Why Are Orcs Green?

I always liked the idea that they are green because of photosynthesis.

I mean how else would they be able to maintain such heavy bods, even with their meaty diet.

The green-skinned crone is actually a relatively new incarnation of the evil witch – in fact, while the evil witch as a cultural narrative dates back millennia, the green skin dates precisely back to 1939 and the MGM film, The Wizard of Oz. Margaret Hamilton’s cackling and emerald-tinted portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, rendered in vivid Technicolor, is the only reason that anyone associates green skin with witches. As Professor Marion Gibson, associate professor of Renaissance and magical literatures at the University of Exeter and an expert in popular depictions of witches, explained, via email, “There are a few images of witches – for instance, on Halloween postcards – with odd coloured faces (usually red/orange, surprisingly) but MGM’s green-faced witch is the first to make a key feature of a completely non-human skin colour.”

So the decision to make the Wicked Witch green was not informed by any long-standing green-skinned witch traditions, neither was it inspired by the original Oz books – in L. Frank Baum’s 1900 fantasy book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Witch is ugly, cruel, and afraid of water, but she’s not green. It seems that the only reason MGM’s famously revolving team of filmmakers, costumers, and screenwriters decided on green was that it looked suitably scary and otherworldly – and that it showed up really well on film. Lavish and massively budgeted, The Wizard of Oz relied cutting-edge visual effects to weave its magic, including the relatively new Technicolor film process that saw Dorothy leave sepia-toned Kansas for candy-colored Oz. A hook-nosed witch with skin the color of a poisoned apple worked, and worked so well that she gave countless children nightmares well into the 1970s – in 1976, Hamilton appeared as the Witch on an episode of Sesame Street, prompting a flurry of letters from angry parents complaining that their children were in tears after the show.

In Warcraft it's a little confusing on why they are green. Before it was Fel = red, normal = green or brown.

Now (if we count the movie) it's green = fel or fel bloodline, and brown/reddish = normal.

But in the World of Warcraft, fel has come to = black and super horny.

That's cool but it doesn't seem to relate to orcs.

Or modern witches.

>(I added the underline.)

Are you sure of that?

> As I recall, the 1E AD&D Monster Manual has no mention of skin color at all.

Not true: "Description: Orcs appear particularly disgusting because their coloration - brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen - highlights their pinkish snouts and ears"

Well, in Warcraft they're green because of the Warhammer influence. The lore is a retcon of the aesthetic. I'm just pointing out that the reason that the green orc came to dominate fantasy isn't because of Warhammer (where that depiction might have originated). It's because of the run-away-success of Warcraft 2.

>ugly and filthy, with a taste for human flesh.
Gangrene turns flesh greenish perhaps they are coloured to look like rotting flesh to show how filthy they are? In the warhammer version they are half cabbage/fungus so you know there's that.

Because of that colour green became for ever associated with evil and meanness. It became a staple colour for comicbook villains of all kind since then.

Orcs became green in Warhammer because their violent behaviour resembled Hulk while goblins became green because of the Green Goblin.

Ok.

But what would be a decent reason for why? I personally like the idea of photosynthesis to help them get their nutrients.

Well in warcraft magic did it. You don't really need more of a reason in a fantasy setting.

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That movie was one of the most boring action epics I've ever seen. It's bewildering how bland it is considering the actual contents of the movie.

That I have no answer for. Was just answering OP's:
>So why did the popular, nearly universal image of orcs turn green? When did this happen? Is it all WoW's fault?

Why green? It's the color of evil but not demonic die-die-die like black or red. It's more friendly and bumbling, and orcs are big, dumb louts so it works well.

In-lore reason for them to be green? Well the reason that plants are green is because they absorb red and blue and reflect green. Why? Basically because they are evolved to use both high and low energy frequencies (red and blue), but to reflect the others because too much energy = damage. So they take only both ends of the spectrum and, as a result, reflect what's in the middle to avoid damage, making most plants greenish. Maybe orcs do the same. Maybe they're not-quite warm-blooded, so need to be able to warm up quickly, taking the high energy ends of the spectrum, and need to be able to remain warm, taking the low ends of the spectrum. But if they weren't green, then they'd get too warm too fast for too long. So maybe they are naturally green, but become brownish in warmer areas (reflecting more red because too high energy) and blueish in cooler areas (reflecting less of the higher energy because they need more of it so get shifted towards blue).

Wasn't Warcraft originally supposed to be a WHFB game that GW pulled the plug on at last-second? And Blizz had enough assets left over and decided to make their own game?

Nope. That's a WH-faboi reinterpretation of facts. One of the designers really wanted to do a WH game. Blizzard said "fuck that--we want our own IP." GW said "we have never made a single good decision about our IP in history." But one of the designers used some of the designs anyhow.

They're green so sjw's can have racism in their settings without being politically incorrect.

What the first user said happened with Warhammer 40000 and Starcraft, though.

Nope. Yet another WH40k-fanboi rumor. The GW and Bliz franchises are both incredibly derivative. GW stole from everything that came before it. Bliz stole from everything that came before it. Yes: one of those things that came before Bliz was GW and yes, it is one of the things Bliz stole from.

That's all there is to these silly rumors.

Which rumors, by the way, were invented by people who were teenagers in the late aughts. So they were ten years after SC and twenty years after GW. So they weren't around to experience the vast shit-storm of samey-same that everything else was also stealing from, during the late 80s and early 90s. Everything was using this stuff. Ten years later and 2 IPs are still standing so everyone invented conspiracy theories to link them. Was just a sea of samey-same bullshit that these two happened to swim out of.

If colored black everyone would scream racism.

Orcs in warcraft are brown naturally
If they do fel shit or drink demon blood they turn green
If they keep drinking it and stuff they turn red? Or something

Does blizzard even really care?

>the answer can be reduced to a slogan
/pol/'s mindless reactionary-ism infects another user. Thinking folks will mourn his passing.

First off: orcs are racist from Tolkien's inception of them. But as racist depictions of central Asians--not black people. Second: there's a pretty long tradition in fantasy of evil people being black-skinned, and it has never been the case that black-skinned had anything to do with people of african decent (who, by the way, are dark-brown skinned). Third, the hyper-paranoia of "waaahhh SJWs in my hobby!" is nonsense. The people who are interested in these hobbies, particularly in writing about them? Read books. People who do that tend not to be xenophobic because things they don't already know about and experience seem cool. They're interested in inclusivity out of professional curiosity. SJWs didn't "infect" Veeky Forums hobbies. They invented them.

And they were green in Warcraft two because blizzard ripped on War hammer. Hell it was supposed to be a War hammer game originally.

>Hell it was supposed to be a War hammer game originally.
Already addressed and wildly incorrect. This is a rumor GW fanbois frequently convince themselves of, but it just isn't true at all.

they were largely brown around 1980 but everybody was too busy screaming satanism.

0/10

BEKUZ GREEN IZ BEST!

>SJWs didn't "infect" Veeky Forums hobbies. They invented them.
I don't think I'd go that far.
The genre definitely sprung out of Conan and John Carter's "great white hunter" type of swords and sorcery.

Weren't they green in Warcraft 1? Maybe I'm misremembering it's been about two decades.

I was once going to do a whole their skin is literal bronze type of thing, where young orcs are the orange/brown of bronze, but as they age their skin turns into a green "old bronze" color

I like it. There is a chance I'll steal it.

>Already addressed and wildly incorrect. This is a rumor GW fanbois frequently convince themselves of, but it just isn't true at all.
kotaku.com/5929157/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1

>Allen Adham hoped to obtain a license to the Warhammer universe to try to increase sales by brand recognition. Warhammer was a huge inspiration for the art-style of Warcraft, but a combination of factors, including a lack of traction on business terms and a fervent desire on the part of virtually everyone else on the development team (myself included) to control our own universe nixed any potential for a deal. We had already had terrible experiences working with DC Comics on "Death and Return of Superman" and "Justice League Task Force", and wanted no similar issues for our new game.

Going by current lore, orcs' natural skin colors are brown and pale grey (Blackrock and Shattered Hand clans for the latter). When they drank Mannoroth's blood, their eyes turned red and their skin green. Those that continued to drink the blood found their skin turning red (chaos orcs). Those that STILL continued to drink the stuff sprouted spikes all over and their eyes became outright glowing (fel orcs)

AU Draenor orcs were dark green and covered in some rocky tumors due to getting infused by other means with fel and drinking expired kool-aid since Mannoroth got a case of axe to head

>The genre definitely sprung out of Conan and John Carter's "great white hunter" type of swords and sorcery.
Howard was an anti-racist feminist. "SJW" wasn't a term. But he was one.

>One developer wanted it to be WH
>No one else did and it wasn't
You think that somehow vindicates your claim that it was "was supposed to be a War hammer game originally?" Because you understand that the thing you just quoted disproves the thing that you said, right?

Because you can't make a scene if you don't have the green.

fact

Not to be an absolute pedant, but it isn't "because" of this at all. Green was probably chosen as a suitable colour in Wizard of Oz because while green may not have been associated with witches (whom are still people, even if they were apostate 'whore-wives of the devil' or that sort of thing), green as a colour for evil and wicked things is centuries old. It is a colour in the west often associated with illness, reptilians, and, as per the phrase "green with envy", enviousness as a Cardinal Sin. In fact, most Medieval depictions of the Devil have his colour as green or black, not red. This is most notable in English folklore where faeries, dragons and goblins were predominant creatures of popular myth, all of whom are historically associated with green. Being that most of modern fantasy is Anglo-centric in origin, and that GW is so British it shits bangers, it's pretty unlikely that The Incredible Hulk or the Wicked Witch of the West are the genesis of, well, mythically green monsters.

>You think that somehow vindicates your claim that it was "was supposed to be a War hammer game originally?"
I'm not the original guy who said it was supposed to be a Warhammer game.

>>No one else did and it wasn't
He also said that wasn't the only reason, it was also because of business terms not being agreed upon

>Because you understand that the thing you just quoted disproves the thing that you said, right?
Uh, how?

Because if Adham succeeded in the business deals it would have been a Warhammer game. It was supposed to have been a Warhammer game originally to get the brand recognition, it doesn't matter if only 1 developer wanted it, the fact is he tried to get it to be a Warhammer game.

>Howard was an anti-racist feminist.
I think most sjws would disagree.
But I doubt most social justice warriors have read the books.

>that pic
I think i'm going to have to save that butt-face as a reaction image.

Demons were of all kinds of colours back then, the anglo myhtical creatures associated to green were always kindhearted and Hulk, Green Goblin and comicbooks were very popular back then among nerds, which were their target demographic (friendly reminder Sigmar is just Thor of a different colour).

Fuck off and die you repulsive regressive individual. 'SJWs' did not invent Veeky Forums hobbies and I couldn't give a rat's arse about 'inclusivity'. Reading books does not mean someone agrees with you - I read a lot of books and I'm fairly sure I'd disagree with almost every opinion you hold. Kindly stop dragging politics into traditional gaming discussions.

Don't forget the other reason green gets chosen: it's visually striking to have things with green skin.

Pick seven figures from the history of fantasy literature and gaming. Read about their views as compared to the predominant views of their time and place. Between 8 and 10 of them will have been progressives to an extent that the term SJW would have applied to them, in their day.

>Tolkein orcs were depicted as grey.

No, they're normal skin colored, which is why you can have 2 hobbits put on orc armor and be mistaken for orcs by people who can see their faces.

Green Dick > Blue Dick

Their skin was sallow to black but some were mixed with humans so they probably had normal skin. Also Frodo and Sam wore helmets.

>Pick seven figures
>8 and 10 of them will have been progressives
>tfw math is sexist

>tfw red dick
>tfw too fast

>SJWs didn't "infect" Veeky Forums hobbies. They invented them.

You seem to be a wonderful kind of stupid.

To start, Veeky Forums's hobbies were all grown from war games. War games played almost exclusively by straight white males, the apparent immortal enemy of all SJW's everywhere. Later on, fluff was introduced that came from books written almost exclusively by straight white males, with some of them even being blatantly racist and sexist as was not uncommon for the time the books were being written.

Secondly, SJW's are a bit of a joke. We're not talking about people who want equality or don't like racism. We're talking about people who play a strange game where they cry "SOCIAL INJUSTICE!" whenever they see something they don't like. And they don't like anything associated with men, white males, tradition, Christianity, or anything that might make them feel a sense of personal responsibility.

SJW's haven't invented anything except a platform to attempt to dismantle everything associated with what they hate, and I'm glad to see that the pendulum is swinging back and more and more people have stopped giving them the attention that they crave.

In all fairness to Tolkien, he acknowledged that the distasteful attributes of orcs that came from central Asians was due to Anglocentric bias and emphasized nothing in his legendarium was allegory and thus shouldn't be taken as commentary on the real world.

>Read about their views as compared to the predominant views of their time and place.

When you look at pivotal figures like Tolkien, Vance, Howard, Lovecraft, Gygax, Arneson, Garfield, Moorcock, Leiber, Lewis, and so on and so forth, you're looking at a list of at best moderates, with most having rather conservative views, even by their own time's standards. By today's standards, all of their works are being revisited by SJW's as racist, sexist, transphobic, and whatever new terms they've invented to decry anything made by a white male that includes a male protagonist.

Hell, Gygax loved guns, Lovecraft was racist, and Tolkien was the man who converted Lewis to Christianity.

That's not to say these men fit all their view into a single side of the political spectrum. Moorcock had little issue with drugs and Leiber loved loose women, but that's still far and away from them being single-minded champions of degeneracy like SJWs are.

The belief Tolkien invented Orcs is a fallacy that needs to permenantly die. The word and concept exists pre-Tolkien he just took it from Anglo-saxoj culture.
Tolkiens orcs are associated with goblins and goblins have been depicted as green. Interestingly Tolkien took this from another author too.

This is a lie. Orcs are solely based on Anglo-saxon myth. Not "asians" no one knew of asians.

Pre-tolkien orcs were just ogres. And I think it wasn't goblins who were green but fairies and pixies.

Ogre is the same as Orke its the same thing. Furthermore I believe 100% orc comes from the orkney island in Britian as its true origin.
The orks were a pictish tribe whose symbol was a pig (sound familiar) and the island was later used by norse raiders. That us why orcs are associated with raiding barbarians
Also Goblins were typically shown with off green colours as they were like lepers or hideous.

Goblin was originally interchangeable with pixie and fairy
It's only with d and d you get specific race with specific names
Tolkien himself had orcs and goblins as effectively one race since both are the result of elven corruption with goblins seemingly the result of orcs living in caves
D and d defined goblins as their own seperate race whilst warhammer actually reversed it slightly

Green were more related to nature and hope than hideous things.

A dead white corpse that had rotted a bit would be green
Also look at orc and goblin skin it is often shown as scaly which with the green makes them reptilian snake like and snake/reptilian is usually a negative term

>orc and goblin skin it is often shown as scaly
Only in the DnD cartoon.

On the warhammer fantasy covers as well -wfb 3 warhammer armies and wfrp 1st edition
It was only when they introduced orks and had the waagh books that they made them fungoid etc
Also warhammer in general used orcs and goblins in a racist manner by conflating them with non white races
Goblins especially Hobs were given mongol names and dress
And savage orcs were dressed up as back savages

Nah. You are reading too much into it. Fuck off to tumblr.

I thought Tolkien's orcish language had it that "Goblin" meant grunt and "Uruk" or "Ork" meant warrior.

Those aren't scales they are warts and wrinkles.

And fungus orcs were a thing in fantasy just at 8th edition, 3rd edition still had half-orcs.

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Why the butt faces?

Satan's ass was a commonly used topic, especially as a political joke or slam against duplicitous, greedy, and hypocritical priests.

Read some Chaucer. He wrote a bit in one story about a protagonist searching for all the bishops and found them in Hell. When summoned forth, they spewed out of Satan's rectum.

Well-maintained old bronze just develops a patina.

> That movie was one of the most boring action epics I've ever seen. It's bewildering how bland it is considering the actual contents of the movie.

Well yeah, they set it in the First War/Warcraft 1. The frwnchise didn't become more interesting and popular until Warcraft 3 with its connected EU.

The movie would have did better if it was Lord of the Clans.

Satan was literally supposed to have a face on his ass. It's one of those things people politely forgot during the Renaissance. In general, the imagery is meant to represent Satan as "too corporeal" (i.e. a mishmash of too many body parts), opposing God who is ethereal and cannot be truly represented with a face. Satan is prince of the world and whatnot.
Supposedly during witchcraft rituals, a dark priest would wear a mask on his butt and have people kiss it to symbolize unity with Satan.

>Unironically thinks SJW is a good term
Found the Tumblr refugee.

>someone saved the most generic orc image humanely possible to their hard drive

absolutely confusing

>So why did the popular, nearly universal image of orcs turn green?
Warcraft

Relax user, it was just bait.

The real question is why would you repost an exact copy of a 2-year-old forum post from Giant in the Playground?

They were green from drinking Mannoroth's blood. The red orcs all drank Magtheridon's blood.
The super-spiky black fel orcs drank an even more potent cocktail that Gul'dan whipped up after the Mannoroth's blood failed the first time around.

Warhammer fantasy did it.
Warcraft is obviously inspired by whfb.
Warcraft got popular.
Green orcs caught on.

In the hobbit and Lord of the rings trilogy, the same characters are repeatedly referred to as "goblin" or "orc" at different times.
I don't think he gave a fuck. They were just different words for the same thing. He was writing from a much earlier perspective, having not lived through most of a centure of anal-fixated neckbeards wanking over definitions.
It was probably more like saying "ruffian" or "blackguard" about someone. Means the same thing, it's just nice with variety.

It's due to some kind of printing error on an early version of d&d or warhammer. They were supposed to be black, but some went awry and someone errantly colored them green. Something like that.

>tfw fucking sloths are the closest we are ever going to get to having Orks

But that's clearly wrong user. Not only did people at the time know about asians, Tolkien also wrote this:
>19. Why does Z put beaks and feathers on Orcs!? (Orcs is not a form of Auks.)
>The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men.
>They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes:
>in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.
Source, because I'm feeling nice: "Letter 210", to Forrest J. Ackerman, June 1958.
You can find it on page 293 of timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/the_letters_of_j.rrtolkien.pdf

Ayoo, hol up

. Why does Z put beaks and feathers on Orcs!? (Orcs is not a form of Auks.)
HOLD UP!
Did someone draw orcs with beaks and feathers!?

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Orcs like to eat their broccoli. Their steady diet of broccoli, meat, and mushrooms (they're green mushrooms) keep them green.

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>Pick 7
>8 to 10 of them

Yea, opinion discarded.

Come on, lads.
The hook didn't even have anything on it

There are challengers to GW as the origin of the green orcs.

Here's a borderline one to start with.

First shown October 1, 1983 we've got the Orcs from the D&D cartoon.

Now I know Warhammer 2nd edition in 1984 had green orcs/goblins on the cover art, but 1st edition from 1982 didn't have any colour art of them, there may be GW stuff from during first edition that did though.