So… do female draenei have horns that the males lack (or have stunted versions of) to fight for dominance?
How do selective pressures apply when strength is presented as being equal across the board and also most races are the eldritch abomination cursed mutations of giant metal (or rock) robots?
Males have that reinforced bone to fight by head butting. It used to be for dominance but now is a sport Im not even joking its a quest in Argus. Almost forgot about that one.
Outside game mechanics female characters are not shown to be more physically stronger than males. In fact they never show a comparison of strength between male and female of the same race. Its only implied because males look like body builders. Goblins, vulpera and gnomes being notable exceptions as they look nearly the same.
Being formerly elemental in nature does not chance the fact they are flesh and blood now. What magic that once animated inanimate objects no longer applies to them.
Also we know selective breeding works in the Wow universe because in Rise of the Horde Ogrim notes that the worgs will have to be breed to take an Orc in full armor with the war starting. Worgs like nearly everything were titan creations.
You can make a male draenei with no horns. You cannot make a female draenei with no horns. If the males headbutt for fun and play… Well, then they must be even more important in the females!
…And honestly, there hasn’t been enough time for major evolutionary changes or strong selection on most sapient races the WoW timeline… With the possible exception of, funnily enough, Argus.
What I’m saying is that Y’rel can and will wreck your stuff. Look at those horns.
Y’rel is magic Paladins are supernaturally strong and horns aren’t really a strength thing as they multiply the force of the impact. Were talking base physical strength here.
Also even a small goat can hurt you if they hit with their horns my poor neighbor has pygmy goats and they are destructive little buggers.
I thought we were talking about awkwardly applying real life biology.
Look, you and I both know the reason that sexual dimorphism is a thing in WoW (and that it goes the way it does) is because the designers made a choice that the females would be smaller, skinnier, and have big eyes and lips so that no one got confused and ran off a cliff in panic because they couldn’t figure out if the cow monster was a boy or a girl. I’m just saying applying real life biology is pretty dodgy to a fantasy universe where most races haven’t even been around for a million years (and are also robots).
Though it is entirely possible that female draenei are smaller, faster, and stronger so that their ancestors could fight other lead females over territory with their horns while the males gathered food and plodded around (hence them being bigger and lacking the main draenei display/defensive trait of HORNS). Only the strongest and best headbutters maintained territory and passed on their traits to their progeny – only the ancestoral female draenei with the sharpest, most effective horns. It was a short and brutal life on the primitive savannah of Argus. Modern draenei, of course, are past such things and even let males participate in government. Though nothing spells security to the subconscious draenei mind like a leader with really big horns.
…Or not, because frankly, that’s ridiculous. But so is extrapolating that the reason that WoW races look the way they do is sexual selection on males to be BIG AND STRONK JUST LIKE HUMANS (which are actually fairly low on dimorphism for great apes so there’s that).
We all know these types of characters. Where their size in a raid environment is massive vs outside of it.
The heroes/villains of Azeroth really … rise to the occasion … when it counts.
So can you with new “Hero of Azeroth Enhancement!”
//Jokes aside, in Sanctum of Domination, right before The Nine, Sylvanas makes her cameo and she’s like twice the size of my character minimum. A couple of days ago I escorted her around Oribos and she is shorter than me. I get it that they created a model and use it in a raid and functionally for raid fights it’d be a nightmare to fight bosses smaller than a PC, but it’s still funny.
Baal why you gotta hurt me so
fun fact- my orc pc is actually taller than Thrall in the tweet i posted
damn that smarts.
blizzard should retire.
She’ll just go hammer time on you.
Could be worse.
Thrall was cold. Just really, really, cold. So cold is effected his whole body- orcs are different from humans after all. Guys know what I’m talking about.
Someone put Thrall in the Hot cycle in both the washer and the dryer… no wonder he shrank.
I’m sticking with “Thrall has always been short and they just haven’t shown it”.
I’m going with “Thrall used to wear platform shoes to seem taller and more impressive to the rest of the Horde, but could not find any in his size in Oribobo.”
So there!!
Short Kings Rise Up!
How did you come to this conclusion. He was described as stronger and faster then average orcs in the books.
No they just don’t want him to outstanding in any shape or form. They took away his shaman powers, they took away the doom hammer, they took away his warchief title. They want thrall the only well known orc character left to be average. Cuz that’s about all horde characters are now lame and meh, case and point bane.
I still prefer the fancanon that the large Kul Tiran Humans are descendants of the Gilnean settlers and the Drust that fought against Gorak Tul and his forces.
Depending on how you read a line from Ulfur, it does hint towards that.
crawls from under the floorboards
Ackshyually, in multiple novels it is specifically mentioned how Thrall is actually bigger than an average orc. According to Lord of Clans he is bigger than Grom.
Kinda weird how the novels like to mentioning that, but here we are.
crawls back
It isn’t weird. A lot of men brag about how big they are. There’s a whole form of measuring contest that exists just for it!!