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TurnerMohan β Goblins And Wargs studies
#goblin #lordoftherings #orcs #thehobbit #tolkien #wargs
Published: 2015-04-07 06:23:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 21182; Favourites: 314; Downloads: 177
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two pages worth of studies for a painting i'm planning (famous last words) which will hopefully one day find it's place among my collection of "middle-earth historic costume plates, possibly a nice big centerfold.there's little doubt about it in my mind, riding on the backs of huge wolves is hands down the coolest thing orcs have going for them as a species; the image of warg-riding goblins (as described by tolkien, not necessarily as i've managed to capture with any of these yet) is at once fairytale-like and whimsical while achieving (especially when taken seriously) a kind of savage grace and even beauty, something not often attributable to the bent, degraded orcs. it's a relationship - both the look and the working dynamics of which - that the movies consistently missed for me; they just treated the wargs like horses; creatures to deck out in harnesses and order this way and that; the orcs didnt really have to pay attention to them while riding them, whereas, as anybody who's had a dog can tell you, relating to canines is all touch, tone and telepathy, and is very intimate by necessity; wargs are not simply mounts for the orcs but intelligent, socially organized predators in their own right. they work with eachother for their mutual benefit (as chapter 6 of the hobbit lays out for us very comprehensively) but the wargs are not steeds or chattel. i like to think of the two species as having "rediscovered" each other in the wild at some point (most likely some time after uttumno was broken and it's creatures scattered) and of the simbiotic relationship they share as being not unlike the relationship between primitive man and early - barely - domesticated dogs (if those had been large enough to ride). much of my influence for the ways inwhich the orcs might physically relate to the wargs came from watching footage of apes (usually chimps) interacting with puppies on youtube; they seem to get eachother (the capacity of apes, when dealing with "less intelligent" animals than themselves, to intuit affective methods of bonding, usually based on a lot of physical affection, is amazing to watch, and the lack of it with the cgi apes and their horses in last summer's "dawn of the planet of the apes" was, for me, that otherwise solid movie's most conspicuous failing)
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Comments: 57
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I love your take on the relationship between orcs/goblins and wargs.
If anything, I always considered the wargs to be an actually sentient species. Not exactly animals, but with an intelligence akin to that of humans, goblins, elves, dwarves, pretty much all other creatures that can have a civilization.
The only thing stopping them having them being treated as that is their anatomy.
No way to pronounce words, that means it's touch to figure out what they're trying to say, thus forcing them to use the similar gestures that wolves and other canine animals use.
No hands, which in turn prevents them from being able to craft anything, from mere tools and weapons to actual buildings and cities.
So in a sense, they actually rely a lot on the goblins for other things that don't involve fighting, hunting and war.
But that aside, I like to think of the wargs as an actual civilization, but a nomadic one, akin to the early Mongols.
In fact, I think one of the coolest ideas they could come up with one day is to have the goblins and the wargs living together not as dwellers of dark caves and all that, but as nomadic tribes hailing from long, vast steppes and plains, whorshipping spirits of the wind and structuring themselves more or less as the ancient Mongols.
Only with two Khans ruling over the tribe: one goblin and one warg. United, as brothers. I dunno, just an idea I had.
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So if wargs wouldn't exactly be riding animals for the orcs, which other animal do you think is a better suited for the orcs in your vision?
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Wargs+orcs as partners is an epic concept. Though, I have always thought that wargs should be a lotΒ bigger.
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the movies made them big enough to feasibly serve as steeds for roughly man-sized orcs, but it never quite sat right with me. I suppose it's because the wargs never seem to be regarded in tolkien's writing as significantly bigger or more of a threat than "natural" wolves, whereas say, a siberian tiger (which is realistically the minimal size you would probably need a warg to be in order to ride it) is generally considered a whole other class of dangerous predator, so a wolf the size of a horse always seemed kind of too big-deal for what tolkien was describing. I'd seat wargs as somewhere around the size of those really big wolves they have up in alaska, maybe 250 lbs, with probably a weight limit on just how big a goblin they can bear
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I have always thought that goblins are kinda small, like chimpanzee-sized at the very best.
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I like this. i like how the orcs here dosent look nearly as hideous and evil as tolkien and all Β the lotr makes them out to be. more like they are a sad race. because deep down, they hate themselfs and they hate Melkor/Morgoth for what he did to them. I get this feeling from this pic that they just wanan be let alone or that they could get along with some races but mostly its the elves that hunts them down with out mercy
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I think the orcs are a fundamentally sad thing, even and especially in tolkien's intention, though its an existential sadness you have to stand outside of middle earth to see (as the valar, ocassionally the elves, and especially tolkien's narrative voice, when discussing their origins in the silmarillion, are able to do) the free people of middle earth seem to have all lost some kin or freinds to orcs, usually in the not so distant past, and so see them, understandably, as enemies and little else.
as a species the orcs seem to be at their best, their most natural anyway, when they live "free" in their own societies - not part of the vast enslaved armies of sauron or Morgoth - as they do throughout the misty mountains and presumably other parts of the world aswell; they kind of fit into the natural landscape, albeit as a predatory and afflicting presence, but atleast they get to form their own societies, clan and family loyalties, and determine their own lives to some degree. I imagine orc society in the wild as essentially a pack hunter society, very much like the wolves they team up with (or like ancient humanity and our ape ancestors for that matter) usually with some big male tyrant and his retainers/beta hunters at the top.
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Considering the evidence we see in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Wargs are considerably more intelligent even than wolves; they may have their origins in Werewolves that escaped the destruction of Angband and made their way into natural wolf packs, leading their mundane counterparts as semi-demonic alphas, and siring races of wolf-werewolf hybrids later known as Wargs. (That's my head-canon, anyway). Β In any case, their behavior in canon shows that the treatment you described in the Jackson films just wouldn't have flown. Β They were certainly much closer to the level of intelligence displayed by the Orks than anything we saw depicted on screen.
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Very nice sketches! And, as always, well written. The orc/warg relationship seems just as complex - if not even more so - then man/horse. Not least by their ability to communicate directly by speech. I hope you find the time for the painting (famous totally non-pressure words).
Also, thumbs up for the warg rider studies! They seem much more rough and organic than other orc societies - suits the nomadic lifestyle fine. I especially liked the "hellcat" shamaness!
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Forgetting all the badass orc+warg studying going on in-depth over here, I've really got to agree with you on Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' horses. There are video game horses with more personality and life to them. The ones in the movie actually seemed to just appear out of thin air en masse whenever the apes felt like riding, and then they just became autonomous vehicles.
Going back to the direwolves and apemen, there's a behavior I've long pictured them sharing: stretching out their bodies with arched spines, and then violently shaking themselves dry. But I always picture the orc in the relationship as then hopping along and kicking one foot. I don't know why. But certainly there's no abuse going on between them, except when it ends with an orc meeting their untimely demise or an orc superior killing a lesser orc's warg. Which might actually strike the sparks of feels. >_>
An interesting dynamic having even the alpha of an orc pack be the equal of their warg, by the way (that, at least, is something The Hobbit came close to).
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That's so brilliant. You never will stop to amaze me!
Besides I love you show the wargs as what they are: Huge wolves.
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I suddenly want to ride on a warg... Β Amazing!!!
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Who doesn't?Β
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Actually I just did a bit of research. Saddles aren't there to restrain the rider to his/her mount, they're used for protecting the nerves of the groin and tailbone from getting damaged by the animal's spine as it moves up and down.
So unless the orcs don't have groins or tailbone's or lower body nerves, I think a saddle might be a requirement.
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yes, i know all that troy, i think you're kind of missing my point. first of all riding a canine is probably a complete physical impossibility anyway; they're not ungulates, their spines and shoulder blades move quite a bit as they run, making riding them most likely not possible, saddle or no saddle. secondly, both gandalf when riding shadowfax, and what seems like most of the elves ride horses without saddles (to say nothing of the fact that people do it in real life too) generally when tolkien does it it's meant to express a kind of closeness or understanding between the mount and rider, and it seems appropriate for the orcs and the wargs, who do not so much share a relationship of riders and steeds as of hunting partners. plus it's just a better image; a wild, dangerous wolf being saddled would (and always has, to me) look wrong, too domesticated and too horse-like.
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Actually you can ride animal that isn't a horse but you will have to a) basically sit on their neck to avoid getting in the way of movement b)or sit much like a jokey on the track when horse is in full gallop but you will need a saddle.
Β
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shoulder-riding with relatively small, jockey-like orcs is what they settled on in the LOTR films (and then later threw out the window with seven foot monstrosities like azog and bolg riding them like horses) and this is how i tend to picture it, though i think saddles 1) seem ill fitting with tolkien's description of the relationship between wargs and orcs in the hobbit as partners more than merely steeds and riders, and 2) weaken what i belive to be some of his more effective fantasy imagery. Goblins and gremlins (and whatever other fairytaleish name you might wish to assign them) riding wolves in the night sounds like something you'd hear about in medieval folktales, it's dark but very magic and kind of beautiful, and always seemed to me well counterpointed by luthien's (another fairytale creature) riding of huan, and i think getting too movie-design-like about it with saddles and such kind of takes something from it, in both its primal and fantastic appeal.
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Oh yes, lutien riding huan is one of the mst epic things out there
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So are you planning to make elf riders saddleless too ? 
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Ah, ok. 
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It's an interesting idea, and I hope you can develop it to a finished illustration some time. The basic theme and the various poses look good to me. That and I always like a sky-line presentation for some reason.
Orc and warg go back a ways in terms of a mutual partnership. It is a new idea with Tolkien, as far as I know in terms of heroic fantasy. Wolfriders are mentioned in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, so by then at least the idea of a corps of Orcs riding large wolves in terms of a mutually supporting strike force had taken hold. For the Orcs of the Misty mountains, the synchronization of the two types of creature had a definite benefit, which you did a good job of portraying in your sketches. Orcish cunning and Wargish ferocity might lead to a mutual success which otherwise might not come to either race separately. In places like Isengard the Orcs constructed warrens or stables for their wolf comrades, allowing the beasts food and shelter that they did not have to obtain on their own.
The partnership was not always a benevolent one, since it is noted after Helm's Deep that the wargs and wolves of Isengard were feasting on the slain host of Isengard. But then, nothing would imply that wargs used as mounts had actually devoured their fallen Orcish comrades either. Maybe the fallen infantry rankers were used as rations, while fallen wolfriders were spared.
Tactical deployment of wolfriders is not uniform. In the case of Goblin-Town and (presumably) other Orc-holds of the North, the wolfriders were constituted as an allied body which was normally used for raids and quick strikes.Β At the Battle of Five Armies the wolf-riding body of the host arrived first and engaged the allied host, holding their attention while the following infantry force either climbed the Mountain to flank them or marched to the follow-up attack under Bolg himself. In the army of the White Hand the wolfriders were not a large part of the host, but were used along with no-ridden wolves as an effective scouting force. Tolkien noted that the wolfriders were inferior to a force of Riders in open country, but at times they might attack a force of Riders in open formation, aiming attacks at horses' legs and bellies. The real danger of seeing wolfriders in the Westfold though would be the likely presence of a larger force that the scouting wolfriders might summon. Β Β
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yes as far as I know orcs riding wargs is entirely original to tolkien, but, as is so often the case with tolkien, the image successfully feels like one that could have existed all along in european (or really anyone's) folklore; these horrible little goblin monsters riding on the backs of wolves (always considered evil creatures in the ancient imagination) preying on human homesteads under moonlight. it has a feel of the real dark side of fairie and fantastic beings, like they were some servants of dracula or chernabog, the swarming of "all evil things" when the night falls. actually tolkien provides us a similar image, completely inverse but similar in it's fantastic-ness and feeling of fairie, with luthien riding on huan. both seem like scenes you could easily picture illustrated by john bauer in one of his more serious teutonic mythology collections.
at the same time, as i mention above, the image (especially given a somewhat ape-like influence with the orcs) has this oddly parallel feeling to early modern humans with their hunting dogs. the relationship (especially as presented in the hobbit, where it is presented more completely than anywhere else) has this roughness and primitivism to it, and feels quite organic (albeit in an "evil creatures" way) which is why it's interesting to me (though a bit surprising, not at all in a bad way) that you and several others of my commentors seem to want to address the ordered, tactical side of the warg/rider relationship. the creatures of morgoth definitely were bred for war (atleast after a while, it seems to me that his earliest forays into breeding orcs atleast was not so much for the purpose of making armies - as if they could ever really stand against the valar - as for an expression of this vicious, driving need to poison and ruin the work of the creator and his fellow ainur) and orcs, wargs, trolls, dragons ect all seem like they were bred and used for tactical means during the wars of beleriand, and i can easily imagine more yoked, enslaved, "soldierly" looking versions of all of the above (that, as you'll probably recall, was what i was shooting for with my take on ancalagon) but as i mention to elrondperedhel below, a thing i really like is how these creatures, despite being in origin minions of satan - either perversions of natural creatures like orcs, "fell spirits" inhabiting bodies similar to those of natural creatures (like drauglin and his brood, presumably there are non-evil wolves in middle-earth) or fell spirits inhabiting forms seemingly made out of whole cloth like dragons (and arguably trolls) - once they are scattered into the world, seem to lose their "hellish" edge (to varying degrees ofcourse) and become more or less natural, unaffiliated (in terms of god and the devil) creatures themselves. Bert Tom and Bill i can easily picture as these shaggy, bumbling norwegian folk-tale trolls, but it's also not hard to picture trolls more directly under a dark lord's command (like the olog-hai, or the bodyguard of gothmog) as these shaved, militarized, much more purposefully malevolent creatures.
similarly, i can picture that wargs (and their relationship with their riders) when used by dark lords, are more of a regimented and domesticated thing, bred in kennels and trained from birth and such, used as scouts for infantry and as fast-strike units (TTT the movie kind of spoiled the word "scout" for me though, why that "scout" warg rider does exactly what scouts are never supposed to do and attacks hama has always been beyond me) and i feel like professional, militarized "warg riders" would actually need their own distinct costume plate, though personally i prefer the rougher, more organic partnership we see in "out of the frying pan, into the fire," I think rather than "warg riders" i'd probably call this one something like "goblins and wargs" or even 'goblins and wolves'.
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I am somewhat tactically-minded about Orcish society from gaming habit beyond care of years.
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Absolutely brilliant, once again. I greatly anticipate this phantom painting you mention, and I agree that you get a lot closer to Tolkien's idea than the movies ever did. Warg-riders are featured too seldomly in popular culture and without justice done to them.
To be honest, I actually didn't know the bit about the saddles since they ignore that in the original films and I'd always assumed they wore saddles in the hobbit trilogy as well (though come to think of it, I can't recall one way or another).
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Actually going back the horse comparison, people actually did ride horses without bridles and saddles. Even in the books, the case with Shadofax is the same as the orcs, he permits who he allows to mount him so long as he's not strapped.
Still makes me wonder though how anyone can ride a fast moving lesser megafauna without falling.
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Well Orcs have crooked legs and powerful arms so I believe (even if a rationnal explanation is not necessary : try to explain the biology of the Ents for example) it will be easier for them to ride a big wolf than for a human being (together with their lesser size and weight). Orcs are said to be able to climb ladders like apes can climb trees so I also guess that they are better than us at grabbing things with their powerful hands !
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You always open for new dimentions that I have not concidered about middle earth and its creatures, and I agree as always! That is one of the things I love of the masters work is that it is all open to so many interpretations and views that does not come across as well in movie form! and of course well done with once again sketching brilliantly! I just love your interpretation of the orcs and goblins! You inspire greatly, and I do hope it will turn into another beautiful painting of yours!
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If I had the money you be fragging sure I would buy your work even if its a sketch so I may philosophize on it and frame it Β
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Β Most excellent work Master Mohan; I wholeheartedly agree with the ideas you've propounded in this image and admire your discipline in riding this train of though through often-trodden ground into untouched uplands of inspiration - I must admit that the idea that goblins don't so much RIDE Wargs in the way men ride horses as they borrow a little of their momentum (in the same way footmen do when they catch onto the stirrups of cavalry) is something I would never have considered in a decade of contemplation.Β Β
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thanks my friend, i'm always glad if i can add something to the ol' headcannon
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Β My dear fellow, your additions to my mental image of Middle Earth quite literally fill a gallery - just take a look in the appropriate section of my Profile for proof of that!Β Β
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Love reading your captions! I agree, Wargs are not just horse material. I know they made them Β non verbal in movies but they could speak, had their own tongue too! I liked that when Azog cornered the Dwarves at the mountainous precipice he said: You smell it, the scent of fear... He was speaking to his Warg.Β
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yeah, you have to treat the physical relationship between orcs and wargs differently from how you would treat the relationship between a horse and rider. for one thing a horse can be easily a 1,400 lbs creature; it's pretty easy for them to carry a person around, whereas a warg i imagine to be probably about the size of, or slightly larger than, one of those prehistoric direwolves (putting them somewhere in the 150-250 lbs) with about a 110-130 goblin on it's back (i imagine upwards of that would be a real strain on them, even though they're creatures of morgoth and therefore might be expected to have some kind ofΒ "fell strength" exceeding what you would imagine to look at them) so you wouldnt really see the orcs just idling on their backs all day like people can do on horses. also canines arent ungulates, a relationship with them is by necessity one of comradery and physical intimacy, very touchy feely, that's how they behave with eachother.
azog's relationship with the she-wolf that he rides - the little moments of affection here and there - came the closest to capturing what i think a relationship between goblins and wargs would have to be like (though both were, in my opinion, ridiculously huge, i never saw wargs as being bigger than siberian tigers, or an orc as being the size of shaq o'niell for that matter)
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Yes indeed! It is definitely a partnership, Wargs are almost like the race of their own not as just domesticated animals.
I actually liked how different Azog was, he is in all aspects unique and so is his Warg. Their Β tender moments Β is what I always thought it's should be, unlike Β what was in Lotr. Β
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Aha interesting work ahead i see
First i have to say that it's good to see that the wolf looks like wolves! Personality i never really cared for PJs wolves, i get what he was going for but still...
Secondly that sketch of the wolves and orcs on the cliffs looks very interesting and a lot "warmer" than normal orc motifs. Β
I'm guessing you're planning to give these orcs a more "horseman" feeling in their appearance? Their gear and so on?Β Or are you going for a more "huntsman" looking appearance? Either way i believe most horse people and horse archers through history has worn their bow and quiver at their hips rather then on their back,Β just a friendly advice
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yeah but most horse archers also used saddles, and as i state above i'm trying purposely to avoid making the wargs look like saddled mounts, i figure the orcs who ride them would just grip their hair and therefore be largely limited to probably swinging a sword with their free hand (or maybe some flail type weapons)
the look of the wargs in pj's movies (which was better in the hobbit, but still not quite on the money to me) wasn't as bad as the way they were employed; they would often just sort of stand there like horses, and if you look at footage of wolves or really any canines they're rarely not moving if they're standing up. wolves arent ungelates or grazing creatures, they saunter around alot and are usually pretty low to the ground, and their backs and shoulders move alot when they walk, so they're kind of poor creatures to ride, which is why i feel like orcs riding them should be a pretty limited thing, when in battle only basically, they don't just hang out on their backs like you can with horses.
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I didn't know that having your bow and quiver on your hip was the same as having a saddle beneath your arse...
In history there is lots of horse people and what not that fought ferociously on horseback without both saddle and stirrups, so i don't think they would have been that limited to their use of their arms. Β What i mean is that you can ride and steer the horse(or what ever your riding on) by using your thighs, although having a bridle is much better.Β I would actually prefer bridl over stirrups if i had to chose.
My point was that if you would give them riding gear or a "horseman" appearance(the orcs that is) so they would stand out from the crowd of infantry orcs or if they would look like good old orcs.
Well yeah but i guess that they either don't care or thought nobody would bother to care, after all i believe PJ went more on "badass mount" the quite uncomfortable, as you pointed out, Β back of a wolf.
Personally i would have settled with just wolf looking like wolves
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what i mean is that, historically, people who've ridden horses into battle are usually outfitted in ways that would be more effective on the back of a mount than off (like those heavy maximilian armors that end in leather riding boots because the saddle arrangement included built in greaves, or horse archers who wore their arrows belted around their waists) the orcs, i think, should look like they could jump onto and off of a warg with no having to adjust their gear to be riding gear or infantry gear, they should feel more like plains indians (who would often ride bareback and usually wore quivers over their shoulders) compact and utilitarian, more hunters than soldiers, with all their gear pretty closely attached to their bodies. it's a less compartmentalized armed force type of look, and matches the rather more primitive and tribal orcs of the mountains, whose relationship with the wargs is as i've said not so much one of masters and steeds but of hunting partners.
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Ah i see, now i understand the answer better
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So it seems that in your view, there's no such thing as warg-mounted Orc lancers? The wargs are simply used for transportation to the battlefield, but then the orcs dismount to fight? That's sort of similar to the way ancient Britons rode their chariots to war. I imagine that the Rohirrim find the idea of dismounting on the battlefield to be strange and awkward, and simply attribute the practice to the primitive nature of the orcs.Β
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