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Well, I haven't read the first book (only ROTK), but I was wondering when Isildor is riding down a forest and is ambushed - I cannot quite see what sort of person it is, I am guessing it could have been goblins or orcs?

Any help?

They were left over orcs, Only Goblins resided in Moria (I think)

Goblins are Orcs.

Goblins are NOT Orcs!! How dare you insult the Orcs!

I hope your joking.

My sincerest apologies because I'm NOT.

Isildur was ambushed by orcs.

HAHA!!!!!!! TOLD YOU!! Not Goblins!! ORCS!!!!!!

Actually, I think that Goblins are Orcs.

..........

Goblins arn't Orks

they cant be

oh well...

I read it somewhere... maybe in The Hobbit

GOBLINS AREN'T ORCS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Globins are a kind of Glamhoths and they infest the areas like the Misty Mountains, they are NOT orcs!!!

plus if anyone wants to ask how come isildur was floating down a river with arrows in his back when he was clearly seen being jumped on by ORCS (not goblins hehe) well dont because il tell you now to save you the trouble

when the orcs ambushed isildur and his men started to defend, fight back, but there were too many orcs so this man (forgotten his name, must be important though as he orders the king about) tells the king to flee, isildur declines, so he orders him too, so isildur puts on the ring escapes and swims down the river (invisible, orcs apparently dont ask questions such as why is that water splashing over there?) the ring slips off his finger, the orcs realise hes there and arrow him, (instead of going in and killing him to try and get the ring, how could they know hed lost it)

goblins can't be orcs because in fotr, they talk about saruman breeding goblins with orcs

exactly

Here's the word from JRR Tolkien himself.


"Orcs (the word is as far as I am concerned actually derived from Old English orc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability) are nowhere clearly stated to be of any particular origin. But since they are servants of the Dark Power, and later of Sauron, neither of whom could, or would, produce living things, the must be 'corruptions'. They are not based on direct experience of mine; but owe, I suppose, a good deal to the goblin tradition (globin is used as a translation in 'The Hobbit', where orc only occurs once, I think), especially as it appears in George MacDonald, except for the soft feet which I never believed in. The name has the form orch (pl. yrch) in Sindarin and uruk in the Black Speech.
--JRR Tolkien, Letter 144


"Your preference of 'goblins' to 'orcs' involves a large question and a matter of taste, and perhaps historical pedantry on my part. Personally I prefer Orcs (since these creatures are not 'goblins', not even the goblins of George MacDonald, which they do to some extent resemble).
--JRR Tolkien, Letter 151





From the looks of these two letters alone, it appears that goblins and orcs are one and the same. It is only a matter of translation to Tolkien. I believe that he states in one of his letters that terms used in the book, such as orc, elf, dwarve, etc., are not the proper names of what he is writing about, but the closest equivalent in our speech. Another good thing to read is "On Translation" in the appendix of ROTK. I'll try to find out some more information if I can.

orcs have no origin? wtf

they were created froim elves

plus he also says in there that orcs are not goblins

It probably would've been better for me to include the entirety of the letter, but those quotes both come from letters that are quite long. When Tolkien is writing about Orcs not being goblins, he is not making reference to his works. He is speaking about how he based orcs off of items in other literature. Specifically, he is referring to how the term goblin is used in other literature by other authors, and comparing those characterizations to his own.

As for orcs having no origin, I believe that is also dependent on how you approach the wording. As the quote says, orcs were not created by Melkor or by Sauron. According to the Silmarillion, Orcs began as elves who were put into prison and corrupted through slow acts of cruelty. It was through those acts that those captured elves became orcs. In a way they were created from elves, but they are more a corruption of them. Think about the statement that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker. It was actually the Dark Side that corrupted Anakin and turned into Vader, yet Obi-Wan's original statement would still hold true. I think of it as an extremely severe case of brainwashing.

erm, well thanx for answering the question anyhpw.

And cheers Sauron for that extra informtation about the ring and the river, I take it Isildor didnt yank the ring off the chain but just slipped his finger in,?

Orcs are stronger then goblins. Urkai are biggest and baddest

urkai, do you mean uruk hai

i dont know sorry, i just know he put it on

but when the ring is one the chain, why doesnt the chain go invisible?? any theories

give peter jackson a break, man.

erm im not saying anything bad im just wondering, its as much as tolkiens fault as if the chain went invisible in the books sauron would have seen it wouldnt he, must be that the earth and elements of earth can resisit the ring, making a strong case for mr. bombadil

Very important observation flickerstick.

Goblins ARE a breed of orcs, much in the same way the Dunedain are a particular breed of men. Goblins are the smaller kind of orcs that reside in the Misty and Grey Mountains.

From the Foreword to the Hobbit:
" occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)."

Also, Saruman doesn't breed Goblins and Orcs (atleast not in the context of the book), he breeds orcs and men to create half-orcs or goblin-men, though I'm not quite sure if "half-orcs" and "goblin-men" are exactly the same.

Uruk-Hai (or simply Uruk) are not a cross-breed (atleast not by Saruman), but a very deadly kind of orc that came out of Mordor some 500 years prior to the war of the ring.


First of all, screaming will get you nowhere. Second of all, "Goblins aren't orcs" doesn't go well with "Goblins are a kind of Glamhoths". Glamhoth is a name for the orcs, with the literal translation simply meaning "noisy horde".

noisy horde does not nessecarily mean orcs, mummakil in hordes would be very noisy lol

Indeed it would.

Glamhoth is a name for orcs. That name means "noisy hordes".

It's from the Unfinished Tales where Tuor uses it. He says something like Gurht am glamhoth, meaning "Death to the orcs".

Yes they are, just like I was saying.

you guys THINK they're orcs, THINK, so why don't you go through all of what Tolkien's world really is and we'll argue about thi-- I mean discuss this later.

They are the same, deal with it.

Heh, this is a classic debate...

The evidence has been mostly presented. Tolkien made it clear that Goblins and Orcs are really different 'translations' (remember, Tolkien was always pretending to be translating these words into English) of the same thing. BUT, in Middle-Earth lexicon, 'Goblin' is generally used to refer to, as Freddie says, the diminutive Orcs around the Misty Mountains.

As for the main question, Isildur was indeed ambushed by Orcs as he attempted to return to Arnor after Sauron's defeat.

The person, Sauron, who 'commanded' him to go (this is not literal, he was simply making the urgency of it known) was Isildur's son, Elendur. Furthermore, if you are using Unfinished Tales account of the incident (and remember the dodginess of using such sources), as you seem to be, Isildur did not cross the river at once but ran a considerable distance away first and so there was no-one to see him cross, or any splahses resulting from it. But, as that account has it, he was then swept upstream, lost the Ring, was seen and shot.

And the Ring conceptually hides living things and all traces of them- not inanimate objects on their own. It does not make anything within it invisible, it shrouds all traces of a living being that wears it.

Yeah what Ush said, and besides, Orcs are much prettier then Goblins....

That can't be true because they are the same.

lol, off topic.

Goblins arn't orcs!

Also Goblins nor Orcs can even be near to be classed as "pretty"

Perhaps because the ring has no breating life??
Binga> Goblins are far from being orcs...Sure they are both fuc**n ugly, but..... is an Iguana a Kimoto Dragon? No!

Read Ush post and then go to www.glyphweb.com/arda/ and seek: orc, goblin, hobgoblin, uruk-hai.

Goblins
The race of Orcs


Dates: First appeared soon after the Awakening of the Elves; apparently still extant
Origins: Made by Melkor
Race: Orcs
Meaning: Probably originally related to kobolds, spirits said to dwell in mines1
Other Names: Glamhoth, Orcs, Yrch


A name for Orcs, and especially the smaller kinds that infested the Misty and the Grey Mountains in the later Third Age, and had their capital at Mount Gundabad.


Is there a difference between an 'Orc' and a 'Goblin'? The following quote from the foreword to The Hobbit sheds some light on this: " occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)."(Hence the statement above; 'especially the smaller kinds'). This entry concentrates on the goblins of the Grey and Misty Mountains simply because it is these Orcs that Tolkien most frequently refers to by the term 'goblin'.
The word 'goblin' is also used occasionally and indiscriminately in The Lord of the Rings; it never occurs in the The Silmarillion.




Goblins are Orcs.

Why the chain didnt become invisible? Because the ring could not in any way influence the mind of the chain, couldnt bring its spirit into the shadowworld


and, goblins ARE orcs

or perhaps the ring wasnt the same size to fit exact onto the chain - like when Isildur picked it up it changed size to fit his finger.


Darth Bandon - Smarty Pants

Goblins are orcs, it's like saying that a tiger isint a cat, or a black person isint human, get the point now?

I know Goblins are a kind of Orcs....I just like picking fights...