang, from Peterson’s Wingfeather Chronicle,¹ are an instance of this. I hear Eragon (I’ve not read it) has its own inhuman orc-like being, albeit not truly pure evil. Arguably the Battle Droids from Star Wars also count into this category, although only on the fringe given their relative lack of moral status and mechanical nature.

Regardless, the question remains: can we justify a ‘pure evil’ set of sentients in our fantasy worlds?

The Moral Nature of Orcs

To answer the question, we need to make sure we understand the subject. Specifically, we should set out some basic categories of orkish morality, how they relate to the reader therein and how to the world they are a part of.

First, we need to delineate between the unrepentant orc and the orc incapable of repentance. In the first case, the orc may be capable of repentance and thus of redemption; it simply does not do so. This may be on an individual level, though if it’s only at an individual level, it’s operating on the same moral status as a person, if possibly with a greater inclination towards evil (or rather a lesser measure of common grace²). If all the orcs are this way, you’re a lot closer to the other side of the scale- but the uncertainty of whether they could repent may still be there. This second part is where Tolkien’s orcs (and technically mine) fall, assuming I’ve read the man right; Tolkien noted, I don’t remember where, that the elves had never received a request for quarter from the orcs. On the other hand, you can choose to make your orcs explicitly incapable of repentance, fully in the ‘pure evil’ category.

Second, we need to consider what the people in the world know. The difference between orcs who’ve never repented across ten millennium and orcs who can’t repent is pretty much nonexistent from the perspective of the people dealing with them. Perhaps some may hold out hope or make a moral point of believing the orcs capable of repentance, but the entire sane population will consider orcs incapable for all intents and purposes, and that with justice.

Third, we have the most obvious (and most complex) dimension: how evil are they? Do they have virtues? Tolkien orcs and therefore the archetype are thoroughly evil, interested in pillage and murder and ugliness and self-advancement above all else. Another variety of orcs, however, may be evil only by culture or habit; they may have a hereditary predisposition towards evil which is greater than the human edition thereof; they may be quite civilized externally but consider all non-orcs somewhere between ‘worthless’ and ‘potential prey’.

However, for the orcs to be effective antagonists, they need to have some alloy to their evil, in a way. See, even the most evil man, if he wants to do anything, must ape some elements of virtue. Marat and Robespierre were hard workers; Delilah had intellect and persistence; Satan was affable and intelligent in the Garden of Eden. The orc, to be a threat and not merely suicidal, must have some sort of diligence, courage, and enterprise; the use of his rationality is also helpful.

We can divide potential virtue into two types, here. First we have the virtue of the pagan man: false, a remnant of the image of God, and futile to salvation, but actually a part of the pagan during his time on this earth. This virtue cannot do good, but it can do less-bad. Second we have the virtue of the demon. C.S. Lewis described this genre quite well in Perelandra: “Ransom soon perceived that it regarded intelligence simply and solely as a weapon, which it had no more wish to employ in its off-duty hours than a soldier has to do bayonet practice when he is on leave. Thought was for it a device necessary to certain ends, but thought in itself did not interest it. It assumed reason as externally and inorganically as it had assumed Weston’s body” (Ch. 10). This sort of virtue is entirely instrumental and false, a tool assumed and hated.

The Morality of Writing Orcs

With all that said, is it allowable for the Christian to write a race of pure evil sentients? Yes. There is evil in this world, and some of it- the sinner after full judgement, the demon- are pure evils, complete contradictions of the good which is the nature of their kind (man and angel, respectively). On this basis alone, we can tell the truth about God and His creation with orcs and their ilk. The question to attend to is what the particular use of orcs communicates to the reader about God’s nature and about man’s- the theology (particularly theology proper, anthropology, and soteriology) of the work. We’ll set aside ‘morally complex’ orcs for now. Orcs that can repent (both practically (meaning they have a track record, not just a capacity, of repentance) and metaphysically) are just people.

Pure evil orcs can correspond to two theological categories in reality. First (and frankly less commonly), they can correspond to those sentients in reality which are actually pure evil, demons and the souls of the damned after death (from whom common grace has been fully withdrawn). This is relatively uncomplicated, given the near one-to-one capacity, and at most I would recommend being conscious about the instrumentality of ‘virtue’ in those categories. The pitfalls, frankly, are difficult to predict outside of a specific circumstance; simply be aware of the underlying theology, to speak truly of it.

Second, they can act as the evil of mankind more generally, as incarnate agents made purely of that evil which all men on this earth have, which the pagan is mired deep within. They can act out man’s dark desires with only the restraint of physical ability and coercion from the physical ability of others. In this role, orcs are archetypically most suited to contradicting or perverting the call to dominion and society. Whereas God called man to steward the earth (1 Tim. 1:4), the orc despoils and ruins it. Whereas God called man to form families (Gen. 1:28) and churches (Rom. 16:5) and governments (Num. 35:16-21), to be fruitful in vocation, in business, in labor (Gen. 1:28), the orc parodies all these things only in order to break them, despises all the beauties of civilization. The orc is particularly suited also to portraying sin’s enmity towards beauty.

Once again the difficulties are heavily dependent on circumstance, on the twists you introduce to your world and its relation to orcs, on the precise metaphysics you emplace in your story. One point to be aware of is man’s relationship to the orc within your story. If the orc is biologically related to man, perhaps in order to explain its sentience, the question rises of why the orc cannot repent or does not. You can answer, as Tolkien seems to have, that the orc may or may not be capable of repentance, but it never engages that capacity; you can also, as I have done, introduce another metaphysical element to provide an excuse. Even apart from these, though, I think the issue could be handwaved or handled, so long as the story did not present the view that men can be hereditarily incapable of repentance. Careful writing is necessary here, not full abstention.

Killing Orcs

Before addressing the final point, that of aesthetics, I would briefly address the question of how we view killing ‘pure evil’ orcs in our stories, for our characters. If the orcs are pure evil, the only reason not to kill them is that doing so might cause harm to others (such as by alerting other orcs in the area to potential prey). If the orcs are potentially capable of repentance, the calculus changes; more conventional considerations can be applied. Regardless, as Tolkien implied, it is not right for characters to refuse quarter, at least until the orcs show themselves unwilling to respect the obligations imposed on them by asking for quarter (to cease all aggression). Those who have shown themselves unwilling to respect the terms of surrender have no right thereunto; here we find all sorts of issues, though, the sort that would require a lot of discussion, consideration, and writing, not fit for this article’s focus. The last point I’ll make, therefore, is that characters often do the wrong thing or at least not quite the right thing.

The Beauty of Complexity?

A challenged might be levelled as follows: “Are not morally complex orcs more interesting and therefore more beautiful?”

The answer is, “It depends.”

In some stories, yes. The story can call for orcs capable of repentance in order to enhance its plot and character interactions, to properly consider its theme, to bring the appropriate level of moral and circumstantial complexity. Sometimes, however, making the orcs morally complex is not only superfluous (a distraction, and thus detrimental by bloat) but contrary to the orcs’ role in the narrative. In The Lord of the Rings, the orcs are there to act as extensions of their masters’ wills, as expressions of the shadow over Middle Earth, as inveterate dangers and emblems of what evil desires the world to become. Introducing a capacity for repentance would run counter to their fulfilment of that role.

Conclusion

The point of this article isn’t to tell you ‘write these orcs this way.’ It’s to give you the tools to analyze how you’re using orcs- or your favorite race of Pure Evil- and make sure it’s right for the story you’re telling, the world you’re creating, the character you’re birthing. Consider the moral and practical implications of your orc’s metaphysical and ethical status. It may be tempting to copy-paste in Standard Orc Archetype or make orcs Ugly People, but is that the right choice for this story, this theme? Sometimes it is- with a little more care than just copy-paste, some adjustments and analysis- but often it isn’t. Be intentional.

God bless.

Footnotes

1. A good fantasy series with a distinctive tone (a little Narnia-ish) and mode of creativity. I recommend, particularly for teens who want more fantasy after reading Tolkien. ↩︎
2. If you’re interested enough in Reformed theology to know the controversy around the term, remember this definition going forward: the gift by God to His creation that His creation does not immediately put into full effect the sin Adam introduced into it, with the consequence that mankind engages in a life of lesser evils rather than automatically and immediately maximizing the sinfulness of each moment. In other words, the reason evil men have moral restraint, not merely a restraint on their ability (a lack of this moral restraint is the state of the demon, who is restrained only by a lack of capability). ↩︎