You’re a few days late with this one, as it might make it easier for those fixated on the “mor” = “evil” issue to fulfill the Talmudic directive to drink on Purim to the point of not knowing the difference between “cursed is Haman” and “blessed is Mordechai.”
1 Like
Here in Chile we have: The Sinister Dr. Mortiz, and his many aliases: Manuel Ortiz, T.S. Mori, Ross-Mithor, etc. And his liar Castle Morgenthiss. The story started as radio theater durting the 1940s created by Juan Marino.
1 Like
In The Count of Monte Cristo: Count de Morcerf
(However, in the same story, more good guys have mor in their name: Viscount Albert de Morcerf, Lord Wilmore, Pierre and Maximilien Morrel.)
2 Likes
Just to really confuse things, “Mor” in Scandinavian languages means “Mother”.
2 Likes
Vladimor Putin
4 Likes
Now, see, I’d always thought the ultimate villain-name syllable was “oth”.
Lovecraft alone gave us Azathoth, Shoggoths, the Fungi from Yuggoth, Ghatanothoa, and Yog-Sothoth (double points!). And then we’ve got Carcharoth, Lord Soth…I know there’s a bunch more, but I can’t find my list.
2 Likes
Yeah… It’s mostly just folks being influenced by other folks.
There was a huge thing some years back about never creating a fantasy character with a name that starts with the letter combination “el” because of how common, or the overuse of “red hair and green eyes” for female leads in the same genre.
1 Like
Tumor.
3 Likes
I was going to mention the name Mordecai. Jews have been demonized for a long time, and this is one jewish name that really sounds evil. I suspect it’s mostly cultural conditioning, though.
Also, here in French-speaking Québec, Mordecai Richler (the writer) was particularly demonized (partly for being a militant English-speaker, and partly because he clearly liked to provoke, anyway.)
1 Like
Mordred is probably the prototype for this (well, is it a) meme (?) - accredited to Geoffrey of Monmouth (around 12th C.,) though Arthurian tales date back further to ancient Welsh bardic tradition, so Mor in baddies’ names may well precede the “Dark Ages”. Mordred and Morgane Le Fey etc. Certainly predating Tolkein. I think the fact ‘mort’ means what it does plays a big part in its continued appearance. Great spot though by the poster.
Mordor isn’t a baddy but it is a bad place.
A lot of people in this thread seem to be making reference to fiction when quoting stuff as if it is from fantasy writers’ minds, when it is actually from real folklore, especially Irish and Welsh Gaelic.
The vocalization of the syllable itself if emphasized stentorially has a ‘doomy’ quality, as echoed, for instance, in Poe’s The Raven: “Thus quoth the raven, Nevermore!”. Where every stanza ends in a “more”.
Count Orlok (Nosferatu) has that same vowel sound, obviously the m is missing but there is the same sound.
2 Likes
Which brings us to Morgoth Bauglir and right back to Tolkein again …
2 Likes
Just to make my son laugh, I invented the name Morgoth off the top of my head. Imagine my surprise to learn Tolkein did, too. Except his head, not mine.
1 Like
The Latin word for death is mors, so it would seem a natural, but not terribly creative, use of a Latin Root
Interestingly Tolkien didn’t just use ‘mor’. It seems to me that the ‘gl’ group mentioned in the article is also represented pretty strongly. E.g. gil/star, galad/radiance, glor-/golden, aglar/glory, agla-/glittering… (I apologize for not looking up the proper base forms.) Those are found in many different terms, mostly names: Elven King Gil-Galad, Galadriel, Elbereth Gilthoniel the Starkindler, Glorfindel, the glittering caves of Aglarond and many others.
1 Like
People my age growing up in England always had the Moors Murders at the back of our minds, which doesn’t help that syllable escape its sinister sound. I thought that J K Rowling must have been unconsciously thinking of it when she came up with the most sinister spell of all - Morsmordre.
Mind you, my first though on reading this was to whip out my copy of Amazing Stories, June 1947, to see what the Shaver Alphabet might have to say about “mor”.
M=man
O=orifice or source
R=horror, a symbol of a dangerous quantity of “dis” (disintegrating) force in the object.
So we could say that mor symbolizes man as a source of horror or decay.
Once again, the Shaver Alphabet gets it right!
1 Like
Personally speaking I think this is a terrible tradition.
~R Scott LaMorte
1 Like
I haven’t seen a lot of good guys named “Shifty”, or “Knuckles”.
1 Like
