Wyvern AREN'T Wyvern

[Deleted]

We're talking physical appearance NOT behaviour / weaknesses

Trolls are described as primitive wild humanoids with large noses and wild hair

You think the original description of a troll is: Brightly coloured, lanky humanoids with bright pink hair, tribal markings and speak with a jamaican accent?

[Solzan Nemesis]

I am going to sound anal here and for that I apologize BUT something that's always bugged me is the wyvern in WoW! Now I don't know if they were referred to as Wyvern in WC 1-3 because quite frankly RTS games bore the excrement out of me thus I didn't play 'em but I will never understand why Blizzard called wyvern wyvern and not something original. After all they don't even resemble a wyvern of myth, it's like calling a kodo a unicorn, especially considering we have proto drakes which are quintessentially wyvern

/nerd rant over

I have the answer. They did this as they wanted to give the new Horde in WC3 a different good feel that the old horde did not have. As the old Horde enslaved red dragons. They did not like real wyverns as they thought it was to evil looking for this new Horde and they did not seem to like the name manticore. So they used the manticore look and called them wyverns.

[Deleted]

Trolls come from Scandinavian folklore and are usually described like this:



Trolls that appear in modern art / movies / books usually looks like this:



Trolls in WoW looks noting like that. Not only do they appear differently, their culture, intelligence and social aspects don't fit the "standard" troll. Blizzard made it's own adaptation of them.

Just as they did with the wyverns

[Scummer]

Yeah it's always kinda bugged. They're far more akin to Manticores than a Wyvern.

[Deleted]

Tolkein's trolls resemble ogres

It's the fact that Blizzard decided to call one mythical creature the same as a completely different mythical creature... A wyvern is a wyvern a manticore is a manticore... It's like calling a gryphon a unicorn

[furriusmurrius]

Let me ask you, if they renamed Wyverns into Piddlypoos would that help your sense of immersion?

The problem here is not with Blizzard's lore and choice to reimagine creatures as they see fit, its with the stigma you have attached to the naming structure.

[ImpTaimer]

I've never liked that they were called wyverns either. They are more manticore/chimera than wyvern. If anything they're an amalgamation of wyvern and manticore, maybe even chimera. What makes them a wyvern is that they have winged arms, and that's about it. Everything else would suggest manticore or chimera.

Manticore are just lions, but mythically they are lions with the head of a man, a shark-like mouth, and a "spiky tail" with the ability to discharge said spikes. For some reason everyone associates them with lions with wings and an arthropod's tail. This is more fitting of a chimera than a manticore, since chimera is an amalgamation of different animals, wheres a manticore is... just a lion.

At least they got the chimaera right.

[StationaryHawk]

Azeroth and Earth are not one in the same, and Blizzard has the creative license to name it after whichever mythical creature they please. Trolls do not resemble mythical trolls whatsoever, and you could probably find another creature that matches them more closely.

It is like calling a gryphon a unicorn, but so what? If anything, it's just a mild annoyance.

Tolkein's trolls resemble ogres

It's always appeared to be more of a cross between troll and ogre. They're both rather bulky creatures.

[Golden Yak]

WoW Chimeras don't look like your typically depicted fantasy chimera either.

[Drilnos]

Proto-drakes don't strictly meet the definition of a wyvern either. They have six limbs - two hind legs, two forelegs and two wings. The forelegs are tiny though, like a tyrannosaur, so they're easy to miss. The wind riders are like a wyvern-manticore hybrid, but really it all comes down to Our Dragons are Different.

[Deleted]

kodos kind of look like unicorns. Really fat unicorns.

[galileoacosta]

the wyvern in game are manticores.

[Wildmoon]

They are wyvern in Warcraft universe. If you want what similar to real wyvern then there's proto dragon for you.

[Mormolyce]

Yeah it's bugged me since Warcraft 3, they are clearly Manticores (winged ones anyway)! Wyverns are draconic.

I am going to sound anal here and for that I apologize BUT something that's always bugged me is the wyvern in WoW! Now I don't know if they were referred to as Wyvern in WC 1-3

First appearance in Warcraft 3, in pretty much the same form. Warcraft 1 had no flying units and in Warcraft 2 the Horde used dragons.

And their orc don't resemble the orc of myth. Adaptation by the developers.

There are no orcs of myth, Tolkien invented them. And the Orcs in Warcraft are just your generic fantasy "orcs" (derived from Tolkien).

If you want to get right down to it, Tolkien set out to create an English body of myth and legend to go along with all the European ones. In this respect he was influenced by Beowulf, in which the word "orc" appears as a hapax legomenon (word appears once in Beowulf and never again in any other literature, making its interpretation difficult). He thought it meant something like "demon" and chose it just because of its sound, and constructed the Orc concept in his legendarium from scratch. If "orc" ever had any mythology attached to it it has been long lost to history, and more likely it's just a generic term for demons or monsters.

---------- Post added 2012-11-19 at 01:58 AM ----------

Trolls in WoW looks noting like that. Not only do they appear differently, their culture, intelligence and social aspects don't fit the "standard" troll. Blizzard made it's own adaptation of them.

True, but "troll" is a very broad concept with a lot of different representations. Draconic creatures also have varying terminology but not really to the same degree.

---------- Post added 2012-11-19 at 02:02 AM ----------

And the Tol'Barad Peninsula is an archipelago. And I don't think the Valley of the Four Winds is actually a Valley. Only it's northern border is actually mountains.

He said it was just a name!
What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula!

You should look up their myth counterparts. A lot of them look nothing like the folkloric ones. Especially elves, goblins and trolls.
The first recorded mention of orcs referred to sea monsters.

Well Tolkien took some pains to explain to people that his "orc" was not supposed to be related to "orca", which a lot of people assumed. That word and the one that appeared in Beowulf are likely completely unrelated.

[Kronik85]

I'm with you on the Wyvern is actually a Manticore ticket but I want to draw attention to WoW's Trolls. Trolls are awesome, they are probably one of the few truly original concepts in the WoW IP, everything else is borrowed from something else to some extent....but Trolls. Unless your easily offended by Jamaican stereotypes then whats not to love? Not only that but they are actually Troll....ey (not the ones you find at the supermarket). To my knowledge Trolls usually revolve around eating people which Trolls are mad into and if they aren't the juggernaut type then they rely on cunning. Trolls are a pretty loose fabric to work off so I think WoW's incarnation is great.

A note on this Orc debate too. As far as I'm aware the original Warcraft RTS was originally going to be Games Workshop game but for one reason or another GW backed out so Blizz made the best of it and released it as there own IP. Can't find anything official on this so you can consider it tinfoil hat territory and it's completely harmless anyway since Orcs in the Warcraft IP are completely different.

[ShadowJester]

Oh God please let me go to the fantasy world where humans are zigzogies and wyvern are piddlypoos. I feel like the castles there would be made of candy =D. Also i hate trolls that are hairy with those big noses they seem rape-y o.O
But OT the name of something has little meaning. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet and a manticore/wyvern by any other name will still kill you as dead

[fizzbob]

amazing how many people even defend blizzard when it comes to this. there is no logical reason wow did this, more than likely the person who named wyverns just fucked up. it happens. not a big deal. but you can't logically defend them no matter how mad it makes you that someone questioned the wow gods.

[IRunSoFarAway]

Our world and our mythology and history and Warcraft and that world of mythology and history are two different things... perhaps you should pick up a hobby, or try and differentiate fantasy and reality.

[Duncanîdaho]

Thats what the Tauren called them. So the Orcs followed suit, that's all there is to it really.

Are Orcs your typical fantasy Orcs?
Are trolls your typical fantasy trolls? (Think cave trolls from LOTR)
Are all the undead your typical mindless undead?

This is how blizzard does its lore.

---------- Post added 2012-11-18 at 10:14 PM ----------

amazing how many people even defend blizzard when it comes to this. there is no logical reason wow did this, more than likely the person who named wyverns just fucked up. it happens. not a big deal. but you can't logically defend them no matter how mad it makes you that someone questioned the wow gods.

Actually there's a perfectly logical reason. It's how they write their lore. They take something that already exists in fantasy, and alter it and make it there own. I'm not 'mad' either, I'm just stating how it is.

[Kharli]

Yes they do minus tusks

WoW troll:
Other Trolls