Our Ogres Are Hungrier

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    Two heads are hungrier than one.


    "After all, ogres appreciate succulent meat as much as the next ten-foot tall killing machine."
    —Warhammer Fantasy Battle: Ogre Kingdoms

    Ogres are a staple of fantasy and fairy tales, and so appear in many forms. Most have the following traits in common:

    The name comes from the French for Hungarian, (who were rumored to eat small children, among other niceties) but the other wiki will disagree and claim descent from the Latin "orcus", meaning hell. Ogres in folklore were portrayed as child-eating monsters who sometimes had magical powers (the ogre from "Puss-in-Boots" is a classic example).

    See also Our Orcs Are Different (their names share the same linguistic root as explained above), Our Giants Are Bigger, All Trolls Are Different, Smash Mook. For the Japanese equivalent (Oni), see Youkai.

    Not to be confused with trolls. Even though they can often be indistinguishable in fairy tales (when English/French tales reached Scandinavia, "ogre" would usually be translated as "troll"), trolls are generally a type of fae rather than a generic evil monster.

    Examples of Our Ogres Are Hungrier include:

    Anime and Manga

    • The Ogres of Berserk are bizarre mashups of human and sperm whale: extremely tall and lanky humans with a massive head with eyes on the front.
    • Digimon has Ogremon! He's a Noble Demon, it turns out. There's also his Palette Swap versions, Fugamon (brown) and Hyogamon (blue, ice-themed.)

    Comic Books

    Fairy Tales

    • Most Fairy Tale ogres are the stupid and brutal kind.
    • In Puss-in-Boots, the ogre is a shape-shifting brute, who owns a large amount of land. In order to get his poor master some land to trick a king into thinking he is royal, the eponymous cat tricks him to turn into a mouse so he can eat him.
    • A notable exception to the typical use of the trope is in the famous Jack and the Beanstalk story, where the giant's wife, who is usually portrayed as nice enough to try to get Jack to leave without harming him, is often described as an ogress.
    • In Sleeping Beauty, the prince's mother is an evil ogress who tries to eat her own grandchildren.
    • In one Arabian Nights story, a prince (whose vizier is actually using an Uriah Gambit on him) encounters an "ogress" who appears at first as a beautiful woman, but then shapeshifts into a monster who tries to feed the prince to her children. The magical powers and ability to deceive seem incongruous for an ogre, but very much in keeping with a ghul, so ogress might just be a translation.

    Film

    • Shrek: The eponymous hero is a green, seven-foot-tall humanoid who is actually well educated and merely wants to be left alone.
    • In the movie Time Bandits, the protagonists are found by an ogre and his wife on the ogre's ship. The ogre is outwitted and left at sea after the protagonists commandeer the ship.
    • The film version of the Spiderwick Chronicles has the ogre Mulgarath. He's actually quite clever and menacing, but is tricked into turning into a bird near an otherwise harmless small creature that loves to eat them.

    Literature

    • Ogres of Xanth. Magic makes them strong, and also makes them rhyme. They were originally portrayed as stupid brutes, but this was later shown to vary with the individual (and several fake it for cultural reasons).
    • In the Spiderwick Chronicles (the fifth book), Mulgarath, the primary antagonist, is an evil ogre who wants to enslave the world, ridding it of all humans.
      • Mulgarath actually dosn't fit into any of the archetypes listed above. He's very smart, very cunning, and knows when to change forms, even if the new form is weaker. A better fit to the above archetype are the trolls, who are supposedly afflicted with never ending hunger.
        • Mulgarath does fit some of those tropes. He certainly is the largest faerie in the first series, and that "oven big enough to roast Jared in" probably isn't used for making pizzas....
    • In Tamora Pierce's books that revolve around the Tortall Universe, there are two kinds of ogres: peaceful farmers and warlike monsters. Both types are extremely tall and often seem menacing. In her book Wolf-Speaker, the peaceful "breed" are slaves who mine black opals.
    • Master vampires in Nancy A. Collins's Sonja Blue Trilogy often employ ogres, both as dumb muscle and as walking garbage disposals, consuming drained corpses when the master doesn't want to add to his/her brood. In reference to their Western Fairy Tale origins, they have a tendency to be child molesters.
    • Ogres and ogre/human hybrids are fairly common in the Garrett P.I. series, appearing repeatedly as Mooks for the villains, and taking a major role in Bitter Gold Hearts.

    Live Action Television

    • In the British science-fiction series Doctor Who, aliens called Ogri, which resemble large rocks and feed on blood appear in The Stones of Blood. The Doctor suggests that Gog, Magog, and Ogre could derive from this.
      • Also in Doctor Who, the evil Daleks use a race of large, unintelligent humanoid brutes called Ogrons as warrior-slaves. The Ogrons are featured in the stories "Day of the Daleks", "Frontier in Space", and very briefly in "Carnival of Monsters".
    • Special Unit 2 featured Jack the Ripper as an ogre who was compelled to devour humans. He tried to limit himself to hookers and prostitutes and developed a serum to control his instincts, but was losing control when SU2 tracked down and killed him.

    Tabletop RPG

    • Ubiquitous in Dungeons & Dragons.
      • Ogres have simple minds, ugly tempers, and voracious appetites. They are at least 9 feet tall, and depending on the edition, their body parts were a rainbow of disgusting colors (in 3E, they were mostly orange-yellow; in 4E, pink-gray). They wear skins and furs and keep captured prisoners as slaves (and/or snacks). They're not very bright and are often the first Really Heavy Hitter enemy PCs come across. Ogres (as well as trolls) traditionally worship the evil god Vaprak.
      • Ogre magi are similar to ogres, except that they are much cleverer (more intelligent than most humans), have magical powers, unnaturally-colored skin (red and blue being the most common), horns, and Japanese-style attire. An ogre mage is often found leading an ogre tribe. In 4E and Pathfinder, they're actually oni, spirit creatures that merely resemble ogres (and may still associate with them). According to the 3E article "Ecology of the Ogre Mage" in Dragon magazine #349, ogre magi are descended from one of the demigod sons of Vaprak.
      • In Forgotten Realms, the origin story of the ogres is that they are the cursed progeny of the giant goddess Othea, who was raped by Vaprak.
      • Ogres in Al-Qadim mostly are peaceful and productive members of Enlightened society like most other creatures. Ogres are clannish, some more brutish than others, and some more fashionable; they take variety of occupations, up to and including an occasional barber, though most prefer to exploit their advantages as porters or warriors. The Caliph's palace guard is made up entirely of ogres. However, savage ogre tribes are very common in the wild southern islands. There are also ogre magi (whom common ogres dislike) and related ogre giants with elephant ears and often cyclopean single eye - mostly savage and brutish, but some joined the Enlightened society or even became missionaries to their own kind.
      • The ogres of Pathfinder are basically giant hillbilly rapists.
      • Ogres are a very common race in Dragonlance and are even more inclined toward evil than goblins. They're an offshoot of the beautiful, human-shaped irda race, whose civilization descended into depravity ages ago and most of whom were cursed by the gods. The ogre race actually includes not just common ogres and irda, but also ogre magi, hags, and giants. After the Summer of Chaos, some savage ogres underwent magic rituals to transform themselves into the massive, beautiful, and wholly evil titans.
      • Merrows are an aquatic offshoot of ogres. They breathe underwater, have scaly blue skin, and use spears instead of clubs, but are otherwise similar to normal ogres. (Note that in real-world Irish folklore, merrows were actually a kind of (generally good-natured) merfolk.
      • Ogrun in the Iron Kingdoms setting are more like Blizzard-style orcs, being a shamanist Proud Warrior Race Guy PC race. Being a people who hold loyalty and service as the highest ideal, their sworn lord's alignment probably shapes much of their own behaviour.
    • Warhammer Fantasy Battle Ogres have a society influenced by the Mongols, and wield a strange form of Gut Magic, which depends on what the caster ate. They literally worship the concept of hunger and practice rampant cannibalism, eating both other sentient races and their own kind; a Klingon Promotion generally entails the usurper devouring its predecessor. Some are captured by the Skaven to be turned into Rat Ogres.
    • In Warhammer 40,000, Ogryns are big, stupid mutant humans that live in stone-aged tribal societies. They look like Warhammer Fantasy Ogres, but are rather friendly by 40K standards: They're basically large, mischievous children who like clubbing things and having cleverer people tell them what to club. They are also capable of acting civilized (even if most don't).
      • Specifically they become mostly capable of acting civilized after being upgraded to merely stupid with neural implants.
    • Hungarian tabletop RPG/book series "World of Chaos" (like Tolkien except all the elves and dwarves are missing -imagine a WoW where the Horde has won - with the half-orc Skandar Graun acting as the main protagonist). Ogres are a major race and are given even more mutations (extra horns, heads, limbs etc.) to pick from.
    • RuneQuest ogres look like attractive human beings, but have a genetic predisposition to anthropophagy. They deliberately spread disinformation to the effect that all ogres are hideously deformed and unsanitary.
    • The Ogres of GURPS: Banestorm are among the Elder Folk of Yrth but by far the least advanced of everyone, even the orcs are cultured and intelligent compared to them. Their only saving grace is that they're stronger and tougher than every other species.
    • In Changeling: The Lost Ogres are those abductees who were warped by abusive behaviour into tough, violent and large monsters, often with a penchant for human flesh. Their stereotypical view of humans is "You're beautiful. On the other hand, you taste like chicken." Overlaps with All Trolls Are Different, as some trolls are water-themed ogres.
      • In the older Changeling: The Dreaming, "ogre" was often used to refer to Unseelie Trolls, but Ogres proper were a separate race of fae associated exclusively with the Unseelie Court. They're typically extremely strong and resilient, but dumber than lobotomized rocks.
    • Ogres are a staple creature type for red and black in Magic: The Gathering. Those that have special abilities tend to be able to harm their controller or other friendly creatures.
    • Ogres in Shadowrun are a variant of Orc who are actually rather short. Also hairless, with protruding jaws.

    Video Games

    • Warcraft's ogres are large, dim-witted humanoids that either attack with a club or their fists. In the first game, they were a random neutral threat, but the second one promoted them to underlings of The Horde. WC2 also presented the ogre-magi (inspired by Dungeons & Dragons Ogre Magi, which in turn are based on Japanese oni), which were even turned blue-skinned in the second sequel. Notably, the two-headed variants are freaks of nature magically created by an orc warlock to boost their intelligence.
      • Also, in a small subversion, in World of Warcraft there's a quest where you run into a two-headed ogre who's quite intelligent, and heckles you for thinking all Ogres speak in a You No Take Candle fashion.
      • Actually, one Alliance questgiver advised the player to never consider them to be the idiots that they appear to be, because that's when they usually strike.
    • Arcanum has playable half-ogres, and one subplot involves finding a half-ogre birthing factory, which then turns out to be fake.
    • Dragon Age ogres are a type of darkspawn created from qunari. They have horns and look like wingless demons but are otherwise typical examples of The Ogre.
    • Final Fantasy X had an Ogre as the first in a series of hairy muscular humanoids that use physical attacks and counters.
    • In EverQuest, ogres are large, muscular, stupid humanoids who not speak too good. The stupidity came about as a result of being cursed by the Gods of good. In EverQuest 2, the Gods had all left, and one of the effects was that the ogre's curse was lifted, turning them into a race of Genius Bruisers.
    • Enemy ogres in Dungeon Crawl are Glass Cannons who can't take damage quite as well as they can deal it due to lack of armor, and playable ogres are much the same. Of note, however, is that ogres make surprisingly good mages; an ogre mage is a fearsome foe, and a legitimate character build in the Magic Knight vein.
    • The Super Mutants seem to fill this role in the post-apocalyptic setting of Fallout 3. Super mutants from the other games are more akin to "Blizzard" orcs than ogres.
    • Ogres have appeared in many of the Heroes of Might and Magic games.
      • HoMM2's ogres were mid-tier (4 of 7) big, fairly slow moving axe-wielders with a lot of hitpoints for their level. They upgraded into tougher and faster "ogre lords", and were aligned with the barbarians.
      • HoMM3's ogres were also tier 4 of 7 big, strong humanoids, although they used clubs. They upgraded to ogre mages, who wore vaguely oriental armor and exchanged their clubs for totem staffs. Again aligned with the barbarians.
      • HoMM4 units didn't upgrade. The The Ogre Magi appear as the Tier3 monsters for the Might faction, as an alternetive to the Cyclops. Interestingly, they bear some resemblence to elderly Native American shamans.
    • In the Guild Wars universe there are two definitions of Ogres. In the first game, Ogre acts as a classification for large humanoids that do not qualify as a giants; this covered Jottuns, Ettins, and Yetis. In the second game, a race identified as Ogres have invaded the Blazeridge Mountains. Their culture revolves around beasts and all members of their society tame beasts for use in battle.
    • The Oni in Touhou are somewhere between this and Orcs, with a heavy dose of Blood Knight. They would challenge everyone that will accept their challenge, usually of drinking and fighting (or drunken-fighting, natch). Too bad modern people refuse to acknowledge the existence of the supernaturals, so they retreated underground since they don't have anything fun to do with humans anymore.
    • RuneScape ogres are large dim-witted humanoids. They have a fairly human, yellowish skin colour and prominent bellies. They speak in a primitive manner. Some are aggressive, but most are not, and are in fact capable of holding a city with merchants. They also have something like a dozen varieties - actually green-skinned jungle ogres (Jogres), blue-skinned amphibious marine ogres (Mogres) and so on, even having zombie and skeletal varieties, aptly named. The now nearly extinct species known as Ourg, even larger than actual giants and more intelligent, might be a relative. Ogres also form a gender-separated society, with the ogresses living further south in an Australia-themed land.
    • Puzzle Quest has the hungriest ogre of all, Drong. He has a series of side quests, all revolving around getting him different things to eat. Things such as poisonous spiders, another ogre, diamonds and LAVA and the body of a slain god.
    • In Dwarf Fortress, ogres are huge, powerful brutes that live in certain evil plains. They're highly aggressive, very powerful and tough, and will path to any building laying outside, wreck them, then proceed to find their way to the inside of the fortress. If you see a pack of ogres at the very beginning, you're better off restarting the game. Goblins sometimes bring them in sieges.

    Webcomics

    • Ogres show up several times in Order of the Stick, usually as incredibly dim-witted cavemen stereotypes complete with animal skin clothing and clubs.

    Western Animation

    • In Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears, there is an army of villainous ogres residing in Castle Drekmore and led by Duke Igthorn, who attempt to conquer King Gregor and Dunwyn Castle. They are almost all hulking morons, with the exception of Igthorn's majordomo Toadwart (who is as tall as a human child and of average intelligence) and Toadwart's cousin Tadpole (who is a genius—and shorter still).
    • In The Smurfs animated series, an ogre named Bigmouth occasionally befriended the title characters while making life for the evil wizard Gargamel difficult.
    • Family Guy had that episode where a salesman tries to sell beach front property terrorized by an ogre.
    • There was an episode of Ren and Stimpy about an ogre and a new pair of sneakers.
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