One of Tolkien’s letters describes orcs as“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.”
And I was thinking about, 1.) Look at the legs on these Mongolian wrestlers all decked out for a major national wrestling festival, and also 2.) how Tolkien’s racist description wasn’t enough, and orcs have been depicted as more and more grotesque over time. Canonically orcs more or less just look like humans, but that’s not “other” enough so they keep getting turned in to more and more bizarre looking monsters.
Either way, this is what i’m thinking about when i’m laid up with the 'rona. If y’all like wrestling or buff men in tiny pants check out Mongolian wrestling. From what I understand it’s a hugely popular sport there and has been for like a thousand years.
They’re not the good guys, nor did they ever have pretenses of being the good guys. My point is they’re the persistent sense of humor of the sometimes ponderously pretentious 40k setting.
Sure, but tons of people forget that and fun=good is very prevalent opinion among the ork fans, so i got into the habit of reminding people that biological military von neuman rogue machines are nothing good. Then again the fashdom is full of unironic stans of factions like Tyranids, Drukhari or Black Templars, so… Also 40k fun can be cringe as fuck, allow me to unearth the ghastly cadaver of Angry Marines.