I think a lot of people are missing the point of this question by referencing real world coat of arms with a foreign animal, in regions that don’t have that animal.
No one on the Eastern kingdoms would have ever seen or heard of a lion before. They just simply do not exist to their perception. There are cougars on the continent, but not maned lions. It’s a question that has popped up in the community for more than a decade.
The simple answer is, Blizzard didn’t think that far ahead. They thought it would be cool to have a lion as a crest, but when they fleshed out the continent for the MMO, they never included a desert or savanna location. Slipped their mind.
Or to be even more on point, they thought it would be cool because lots of the medieval European cultures they drew inspiration from when making the human kingdoms had lions in their heraldry, and while there are lots of ways for that to happen with exotic animals when cultures and continents are connected through trade, it's flat out impossible when you don't even know the continent on which those animals reside exists (SEE: the "new world" and Kalimdor).
http://wowrarespawns.blogspot.com/2011/10/araga.html
There's a lioness in the Eastern Kingdoms, so pretty sure there was a lion there too, at some point.
They probably got hunted to extinction or lost their living grounds to other / stronger predators.
Even if it's only cougars they took their inspiration from, it's not that hard to fathom that they got creative with it and wanted something more impressive, thus slapping on a mane.
There's dragons, unicorns and other stuff on our coat of arms in the real world.
Your simple answer might simply (ha!) be right, but there's a lot of other equally possible explanations.
It would be a possibility, certainly! If not for Blizzard making sure the players knew that humans have never been to Kalimdor before. That it was considered a fictional place by the alliance races. Even the wise and knowledgeable mages of Dalaran didn’t think it was real! They wrote themselves into a corner with that one.
What about the Zandalari? The Kul Tirans may have had some knowledge from crossing paths with them and they were part of the alliance until WC3.
Doesn't require the general population to be familiar with them, just good enough sightings to paint the picture of a mythical beast "hey you know those big cats we have in hillsbrad? It was like that but bigger, and it had lots of hair round it's head"
There are also no wild horses until Cata yet humans all have mounts. Theres like 4 farms in elwynn to feed the entire kingdom and there are more Defias npcs than civilians.
Yep, but they might have gone extinct in the wild after domestication. The only horses living in the wild nowadays aren't actual wild horses, they're feral i.e. descendants of domesticated horses.
Lions do exist in the eastern kingdoms though. Assuming you want to ignore post-cata (they are in twilight highlands) there is a rare spawn named Araga that has a mane in hullsbrad
Yeah but lore wise the Highlands have always been there even if the Vanilla map shows only ocean. So, works out I guess. An oversight that was corrected with Cata.
Recently, yes. The orcs and humans travelling to the continent only happened four years before the time setting of World of Warcraft. And the symbol of Stormwind had presumably been a lion for at least 100 years before that.
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u/Durffus Feb 08 '25
I think a lot of people are missing the point of this question by referencing real world coat of arms with a foreign animal, in regions that don’t have that animal.
No one on the Eastern kingdoms would have ever seen or heard of a lion before. They just simply do not exist to their perception. There are cougars on the continent, but not maned lions. It’s a question that has popped up in the community for more than a decade.
The simple answer is, Blizzard didn’t think that far ahead. They thought it would be cool to have a lion as a crest, but when they fleshed out the continent for the MMO, they never included a desert or savanna location. Slipped their mind.