orc longevity

[Glorelendil]

Funny, this whole thread surprised me. Somehow I've always thought of orcs as having relatively short lifespans. Maybe 40 years (which is "old" for primitive societies). But maturing much faster.

Absolutely zero textual evidence to support that, but it feels right.

It does make me wonder about the famous Shagrat "old times" quote. But that could easily have been a reference to only 5 or 10 years previous.

[Otaku-sempai]

Funny, this whole thread surprised me. Somehow I've always thought of orcs as having relatively short lifespans. Maybe 40 years (which is "old" for primitive societies). But maturing much faster.

There is a difference between lifespan and life expectancy. As an Orc, your life expectancy might be 40 years because of the likelihood of death by violence. However, if you survive to a position of leadership you might live many years past that.

Even within those primitive human societies, the low life expectancy was driven largely by childhood mortality rates and death by disease, accident or the complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Survive all of that and a person might still live into his/her seventies or beyond.

[Elmoth]

The whole "mated with beasts" thing makes me go "Ewww..." (and wonder what sort of nasty monstrosities could be fit to that concept).

That "eeeewwww" reaction is probably the effect Tolkien was after As for the second question, werewolves and melwips (frogmen?) spring to mind

[Glorelendil]

Funny, this whole thread surprised me. Somehow I've always thought of orcs as having relatively short lifespans. Maybe 40 years (which is "old" for primitive societies). But maturing much faster.

There is a difference between lifespan and life expectancy. As an Orc, your life expectancy might be 40 years because of the likelihood of death by violence. However, if you survive to a position of leadership you might live many years past that.

Even within those primitive human societies, the low life expectancy was driven largely by childhood mortality rates and death by disease, accident or the complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Survive all of that and a person might still live into his/her seventies or beyond.

If we are talking life expectancy then much shorter, of course.

And I could see the occasional Orc living to 70. But I wouldn't think of it as a culture that respects the old.

[Otaku-sempai]

And I could see the occasional Orc living to 70. But I wouldn't think of it as a culture that respects the old.

But would 70 years be old? We know that Bolg, at minimum, lived to be over twice that. And for all we know he might have lived for many more decades if the Orcs had won the Battle of Five Armies.

It is an interesting notion, though, that different sub-species of Orc might have had vastly different natural lifespans.

[Glorelendil]

Oh, I missed your post earlier about Bolg's age. Guess they live a lot longer than I would have thought.

I just think of orcs as breeding rapidly, and there's usually an inverse relationship between breeding and longevity. Then again Orcs aren't exactly "natural". Or (to raise the earlier point) maybe their reproduction rate is tuned to their propensity for violent, premature deaths, not their natural longevity.

[Arthadan]

There were some lesser evil Maiar incarnated as Orcs. I guess the bigger, more clever and long lived Orcs kings such Bolg could have traces of Maiar blood.

[Er-Murazor]

That "eeeewwww" reaction is probably the effect Tolkien was after As for the second question, werewolves and melwips (frogmen?) spring to mind

Well, werewolves weren't humanoid...they were evil spirits in Wolf form (and their offspring, presumably). Given Tolkien's thoughts on The Houseless (Elves who died in Middle-Earth and refused the summons of Mandos) and their being the likeliest explanation for the Barrow-Wights, its possible some Werewolves were also in fact Houseless that were given a new body to possess. One can imagine that an already corrupt Elf spirit inhabits a body that is wracked in pain just from its very existence would drive the spirit great lengths of malice to sate its own misery.....

[aramis]

Funny, this whole thread surprised me. Somehow I've always thought of orcs as having relatively short lifespans. Maybe 40 years (which is "old" for primitive societies). But maturing much faster.

Absolutely zero textual evidence to support that, but it feels right.

It does make me wonder about the famous Shagrat "old times" quote. But that could easily have been a reference to only 5 or 10 years previous.

In most hunter-gatherer societies, of those who survive the coming of age ordeals can expect two-score and ten. (50)
And a large chunk of those who make it to 40 will make it to 60+...

As mentioned before, the average lifespan is skewed heavily by infant and childhood mortality. But it's also severely gender biased, too - Childbirth is a major stressor. And that's more than just trauma from birth - it puts major strains on the bones due to the foetal and infantile need for calcium, as well as the added weight carried during the same periods. It's also an iron depletion during gestation, and a caloric drain both during gestation and nursing.

What I've read is that most aboriginal societies tended to do better than medieval, and we can document typical lifespans of the medieval upper class into the 60's, and routinely into the 50's, barring violence.

So, even if no better than men, 40's still a bit short.

http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expec ... ddle-ages/

[Glorelendil]

Boy, I hope we don't have to start tracking calcium and iron deficiencies in Orc infants among the various tribes.

Anyway, I thought Bolg's longevity proves there's zero correlation between real-world human and imaginary-world Orc lifespans.