Its so typical nobody bothers to talk about it. and power doesn't lie in your fists, it lies in your heart...

Whoever wrote that Nords are more intelligent than Imperials and Redguards is definitely misleading you. I've only seen evidence of the Greybeards having more intelligence. The writer of the PGE First Edition(I like this one much better than third) remarks at them being the only humans that he could converse with at almost an equal level and were worthy of respect. And it can be pretty easily inferred that its writer was a High Elf, so that's pretty high praise coming from one of them.

Though there's also this line from PGE Third edition, which suggests they're definitely not all crazy drunk barbarians.

Yes, and the pen is mightier than both, unless you're Sean Connery...

:turtle:

I was thinking about that. I know that nords have decreased intelligence in TES games as players, but I don't think that the player character is meant to be representative of the race.

This could be because many Greeks had dark hair, and although there were those with sandier hues, many came from Macedonia, which was considered "hillbilly" country, full of dumb sheep farmers, even up to the point where Philip conquered all of Greece.

The Romans also had darker hair, eyes, and olive skin, whereas the "barbaric" Gauls had blonde hair and blue eyes.

Also, I wouldn't ignore the fact that in our culture, blondes are seen as ditzy, which could be because they are universally seen as attractive, so probably stick out more because a dumb brunette simply doesn't receive as much attention to begin with. Or people who value beauty over intelligence are more likely to bleach their hair.

I've edited the page in question (undoing a reversion of an edit, actually) on the wiki and made a comment in the "overhaul?" section of that page's talk page as well that it needs a serious overhaul

The same standard applies to NPCs though, meaning that Nords have decreased intelligence not just as players, but across the board. :cold:

:turtle:

Right, but in MW argonian players have low personality scores. But who is the guy with the highest speechcraft (and I assume highest personality therefore)? Skink, an argonian.

As far as an intelligent Nord goes, look at sorkvild the raven. There are plenty of "dumb nord barbarian" npcs but I do not think we have enough info to make generalizations about TES races aside from what the literature has to say.

Since we're busy discussing UESP pages, what about the following qoutes from the Redguard page:







EDIT: Also, go to http://www.uesp.net/wiki/User:Apophis2412 , for a preliminary revised version of the anthropology section of the Nord page.

the first quote is correct (source being Redguard storyline, iirc), bu the later is iffy at best. the "red tint" is bizarre, ive never seen a red redguard. how it would be dependent on Nedic blood is also puzzling. while interbreeding with the locals surely occurred it wasnt to the degree where it occurred in "most forbears" only. i also seem to recall concept art of a redguard with a full beard.

The degree of body hair varies? You don't say! So do they drop their pants for the census and excise agents to count? The symesterly, and we know why , hair count is off! and the Mane wins by a monolithic margine which doesn't exist as any known quantity!

Charisma, intelligence and willpower are different matters. One doesn't need to be smart to have a strong will, and there may be people who are good at getting others to see things there way while at everything else, they act like idiots. I'd say that, as a whole, we can likely assume Nords are stupid, because they're a race designed with warriors in mind, and in fantasy RPGs, this usually means they're not going to be very good at being mages or thieves. It may not be logic that is supported by the lore, but the Elder Scrolls series is a video game first, the lore was just added on to enrich it, so rather than designing gameplay based around existing lore, one can expect that a lot of the lore is written with the gameplay in mind.



That's because the low personality represents the race as a whole, whereas individuals may be exceptions, the same goes for Nordic stupidity or any other general racial stats in the game.

If I am right, "big n strong but dumb barbarian" stereotype came from D&D where game mechanics simply forced your barb to choose a low intelligence and probably low wisdom score too. I don't know why do people forget the most famous barbarian - Conan. He is both clever and strong. Agile too because his movements are compared to a panther.

What I want to say is that in games it would be game breaking for players to start out with high all their stats high and since barbarians are usually better fighters than scholars strength, speed and agility come first so intelligence is going to be sacrificed.

That said i'm sure nords are no more stupid than the rest of human races. They may seem less smart because they generally drink more alcohol, they are often hardheaded and they choose sword over magic, barbarians never really liked sorcery.

Usually the dumbest race is orcs but I'm not sure about TES, they were elves once after all.

I read it in-game, but I can't exactly name it off the top of my head. Too be honest it makes perfect sense too me.

And there is the fact that you don't meet many Nords in the Mages Guild, where you can expect to see the most intelligent people searching for an academic career. Heck you see more orcs in the Mages Guild (at least in MW) than Nords.

It seems most of its members are Bretons, Altmer, Bosmer, Argonians and Khajiit with Dunmer and Imperials is slightly lesser numbers while it seems that Redguards have problems in accepting magic. Why Orcs and Nords don't make the cut is anyone's guess.

Aren't nords based off of Utgarde tribes from Icewind Dale in Forgotten Realms? They despised magic and thought it is for the weak. They did have shamans but shamans and wizards use different kinds of sources for magic. They probably have the same kind of taboo vs magic like redguards, if you speak to that redguard mage in Cheydinhal(I think) he will tell you his race is not too fond of spellcasters(him being an exception). Same with Nords.

I still think it doesnt show that Nords are less smart than the other human races. They still make good warriors and to be a good warrior one needs to be a good tactician. And tacticians arent dumb.

As far as a I know, nords pretty much prefer to chop things to bits, I doubt there is a taboo about using magic. If you ask a nord which is more fun, studying the art of warfare or reading all day, they'll pick up a weapon 9/10 times.

These ridiculous stereotypes are driven into our heads when we watched cartoons as children, in many cartoons (I dont remember specific names, maybe thundercats?) there's always some axe carrying barbarian built like Schwarzeneger that is made out to be no smarter than an animal.

In truth, seeing as Nords are pretty much based pound for pound off the real life Norse barbarians they should be pretty clever, after all the Norse had to be otherwise they wouldnt have survived for thousand and thousands of years. (Even today there's still many people, such as the Irish, who are desendants of the Norse)

I've also read they bathed more than the peoples they conquered.

The Irish were descended from the Norse? While I have little doubt that they, like so many others, have the blood of the Norse mixed in with everything else, they're more culturally descended from the Celts, who were a different group.

Yeah, the Irish are not descendants from the Norse. Norse blood is mixed in the Irish, due to the raids the Vikings would do. the Norse of our world absolutely loved to pillage Ireland; it was an island country that never expected some big burly and bearded men piling out of ships to completely ransack a village and were completely gone by the time some actual soldiers arrived. This is also why the Irish have red hair, you can thank the Norse for that.

The Norse were pretty intelligent. The problem and reason why the ended up coming short in the scheme of things is that metal materials were not as plentiful, and farming was much much harder, due to colder and wetter weather.

:facepalm: The Irish arent descended from the Celts, we are the Celts! Being an Irishman (living in America, unfortunately) I know a thing or two about it. The first generation of the Irish were Englishmen who wanted to break away from Englands oppression and religious intolerance; so they fled to Ireland. These pilgrims over many many years were ransacked by Norse Vikings, who eventually interbred with the Irish. I'd imagine if you trace any Irishman's family tree back a few thousand years you'd find some huge Viking.

What does your strenght have to do with your intelligence? :facepalm:

Knowledge is power???

:shrug:

Well that's so wrong I don't know where to start.

But the Nords are responsible for most of early human achievements, but the Aldmer gave them more of their culture, so it depends on what you consider intelligent. If you mean as individuals, then there are stupid Imperials - but some of the most intelligent people in history, such as Tiber Septim, have been Nords.



You are one of the three Gaelic races, and one of six remaining Celtic races

I distinctly remember Dagail's Nord assistant.