Editing Warg (section)

== J. R. R. Tolkien ==
{{further|Tolkien's sentience dilemma}}

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|quote=... and in the middle of the circle was a great grey wolf. He spoke to them in the dreadful language of the Wargs. Gandalf understood it. Bilbo did not, but it sounded terrible to him, and as if all their talk was about cruel and wicked things, as it was. Every now and then all the Wargs in the circle would answer their grey chief all together ...
|source=Tolkien's description of wargs in ''[[The Hobbit]]''<ref name="Frying-pan" group=T/>
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In [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s books about [[Middle-earth]], wargs are a malevolent wolf-like [[race (fantasy)|race]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Evans |first=Jonathan |author-link=Jonathan Evans (scholar) |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=Monsters |encyclopedia=[[J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia|J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment]] |year=2013 |orig-year=2007 |page=433}}</ref> They are usually in league with the [[Orc (Middle-earth)|Orcs]] whom they permit to ride on their backs into battle, sharing any spoils. In ''[[The Hobbit]]'', they can speak: they plan their part in "a great goblin-raid" on the woodmen's villages.<ref name="Frying-pan" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1937}} ch. 6 "Out of the Frying-pan into the Fire"</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Sookoo |first=Lara |editor-last=Drout |editor-first=Michael D. C. |editor-link=Michael D. C. Drout |title=Animals in Tolkien's Works |encyclopedia=[[J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia|J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment]] |year=2013 |orig-year=2007 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0-415-86511-1 |page=20}}</ref>

Tolkien's wargs influenced the ten-year-old [[Rayner Unwin]] to write a positive review of ''The Hobbit'', with the words "Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who lived in his hobbit hole and ''never'' went for adventures, at last Gandalf the wizard and his dwarves persuaded him to go. He had a very ex[c]iting time fighting goblins and wargs." The review led his father, [[Stanley Unwin (publisher)|Stanley Unwin]], to publish the book, still doubting its likely commercial success.<ref name="Moseley2018">{{cite book |last=Moseley |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Moseley (writer) |title=J.R.R. Tolkien |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A0dvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |year=2018 |orig-year=1997 |publisher=[[Liverpool University Press]] |isbn=978-1-78694-682-9 |pages=7–8}}</ref>

[[File:Warg-riders.jpg|thumb|upright=1.7|<!--JACKSON NOT TOLKIEN, so image is NOT SUITABLE FOR LEAD/INFOBOX-->Wargs being used as [[cavalry]] mounts, as depicted in [[Peter Jackson]]'s [[The Two Towers (film)|''The Two Towers'']], battling the [[Riders of Rohan]].<ref name="BogstadKaveny2011" />]]

[[Peter Jackson]]'s film adaptations of Tolkien's ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' extend the role of wargs as mounts for Orcs, battling the horse-[[riders of Rohan]].<ref name="BogstadKaveny2011">{{cite book |last=Bogstad |first=Janice M. |chapter=Concerning Horses: Establishing Cultural Settings from Tolkien to Jackson |editor1-last=Bogstad |editor1-first=Janice M. |editor2-last=Kaveny |editor2-first=Philip E. |title=[[Picturing Tolkien]] |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNjKrXRP0G8C&pg=PA244 |year=2011 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-8473-7 |page=244}}</ref>

The critic Gregory Hartley treats wargs as "personified animals", along with the [[Eagle (Middle-earth)|sentient eagles]], [[Shelob|giant spiders]], [[Smaug]] the dragon, ravens and thrushes. Tolkien writes about their actions using verbs like "[to] plan" and "[to] guard", implying in Hartley's view that the [[Tolkien's monsters|monstrous]] wargs are "more than mere beasts", but he denies that they "possess autonomous wills".<ref name="Hartley 2014">{{cite book |last=Hartley |first=Gregory |chapter=Civilized goblins and Talking Animals: How The Hobbit Created Problems of Sentience for Tolkien |editor=[[Bradford Lee Eden]] |title=The Hobbit and Tolkien's mythology : essays on revisions and influences |publisher=[[McFarland & Company|McFarland]] |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-7864-7960-3 |oclc=889426663 |volume=Part III: Themes |pages=33–34 |url=https://www.academia.edu/32419936}}</ref> T. A. Leederman calls Tolkien's wargs "a species of semi-intelligent but evil-aligned mount wolves ... on whom the orcs rode into battle". He notes that they may have been derived, in the fiction, from [[First Age]] [[Werewolf|werewolves]] like [[Carcharoth]], with their own "proto-language".<ref name="BattisJohnston2015">{{cite book |last=Leederman |first=T. A. |editor1=Jes Battis |editor2=Susan Johnston |chapter=A Thousand Westerosi Plateaus: Wargs, Wolves and Ways of Being |title=Mastering the Game of Thrones: Essays on George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2wgyBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA189 |year=2015 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company|McFarland]] |isbn=978-0-7864-9631-0 |page=190}}</ref>