So are Orcs and Goblins the same in Tolkien's universe? Because I'm used to thinking of them as pretty different.

@ThatDamnCat Different how? The Wiki I'm looking at says they aren't differentiated. It's been a long time since I read The Hobbit though and I never read any of the other books, so I don't remember.

@Sparrow

I suppose I'm thinking about more modern interpretations.

I read all the books and they're the same there because he changed the language, so there was no orc/goblin difference (never see them in the same room together trope) but in modern adaptations they are differentiated.

@ThatDamnCat Yeah that makes sense.

I just ask because I got bored and decided to watch the second Hobbit movie (newish one, not animated) tonight. I saw the first one in theaters and never got around to seeing the other two.

Anyway, the orcs in *this adaptation* are flanked by smaller, more variant-looking creatures and I wondered if they were goblins so looked it up.

Knowing me, I'm going to spend the rest of the night reading up on lore.

@Sparrow @ThatDamnCat In Tolkien's Universe, "goblins" in The Hobbit = "orcs" LoTR.

There's a key line in Jackson's LoRT where someone (Gandalf?) says that Saruman bred "Orcs w/ Goblins" to make his Uruk Hai. However, in the books, the line is "Orcs & Men." So Jackson seems to have decided that in his universe these are different creatures.

Still, in Tolkien's LoTR, Orcs vary widely in size & shape, because they are sub-species bred for different purposes (tunneling, war, labor, for example).

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@ThatDamnCat @Sparrow (To get down to 500 chars I cut all my "iirc" and "pretty sure" etc, so the post might look very assertive and terse! Sorry if so!)

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