Truthfully, I don’t see why any Human couldn’t become stronger than the average Tauren. You might think it’s some strange and impossible thing, but in Warcraft we see all manner of races perform some astonishing physical feats that shouldn’t be realistically possible. It’s a fantasy setting, exceptional people do exceptional things regardless of any limitation. There is no and should be no rules about this.
Is your average Tauren stronger than your average Human? Well sure, absolutely I’d agree with that. Can some exceptional Human warrior break barriers and become stronger than the average Tauren? I also don’t see why not.
No, there doesn’t HAVE to be. This is not at all an unusual thing in the genre, either. Especially when it comes to exceptional individuals.
If you want to see how this works you can look beyond Warcraft, which by the way 100% does not adhere to any physical rules or limitations about it’s races.
Look at the origin of fantasy, which is myth. Look at the stories that have been told which are the bedrock that fantasy was built on.
The deeds done by humans in stories such as Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Jason and the Argonauts, The Icelandic Sagas, etc etc etc.
These stories are not flawed because they do not establish rules like this.
Even exceptional individuals have limitations or the circumstances they’re in have to be framed in a way that said individual could succeed in a task.
The most powerful people in fantasy are believed to be tied to a god, magic or some other supernatural stuff that human was not able to explain. Other stories are about a man defeating a single monster.
Not soloing entire armies.
Varian can be exceptional human but why the universe seems to portray that he is exceptional above anyone else in the setting? I would have no problem if he was the best among the mankind, but are you telling me that among so many playable races there is not even a single as accomplished /exceptional infividual? Especially when they’re meant to be physically superior?
This is where stuff gets annoying.
Everyone had to be put down and shown as incompetent so Varian could shine. Some people even had to be drastically nerfed to make him appear more impressive.
Not to mention his origin story is way too overcomplicated - I get abduction and being forced to fight, but why all this weird stuff with blades? Was it really necessary? Was it put there to make him look a little more different than Thrall is?
I’m just saying I’m not impressed, it’s asking too much to supress disbelief and my impression with him was that devs tried too hard to make him cool to the point it became super cringe.
Nelves who live for thousand years apparently never developed a champion that would impress Goldrin, Varian comes and Ancient is immediately swoon over.
Goldrin also shows no interest to people who took upon themselves curse of the Worgen. It would be so much more meaningful if Wild God would be involved in Worgen stories to help them control their condition. But nah…
It’s situations like that which are a massive eyeroll to me. This is why I can tell that this is a pet character.
This is where you’re getting too far into specifics and already conceded the point. I’m not interested in whether or not Varian is a good character, or if his power was a thing that was earned enough or whether or not you think it was a good portrayal of the fantasy strength we see many characters in Warcraft have.
You said characters should be subject to realistic limitations. I disagreed. You now are admitting that exceptional individuals who do not adhere to human limitations can be fine. We have nothing more to argue.
I’m just not certain what the point is of having this expectation that Warcraft adheres to some sort of biological reality. A great warrior of any race, for example, should essentially never be able to slay a dragon. Realistically, I mean. But that’s something that if told about in Warcraft I doubt many people would bat an eye. Broxxigar, realistically, should have been far too puny and insignificant to land a noticeable blow on the planet sized God which is Sargeras. But he did, and it’s cool.
Like seriously, you’re just wrong here Idk what to tell you.
How is leaping high enough in the air to reach the notice of a planet-sized God and landing an axe strike on them a ‘realistic limitation’.
The perception here is skewed, nothing within this scenario is ‘realistic limitation’ because nothing within that scenario adheres to any kind of realism in any sense.
Warcraft shows warriors going beyond their physical limits all the time, people getting stronger and stronger, that’s just how the world works.
There is no ‘realistic limitation’ there’s no realism and all limitations are always surpassed. I really don’t get why this is such a difficult thing for people to understand.
You can suspend disbelief for people being able to hold fire or transform into superpowered animals, but the common fantasy trope of superstrength is… too much?
Like come on, there’s no realism here, there’s no ‘logic’, it’s never been about that and Blizzard has never tried to adhere to that.
“he proceeded to slaughter multitudes of demons, blocking their advance towards the portal, slaying so many that he ended up standing atop a mountain of their corpses — mocking more to come to challenge him. It was there that he eventually attracted the attention of Sargeras, who came personally to put an end to the orc’s life. However, Brox did the impossible, and with the Axe of Cenarius struck a small wound in Sargeras’ leg. This wound would later be the focus of Krasus and his allies’ spellwork, that for a second, tore Sargeras’ attention away from his struggle to keep the portal open…”
The singular Orc slaying a mountain worth of Demons and laying a wound on a planet sized deity is not what I would call an example of physical limitations being implimented. I mean, a wound large enough that I guess people noticed. How large was that wound, given Sargeras’s size? Who know specifically, but I’m betting large enough that realistically something so puny should have never made it. But it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t need to be realistic.
To be fair, entire book was just wierd, Time traveling mage and orc go help Nelves, and then nelves seemingly forgot about orcs and attack them on sight. Heck, even Cenarius who blessed the axe that was given to Broxx doesn’t recognise them and doesn’t try to deescalate the conflict. It makes nelves look super dumb in retrospect.
Sure, you can have whatever opinion you want on how limitations on physical strength are in the universe. Can’t say I’ll agree with them, but an opinion is an opinion. Me personally I like the stuff with Brox and him tearing apart a mountain of demons and wounding Sargeras, it’s dumb and cool Idk simple as that.
My point is that Blizzard has never tried to make limitations on physical power in the Warcraft universe, that how strong someone is will not always correlate to how strong you think the average person of any given race will be. You can argue about averages all you want as well, sure, but at the end of the day the legendary warrior is going to be stronger than the average individual of any of the given races most likely.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of over the top ridiculous stuff I absolutely adore about WoWs lore. I’m just not a fan of humans being super special at things that other races should be a million times better at
That’s all. I’m well aware we all have different tastes when it comes to fantasy and the tropes used. Some fantasy settings simply do it better than others
Humans in Warcraft have always been depicted as being comparable in strength to Orcs in all canon sources.
This is like saying:
‘Well, i don’t like seeing Orc warlocks because the aesthetics of Orcs is supposed to be dumb hulk monsters and not smart wizards. Reserve that for the Belves.’
Like, it really doesn’t change anything if we have regular sword-fighting human warriors as characters… that doesn’t devalue an Orc holding an axe or a Tauren with a sword and shield.
But sure, you can hold that opinion.
I just don’t personally understand why it’s an issue or why it’s being hounded as ‘bad’.
