Ennikan
Member
I was not able to consume the whole Orc Problem thread, so forgive me if this was covered, but it didn't seem to be the topic at hand. This sort of struck me in a recent watch of the movies, but it seems a problem in the book too, unless I am missing something obvious.
Let's assume we have female orcs and they procreate. Somehow Saruman amasses a huge army of orcs - tens of thousands - in what seems like a very short time. I think the movie gives a bit of a false impression here. Here's a good quote from a stack exchange thread:
Saruman had been building his army for possibly up to 30 years prior to Gandalf's capture, it wasn't the case that Gandalf was spectacularly unobservant, Saruman had actually kept this secret by breeding the Uruk-Hai in caverns underneath Isengard and not dispatching them outside of his territory. Saruman not only had the trust of everyone but the lush gardens of Isengard helped provide the perfect camouflage, concealing the army up until Gandalf's visit and imprisonment, it was only after Gandalf's capture that Saruman was open about his activities.
Let's agree it's 30 years. Is that really enough time to birth, train and keep fed and housed (hidden for most of the time) an army that likely exceeded 10,000?
There's always been a confusion in my mind even after 50+ readings (exacerbated by the movies) that Saruman is creating orcs, but also the term breeding is used (which seems to indicate a natural process). Even that there is some cross between human/orc (which I hate to imagine the origin).
The resources it would take to keep a growing army hidden would be massive. But it doesn't seem that he could just whip up such a large army in a short amount of years either - unless he was somehow using "magic" to create them full grown - but I don't see that in the text that I can recall.
Let's assume we have female orcs and they procreate. Somehow Saruman amasses a huge army of orcs - tens of thousands - in what seems like a very short time. I think the movie gives a bit of a false impression here. Here's a good quote from a stack exchange thread:
Saruman had been building his army for possibly up to 30 years prior to Gandalf's capture, it wasn't the case that Gandalf was spectacularly unobservant, Saruman had actually kept this secret by breeding the Uruk-Hai in caverns underneath Isengard and not dispatching them outside of his territory. Saruman not only had the trust of everyone but the lush gardens of Isengard helped provide the perfect camouflage, concealing the army up until Gandalf's visit and imprisonment, it was only after Gandalf's capture that Saruman was open about his activities.
Let's agree it's 30 years. Is that really enough time to birth, train and keep fed and housed (hidden for most of the time) an army that likely exceeded 10,000?
There's always been a confusion in my mind even after 50+ readings (exacerbated by the movies) that Saruman is creating orcs, but also the term breeding is used (which seems to indicate a natural process). Even that there is some cross between human/orc (which I hate to imagine the origin).
The resources it would take to keep a growing army hidden would be massive. But it doesn't seem that he could just whip up such a large army in a short amount of years either - unless he was somehow using "magic" to create them full grown - but I don't see that in the text that I can recall.