Are there female Orcs in ‘The Lord of the Rings?’

The introduction of orc families and orc babies in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has kindled a heated debate on social media about how these servants of the Enemy go about their day-to-day when they’re not busy raiding, murdering, and pillaging in the lands of the Free Peoples — though not many are exactly thrilled to be having that conversation after years of brushing them aside as little more than expendable mobs.

In fantasy literature, we tend to refer to races like orcs as cannon fodder, there to be eliminated in feats of heroics by our protagonists and the army of the so-called good guys. Now whether they’re called orcs, or things like “darkspawn,” the general rule of thumb is that it’s okay to kill these folks in their droves without feeling too self-conscious or guilty about the whole ordeal.

At the same time, a lot of people have, over the years, raised the question of whether these living creatures have societies of their own. Fortunately, we have J.R.R. Tolkien’s own input on this particular lore issue to give us an idea.

Are there orc women and orc babies in The Lord of the Rings?

According to The Silmarillion and other official sources like The History of Middle-earth books, the first orcs were elves corrupted by Morgoth and twisted into wretched creatures that did his bidding. And while Morgoth spent much of his power creating these abominations, he didn’t expend himself ad infinitum. At some point, the natural process of procreation took over, and orcs began to multiply in much the same way as the rest of Middle-earth’s inhabitants.

In fact, Tolkien himself confirms that there are orc women in a letter to a Mrs. Munby in 1963:

“There must have been orc-women. But in stories that seldom if ever see the Orcs except as soldiers of armies in the service of the evil lords. We naturally would not learn much about their lives. Not much was known.”

Technically, we don’t see much of the orcs in the books or the movies, and the rare close-up glimpses we get are hindered by choreographed action and elaborate armor. So, in all likelihood, the Captains of the West may have killed, without even recognizing it, a few orc women in those endless ranks of soldiers that came out of the land of Shadow.

That knowledge might make things a little less palatable for some fans, but to give our good guys some credit, they’ve never actively gone into the East hunting the orcs, their efforts having mostly been a matter of defense against Sauron and his minions’ onslaught, as opposed to a deep-seated racial prejudice. By the time The Lord of the Rings ends, many of the orcs had been slain or driven to the unknown corners of the world, but King Aragorn was more than willing to let them be, provided that they never ventured into the realms of the Free Peoples again.