Was reading through r/warcraftlore recently.
I’ll start by saying, i understand it can be fun or even interesting to discuss things in lore in a cheeky way. but too much of lore discussions there seem to be discussion lore implications of stylistic choices and it really annoyed me.
For example, I was reading a thread that a majority of users seemed to collectively agree that humans in warcraft were in fact, “Super humans” and they cited this not because of feats of strength by heroic lore characters or a large group… They simply agreed that WoW humans aren’t like earth humans at all and are in fact super beings more akin to warhammer 40k because… The in game character model for all the humans in 6ft tall and bipecs as big as their head…
it wasn’t even in a cheeky way, I don’t agree with this at all, it’s attempting to explain lore using in game assists that an artist drew up over 20 years ago to look cool.
The thread was simply about how Humans are able to take on orcs and trolls and tauren a being much larger than them. Instead of logical reasoning like “Humans are cunning, they can learn tactics to out smart bigger targets” ect it was simply “Humans are just as powerful as orcs because the PC can complete amazing feats of strength like duel wielding 2 handed swords and they have biceps are big as their head!”
What’s next? “what’s the lore behind every race only has 10 faces?”
“Whats the lore behind why it takes 56 shadowbolts to kill someone”
I mean, if it’s in a joking manner tongue and cheek jokingly adding gameplay mechanics to lore sure.
I get that lore is not serious but it’s just odd to me that people collectively decide to blur the line of immersive world building and video game logic. You can’t simply say “well it’s a video game that’s why Orcs and humans can fight 1 on 1 and just take jabs at each other with weapons as big as them like it’s a Rocky 2 fight”
Nope it’s “This is literally happening in the world and the proof is because the in game model is built and all other humans have the same body type so it’s canon.”
/rant
If we’re thinking of the same thread, its less that they’re looking at the style of humans, and more that a lot of that sub is just factionbrain posting. Lack of moderation (even compared to here) and the reddit voting system juices that.
Humans needing to rely on tactics/gear/numbers to fight orcs would imply they’re worse at something than the horde, and that won’t do. Hence the posts about garden variety humans being Conan the Barbarian with ninja training to explain why they’re better than orcs/tauren in basic level melee.
Which honestly does them more a disservice because if they’re as good as/better than the orcs at their main gimmick, how did they need a deus ex machina to win WC2?. It implies sheer imcompetence.
I’m reminded of that one Pandaria short story that has a human fighting a Tauren on even ground, 1-on-1.
My personal take is that while a human could be the equal to an orc, it requires significant investment in resources to achieve.
For starters, equipment. Then there’s training. Diets of food specialized for strength/endurance.
Now, all of that requires a massive civilian support base. You need farmers to provide the food, miners to get the ore, blacksmiths to forge armor and weapons, etc…
So, for every 1 human capable of standing on equal ground with an Orc, there are a dozen or more making that possible for them.
Comparatively, Orcs can be far more independent. They have that strength/endurance naturally. They don’t need to train their bodies for strength/endurance, don’t need to rely on armor or the best weapons money can buy, and whatever food they hunt is all they need to survive.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s saying a fully trained/armored knight can’t beat an orc 1v1 or even win more much more often than not against an average grunt. Or that Heroic level humans would get ragdolled by adolescent orcs.
But its for reasons other than “nuh uh, humans just as strong”.
I think one of the reasons Garrosh got as far as he did despite his core supporters being a small fraction of the Horde was he took the more organized militarism of the professional Alliance militaries and applied it to the hardier/stronger orcs vs Thrall trying to keep to the old ways.
Humans in 40k are normal humans. The astartes are super humans. But they’re heavily genetically modified, 8 foot tall giants with secondary and sometimes tertiary sets of vital organs. They’re only technically human.
But the average joe is very average. Warcraft humans have wrists as thick as a soup can. That’s impressive, I won’t lie. But not orc impressive, and definitely not a space marine.
Not only are they normal humans but their living conditions are so horrendous the average human would probably be comparable to a severly out of shape rl human.
Also while the lore subreddit is generally embarassingly bad, I also blame Golden for constantly writing as if the game was a 1:1 representation of the setting
I’m pretty sure someone higher up at blizz had to have read her stuff first and okayed it before it got published. Sure, she’s at fault for treating the world that way, but it’s also her bosses fault for letting that be the acceptable canon
I imagine an average human warrior fighting against an average tauren warrior.
The tauren swings, human raises the shield to block and gets the bones of his shield arm pulverized.
Most likely. When the company you write for likes to play fast and loose with the lore, I guess she rightfully assumed anything would be acceptable to them
Humanity in warcraft if people did not naturally evolve. Humanity came from mass produced mechanical vikings that were corrupted and made flesh that got further corrupted and started to make humans. It would not suprise me if an average joe human from warcraft were the equivalent of a super soldier in regards of strength and durability.
It’s a shame it’s not canon, because it was a good movie regardless of what some say about it. But I did LOVE how the Warcraft movie depicted the sheer size and strength difference between your average orc and human
That is incomparason to the giant engineered warrior vikings yes warcraft humans are weak. I dont dont have any thing to compare the strength difference between normal humanity and warcraft humanity. It does seem that warcraft humans are more durable than normal humanity.
