Trollocs

[Mrjon3s]

When you first read about trollocs what did you think they were? I myself thought they were like half troll half orc looking guys. Not beastmen.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

um, aren't orcs kinda half beast men too?

 

i saw them as orcs.

[yoniy0]

I'm not sure I follow. When you say "orcs" or "trolls", what exactly are you referring to? I haven't seen one in the real-world for quite some time now

[Tiinker]

Minotaur looking things

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I'm not sure I follow. When you say "orcs" or "trolls", what exactly are you referring to? I haven't seen one in the real-world for quite some time now

 

we're referring to the homage RJ made to LoTR, especially in EotW.

 

them trollocs were orcses.

[yoniy0]

Ah, so are we talking the movie adaptation?

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

we are talking, i think, about both. at least i am. all melted together in my head. and unlike HCFFs of LotR, i think jackson did a splendid adaptation, which, while different in many ways from the books, made great movies. cause otherwise, what's the point of making movies?

 

i do seem to recall reading about the different shapes of the helmets of the orcs over their different animalian faces, but again, melty.

[Sleeper]

Minotaur looking things

Yep, what he said.

[Orderofolde]

Sort of like minotaurs, legs like satyrs with goat hooves, horned or grotesque eagle's beaks and some tufts of feathers in with the fur, black of course. A blend of that and the Anubis Army creatures in The Mummy but muscled better. They can after all run down a horse over short distances.

[konkoivu]

Thanks to quite bad translation I thought that 'that's a lame name for the bad guys'. Come to think of it IIRC trolloc was the only "fictional" word that was translated to fit the local language.

 

As the visuals go i thought something like the movie Company of the Wolves or later lycans in Underworld obviosly addding different animal traits.

[enak101]

 

That is fan art of the battle at manatheren. This looks too human for me. I assumed mostly fur or feathers and just a little bit of human shape. More like an animal in the shape of a human.

[Din]

I pictured them as they are described in the books.

[hjustinpace]

we are talking, i think, about both. at least i am. all melted together in my head. and unlike HCFFs of LotR, i think jackson did a splendid adaptation, which, while different in many ways from the books, made great movies. cause otherwise, what's the point of making movies?

 

i do seem to recall reading about the different shapes of the helmets of the orcs over their different animalian faces, but again, melty.

 

The orcs in the books were very human-like.

 

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I too pictured the Trollocs as minotaur-esque.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

tolkien orcs were origionally supposed to have been descended from elves, corrupted by torture. but tolkien changed this around quite a bit from the early goblin days in the hobbit, and continued to change his concepts after he finished the LotR.

 

"Yet another of Tolkien's theories proposes that Orcs may have begun as animals of vaguely humanoid shapes, empowered by the will of the Dark Lord (first Morgoth, later Sauron): The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (…). ('Morgoth's Ring', "Myths transformed", text VIII') "

 

(see, this is why i should have kept the paper books even after i got the audio ones, cause the internet is useless. d'oh).

 

from what i recall, and can glean from not very good websites, the orcs were of various races, and were described as grey/black and/or sallow, gnarled, leathery skinned, bow legged, slouching, slumping, creeping, crawling things, who were foot soldiers of the dark. i'll have to listen again, and by then, this thread will be a year old.

 

and trollocs really strike me as the orcs of the WOT, as fades are the ring-wraiths, and so on. maybe they don't look exactly the same, but they are similar in many ways.

 

just imo.

 

funny thing, for books so heavy with description, i actually have difficulty picturing anybody or anything from the text.

[Fbombs]

I like to picture all Trollocs as having a wide expanse of pale bosom.

[enak101]

Haha nice one.

[Roxinos]

That is fan art of the battle at manatheren. This looks too human for me. I assumed mostly fur or feathers and just a little bit of human shape. More like an animal in the shape of a human.

 

Why do you picture that? Most descriptions of them make it seem that they look too human. If they were mostly beast with hints of human, don't you think they would be described as such instead of described as large human figures with aspects of animal thrown in like the snout of a wolf or the hooves of a goat?

[enak101]

Yeah, I suppose hah. Do you picture them closer to that pic?

[Chivalry]

I initially had a diffucult time imagining Trollocs, especially because of the bizarre variation in facial/head features. I thought of them as somewhat Troll-like, in part because the word "Troll" is right there in the name, and because they're taller than humans. They're the foot soldiers of the DO, so I suppose that puts them on par with Orcs, though they're clearly larger and more powerful than Orcs in comparison to humans. They seemed much more frightening in the first several novels, when they went around collecting people for their cooking pots. Now they're basically fodder for good guys wielding the Power.

 

That's one thing I miss from the first books - the sense of anticipation, the palpable fear whenever one of the Dark One's minions entered the scene. Remember how scary the Fades seemed, so quick, so sinister, far too deadly for the average person? Now these guys are just an afterthought...they don't win any battles, they never land a blow at one of the young heroes.

 

The Forsaken seemed impossibly powerful, thousands of years old, an ancient evil unleashed on an unprepared world. They really creeped me out when they made their first appearance at the Eye of the World, before their all-too-human failings and insecurities were relieved to us.

[enak101]

I know what you mean. First time reading EOTW and there were 2 of the forsaken. I thought they were dead for sure. Especially when moiraine held one back for only a few seconds.

Smart move by Jordan though lol, anything can be explained because the pattern chose and ta'veran. In a normal story some of the stuff that happens would be like THAT IS OUTRAGEOUS.

[Tynaal Consen]

I also had a pretty difficult time imagining them and at first just imagined them to be kinda like Minotaurs, but just humans with hooves and horns. Although considering that I was 14 when I started reading the series, I'm pretty sure I didn't want to imagine what they really looked like.

[aclund3]

My image of Trollocs was based upon the Hork-Bajir (aliens from the young adolescent series the Animorphs) with more human/animal features as previously stated by other posts. Large muscled alienish/dinosaurish/beastish things that stand on two legs. Pretty simple, and pretty scary since I started reading tEotW when I was something like 12. I always thought that the image of trollocs was pretty straightforward. I won't get into how the Hork-Bajir are actually more like Ogier in temperament unless someone else has a burning desire ;)

[mb]

Not sure whether I had an image of what the creatures looked like.

 

The Guide's picture seems accurate.

[Shaidar]

As described in the books.

 

Man-shaped things, half as tall again as tall men, very heavily muscled, hooves or boots, animal faces with human-like eyes, with black spiked armors.

 

I always had (and have) a hard time imagining the supposed abilities of even the best blademasters to mow them down in droves. Realistically speaking, they are so fast and heavy that no man would have a much of a chance against them even one on one.

[Stubob]

I like to picture all Trollocs as having a wide expanse of pale bosom.

 

New meaning to bumping uglies?

 

To answer the question, I thought of them kind like a larger version of the Pig Men from Return Of The Jedi. Now I see them as more animalostic versions of the Orcs from WoW.