How dumb are peons really?

Community General Discussion
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Peons are typically labeled as dumb and easy to control but is there any lore depicting how dumb they actually are?

How dumb are they compared to Thrall or any major orc lore character?

Is there any famous peon lore characters? I would like to see this explored, the life of a peon

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They’re not dumb, without them, how would the leaders prosper in the war & economy without them?

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Peons are smart, smart enough to know that “work is da poop!” :grin:

There’s real world parallels here :wink:

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I miss him!!

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But not smart enough to know how to avoid getting the booterang. :stuck_out_tongue:

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About as smart as your average wal-mart employee.

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Well according to this:
wow.gamepedia.com/Peon

What really seems to make an orc fit for peon-ness is being a coward, while still being physically strong. In-game, they’re also mentally stunted (possibly due to lingering Fel contamination?).

And yes, they are AGGRESSIVELY stupid. They show up in enough quests where you have to instruct and/or rescue them to prove it.

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wow.gamepedia.com/Peon

Use a ` on both ends and you can text block it like so ^

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Ty, just when I think I’ve got a handle on this forum, it does something even dumber.

Edit: nope, doesn’t like that either. Whatever Blizz, we don’t really want to communicate with each other anyway, right?

2nd Edit: Ah, there we go. Ty again.

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smart enough to understand if they don’t work - i’ll beat them with stick

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Can a peon rise to become powerful? Was thrall or saurafang considered a peon at one point and became smarter? Or are peons just really dumb and can’t get any higher than the position in the world they are now. Can a peon have a rag to riches story? Or are they just too dumb to do anything? Can a peon work really hard and rise the ranks to a grunt to a champion to the savior of the world?? I’m genuinely curious.

Average people in the world can rise in the world. Can a peon?

Do peons have talents? Can they be in touch with the elements with enough practice? Do peons have dreams to be bigger than they are??

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Only if they’re that kind of orc.

Most are not that kind of orc.

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peons are special. Even crippled weakling gul’dan wasn’t ever considered to be a peon

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Can a orc baby born from a peon family become more than what that family had done for years?? I know thralls family were warchiefs and high ranking but couldn’t there be a peon who was born from a peon family and rose from the bottom?

Nobody knows who guldans family was. Maybe he was from a peon family and became a great warlock

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According to the article, it’s been known to rarely happen in the Dragonmaw Clan. But only so far as “bosses around the other peons”.

Not to my knowledge, no.

Looks that way. They rarely manage to speak above a kobold-level, I don’t think there’s much they can handle for self-improvement.

Probably more like a rags-to-slightly-nicer-rags. And they’d be really happy with that, too.

They do LOTS of things. They’re the backbone of the Horde, collecting resources and building every structure you see, from simple farms to the walls of Orgrimmar. They’re dumb, yes, but with leadership they’re unstoppable.

Doesn’t look like it. They’re too cowardly to be actual fighters like grunts, and I really don’t want the fate of the world held in the hands of a peon.

Again, they seem to be pretty far below average in everything but physical strength, so probably not.

Does hitting trees really hard count?

Elementals often seem to have a better grasp of language than peons. It takes a special kind of hopeless to lose a debate to a ROCK.

If so, it’s probably very literal: dreaming of being larger so they can eat more in one sitting, for example.

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@scuzz
Interested in what you thought of my follow up question and that’s if peon family’s can birth a orc of greatness. How would he or she(never seen a female peon…) survive in the class of peons they are surrounded by…a smart peon surrounded by dim witted peons that yearns for more! Blizzard should make a grounded story about a peon who just isn’t like the others and wants to become warchief one day but always told he should keep his head down and just work. Think it would be interesting

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blizzard never clarified what the hell peons are and where are they come from
we know what are they

The lowliest of the Orcs, these dogs were good for little more than rough work. They were commanded to cut [wood] or mine the pits for [gold]. They also made strong laborers in the construction of all manner of buildings. They were all cowards, and would run like little children if attacked.

But we don’t know why are they. Is it born defect or it’s just part of cast system. They’re idiots and even Thrall tried to do something

With the rise of Thrall, peons began being treated in a gentler manner, at least by Thrall and the Frostwolves. Thrall makes continuous movements to make sure peons are treated as equals in the society of the [New Horde]. Despite this, some of the other upper class orcs, like the [Kor’kron], still continue to mistreat peons as such, especially when Thrall is not around.

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@edgeyjojomeme

Great info! Never knew that

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I don’t see them fighting in any wars so I think they’re actually pretty smart.

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This is all assuming peon is a title given at birth, rather than something assigned later in life when it becomes clear the orc in question is unfit for anything else.

I don’t think Blizz ever addressed this directly, because, c’mon… it’s pretty dang politically incorrect. It’s one thing to have a Clearly Evil Faction in an RTS enslaving their mentally impaired members, but now that the orcs are supposed to be more honorable, we’re all kind of supposed to ignore it.