Do you think there are lions in England, Czech Republic, or Belgium? Yet all of them have lions in their coat of arms, symbols etc. This is exact logic they made Stormwind a lion =)
No, but there used to be lions in southern europe and northern africa during roman times. The closest lion to Stormwind is over the ocean in Kalimdor - so it's like the Czech coat of arms was a llama
The lion is also a symbol of the kingdom of Sweden. It's in the royal coat of arms and the capitol is absolutely littered with lions in various forms everywhere. But the first lion in Sweden was probably in 1771 when one was gifted to the king. It died shortly after, but I still displayed at Gripsholm's Castle (you should look that one up, actually). But Sweden has a lot of lion heraldry from hundreds of years before then. Heraldry can cross continents for sure.
Heraldry/images/icons cross continents when people cross continents. That's why there are no llamas in European heraldry, and why there shouldn't be lions in Stormwind's. Lions in Azeroth are as far from Stormwind as llamas are from medieval Sweden.
historically, lions were in souther europe about 2-3 thousands years ago, with best guesses. So waaaaaaaaay before to have any impect in history of England etc.
Hell, there's a lion in Norway's coat of arms. Lived here my whole life, never seen anything close to a lion. The only native cats we have are lynxes, and they're quite different from lions.
European lion is simply the term for that variety of lion. But it did exist in England. So did bears and wolves. Every carnivore larger than foxes were genocided, and they tried to do it to foxes, too.
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u/Horkosthegreat Feb 08 '25
Do you think there are lions in England, Czech Republic, or Belgium? Yet all of them have lions in their coat of arms, symbols etc. This is exact logic they made Stormwind a lion =)