What Is ‘Orc City’? The Orc Meme, Explained

You might have seen the phrase “Orc City” floating around the internet, along with satirical commentary of orcs and elves—but where did the meme come from?

The ‘Orc City’ Meme, Explained

It all started on X (Twitter), after indie fantasy author John A. Douglas mocked legendary video game director Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding.

Douglas criticized Kojima’s MGS2 villain, “Fat Man,” writing:

“Whenever someone glazes Hideo Kojima, remember he once made a boss character that’s a larda** in a bomb disposal suit riding around on rollerblades and sipping wine from a wine glass with a straw.”

Kojima fans quickly bit back, poking fun at the opening paragraphs of Douglas’ book, which contains overused fantasy tropes.

In the introduction to his self-published novel, The Black Crown, Douglas describes the destruction of “Orc city,” and the end to the “Orc Wars,” writing:

“The Orc city smoldered, burned down in the wake of battle. The ground soaked in a knuckle’s depth of blood and ash. The savage cries of its defenders now silent and still as its ruin was overseen by the architects of its very destruction. The Orc Wars were finally over. ‘There is nothing more reviled than the Orc,’ said the elvish king.”

Douglas’ book is a fairly typical example of the kind of writing inspired by decades of Dungeons & Dragons, along with the load-bearing pillar of the fantasy genre, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

What began as a snarky response quickly snowballed into a meme, as commentators focused on their favorite lines from the book.

While many viewed Douglas’ writing as amusingly derivative, his prose sparked something of a creative writing exercise across social media, as X users started inserting Orc City references into jokes and memes.

Some writers commented on the backlash to Douglas, recognizing it as every fantasy author’s worst nightmare.

In Douglas’ defense, at least he took the time to write and publish his own words. In an era where fantasy authors have been caught copy-pasting AI-generated slurry into their novels, Douglas appears to have written his fantasy novel himself.

Douglas’ words might be on-the-nose, but they at least have a human fingerprint.

While we’re on the subject of stale fantasy tropes, why is it always orcs and elves?

Why Are Orcs So Popular In Fantasy Fiction?

Common fantasy races such as trolls, dwarfs, elves and ogres were originally inspired by the folktales of Europe (and are usually far removed from their original forms), but orcs are an original creation from Tolkien.

Tolkien created orcs as a barbaric “other,” a race of hostile, irredeemable savages that the noble warriors of his books could kill without remorse.

In contrast, Tolkien imagined elves as elegant and refined, while humans had the capacity to be as barbaric as orcs, or as noble as elves.

This framing of the three races proved incredibly influential in fantasy fiction, with Tolkien’s work providing a solid foundation for many, many stories to come.

Of course, writers have experimented with the irredeemable nature of the orcs, and many created sympathetic and heroic orc characters (in fact, even Douglas’ much-mocked novel features an unlikely orcish hero).

Ironically, Tolkien struggled with his own conception of orcs, having originally intended for them to be so uncivilized as to lack the capacity for thought and speech.

However, Tolkien couldn’t help injecting his orcs with personalities and opinions in The Lord of the Rings, and later agonized over their origin story.

Tolkien never wanted to give his evil characters the ability to create life, due to his own personal religious beliefs. Hence, Tolkien could never quite settle on an official origin for his orcs, and considered that they might be twisted hybrids of humans and elves, but couldn’t fully commit to the idea.

Tolkien died before he could decide on a canonical origin for his orcs, and left many questions unanswered, sparking many debates which still linger today.

Perhaps this uncertainty is what makes the orcs so compelling, and explains why they have endured in fantasy fiction, whether it’s in Orc City, or elsewhere.

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