Funny / Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Story

• Torvin, just... Torvin. Any time he pops up in a cutscene, either in the main game or his DLC, be prepared for snarky jokes a la Legolas and Gimli. Particularly the ones about the size of his gut, something he is obviously making up for the sake of banter and nothing else.
  • This includes killing the Great White Graug. Torvin kicks it several times just to make sure.
    Torvin: DIE, YA RANCID BASTARD!
    Talion: I think it's dead.
• Ratbag the Coward, the game's Butt-Monkey, is rather fun. Aside from being a complete coward, as his title implies, most of his appearances involve him being poked fun of (sometimes, literally), or getting harmed in some way.
  • If you don't cut Ratbag down from his post immediately, he will yell at you and say,
    Ratbag hasn't released his bladder for two moons!
  • While Ratbag is hanging from a post, being stabbed to feed birds with his blood, his voice has the Doppler effect, becoming fainter as he swings further out, stronger as he swings back in.
  • This conversation when you find out you had killed the Warchief's twin ("Brogg the Twin"), and now have to fight "Mogg the Other Twin."
    Ratbag: Now I know what you're thinkin', Ranger. This was not my fault. I go to tell the Chief I've killed his bodyguard. He turns around... got the exact same face as the dead maggot I just killed... we just killed! Twins! What are the odds of...?!
    Talion: (sounding unbelievably done at this point, complete with a hand gesture to shut up Ratbag) Just make sure you show up to take the place of the dead Warchief.
    Ratbag: Uh, but the Warchief's not dead.
    Talion: I'm going to go kill him!
    Ratbag: Oh... good plan! Uh, I'll be right behind you!
  • The game actually depicts Ratbag's "rise to power" in the Army screen just like any other Uruk captain. Only it shows scrawny little Ratbag killing the other, much-bigger-than-him captains by himself, which of course we know is not what happened.
  • When you finally make him Warchief, he tries to cut off the now dead Warchief's ear. His blade is too dull and tries to borrow Talion's dagger, Acharn, and only receives a shake of the head as he walks away.
  • After the destruction of the Gorthaur, the Hammer of Sauron inspects what's left of the monument and then demands to know why the local Warchiefs did nothing to prevent it. The mob of Uruks he's addressing all turn to look at Ratbag, who looks none too happy about his chances of talking his way out of things, before the mob shove him in front of the Hammer to start talking.
  • There's also his feeble effort to try and talk his way out of things.
    Ratbag: They all perished in battle, milord. All except me, Warchief Ratbag.
    Hammer of Sauron: (chuckles) Fortunately, you are still alive!
    (Ratbag laughs nervously, thinking he's off the hook...and then the Hammer smashes his head in.)
  • Retroactively made even funnier in the sequel where it's revealed Ratbag was barely phased by a blow that sent him flying.
• Gollum's song.

Gameplay - Orcs

• Motivations/Personalities. While they oftentimes serve to highlight how cruel and violent their society is, someone was obviously having fun while writing the flavour text, as well as the voice work.
  • One motivation mentions that an orc is deathly afraid of being back-stabbed, to the point where he is stabbing his own shadow.
  • Another one is that he's currently irritated by a piece of meat stuck in the back of his mouth. "It's so annoying."
  • Incredibly dark and fitting, but "the Cannibal" is deeply satisfied that an amputation has gone horribly wrong, and that he is looking forward to the stew.
  • There is one motivation that is limited to a single word: "Bewildered." At best, the orc is in over its head; at worst, he's an idiot.
  • Even better is that their motivation can change based on their interactions with the player; Get killed in a warchief mission by another captain, and that warchief's motivation might be that he's "angry that he didn't get the killing blow on Talion". And then the guy who did kill you will sometimes get the motivation of "Constantly talking about how he killed Talion that one time."
  • One motivation that can come up is "Currently beating a dead horse". One only wonders if it is literal or figurative...
  • Captain may have the "motivation": "Inventing a series of games around headbutting". Hey, uruks have to have fun too, right?
  • Warchief Ratbag's motive? Stewing about a personal insult from another Uruk.
  • "Proving he can fit more Ghul meat in his mouth than his comrades."
  • "The Screamer" tends to have lots of Inopportune Voice Cracking when you cross him, but sometimes it seems Talion makes him so angry that he can't even form coherent sentences. The screaming introduction itself can be hilarious when you're not expecting it as well, but the best part is the snort they do afterwards, as if to catch their breath.
  • It is rather amusing when an orc named Bugabug hopelessly glitches out.
  • An Uruk with the moniker "the Friendly" will range in his behavior towards Talion, from over-the-top genial to very... campy. Until you find out that he wants to be "friendly" with Talion's corpse.
  • It's hard to say whether "the Singer" is very funny or very disturbing. True to his name, his every line - including the one he delivers on his defeat - is sung. Badly.
  The Singer: Is this to be my last song?
  • One uruk captain may have the title of "The Drunk". He speaks with a heavy slur, has a helmet worn crookedly and is carrying several bottles with him. Fights against this particular type of uruk can be as hilarious as you think, particularly the pre-battle "threats" he utters.
    Drunk Captain: RRANGER!! Hang on— [Lets out loud, very long belch] All right, let's go.
    • And then if you fall to him in battle he can drop this quote:
      Drunk Captain: You're— [burps again] worm food!
    • And then when you inevitably go after him for revenge:
      Drunk Captain: Killed you the once [small belch] 'appy to oblige you again.
  • An Uruk called "the Stout" has a chance of threatening to rip Talion in half... for the express purpose of making him stare at his own backside.
  • The captain with "The Whiner". His "threats" consists of complaining with a very whiny voice how he wanted to rest but now that Talion has showed up he has to kill him.
  • Every Uruk captain gets to say a Pre-Asskicking One-Liner before fighting Talion, but some of these quips can come off as just plain wrong.
    The whole of Mordor comes running when I open my mouth and blow!!
    Have you ever seen a man ruined by a dozen Uruks at once, my sweet?
    You know I always enjoy killing you, Ranger, but it's the quiet time afterwards that I look forward to the most!!
    You'll die, and I'll take your corpse home for play time!
    Come on, then, my sweet! I'm waiting for you to make me beg!
    I thought the Morgai flies would have sucked you dry! I should've stayed to make sure!
  • If "the Coward" has killed you, the next time you encounter him, he might tell you that while he did kill you, there's really no need for you to be peeved about it considering you can clearly come back to life anyway.
  • Uruk Poets are...not very good at the whole poem thing.
    I am the Uruk Bard, a worthy opponent is hard.........to find.
  • Among the motives you can find ones like "Trying to make interesting conversation with a dead Ghul" and "Keeps a Caragor corpse near just in case he can stab it if he gets angry".
  • Another motive is simply: "Annoyed that he stepped in Ghul shrakh."
  • Uruks who have the title of "the Mad" or "the Crazy" spout random lines as dialogue.
    A kettle! In the kettle! Two mice! Squeaky-squeaky!
    The worms are in my head and they wiggle. Wiggle-wiggle-wiggle-wiggle!
  • Most captains start their speech with 'Man filth!' or 'Pinkskin!' or something similar. The Mad? As the camera zooms in on him..."Sticky glue!"
• Weaknesses/Fears.
  • The randomly-generated orcs can lead to this. Take a warchief whose only weakness is "Fear of his Rival" so if see that rival, he will leg it. It's entirely possible for the Random Number God to cause said rival to be his own bodyguard. The result? As soon as you begin the mission to fight that warchief, he spawns, immediately spots his bodyguard (who spawned alongside him) dutifully escorting him, screams in fear and immediately legs it out of here, in the middle of his introductory cutscene, as the chorus ominously shout his name. Even funnier if the Warchief also has the "Fast Runner" trait as he'll run away at an almost cartoonishly comical speed.
    • It's also possible to get a Caragor Tamer with a fear of Caragors.
    • And a weakness to Mounted Finishers. You know what to do.
  • It's possible to instantly kill an Uruk captain without knowing his weakness, or even that he is a captain until the game stops to tell you.
  • The "Fear of the Gravewalker" weakness. Who's the Gravewalker, you might ask? It's Talion. Yes, for some uruk captains, just seeing Talion is enough to send them running.
    • The Uruks also seem to enjoy Gallows Humor, taunting their comrades about what the Gravewalker will do next to them. (Of course, since you're nearby, it qualifies as Tempting Fate.)
    I dare the ranger to come and sneak up on me!
    • Sometimes you can hear a random uruk comment on an idea he has about getting the blacksmith to put spiky fish bones on his armor... In case Talion tries to attack him from above.
    • They also have decent lines for one of them thinking he heard Talion creeping about, but didn't find anything.
    Thought I heard something. Guess I'm hearing things.
    Well, if it was something, then IT BETTER STAY AWAY!
    • The fact they barely care if they find a dead body is also a source for some hilariously dark quotes showing how petty the uruk society can be.
    Uruk die all the time. Must've stolen someone's grog...
  • Having a warchief appear epic with all the war chanting and fanfare, only for him to practically mere seconds after arrival ruin it all via running away, because one of his fears was already present before he even arrived.
    • An especially notable example is any orc with a 'fear of betrayal' attempting to ambush another.
• Strengths/Other.
  • One of the possible Nemesis names is Dûsh. Please say that out loud in order to not take it seriously ever. What makes it hilarious is the Wraith's habit of saying the names of Nemeses you examine in deadpan seriousness, including that one, without a hint that it is any different from any other name. Even funnier if the Dûsh in question is a Warchief, because the Uruk chant that starts up whenever you fight a Warchief consists entirely of the Warchief's name at the top of the singers' lungs.
    War Chant: DÛSH! DÛSH!! DÛSH!!!
    • This can be exacerbated with certain sobriquets, like "Dûsh Bag-Head."
    • The same goes for Kâka.
    • Even funnier if his title is "The Filthy" or "The Stinky" or "The Brown".
    • Also impossible to take seriously, Ûggû.
    • Shadow of War adds the almost-certainly intentional Fûbar and Snâfu to the list.
    • By far the funniest title this trooper has seen has to be "Runny-Bowels". Yes, that's really his title. And yes, he's surrounded by flies. Now imagine a Captain named "Kâka Runny-Bowels" or something and be ready never to take this game seriously again.
  • Some Uruk Captains have the "No Mercy" trait, which eliminates any chance of recovery for Talion if they're the one to down him - however, that doesn't keep them from getting interrupted by a different source, such as a roaming Caragor or brainwashed mook.
  • The randomly-assigned traits of the uruk captains inevitably leads to some truly breathtaking scenarios:
    • You leap down atop a Caragor to confront a captain. He waves his axe at you and yells something like "I'll cut off that Caragor's tail and do the same with your ears!". Then, having a Fear of Caragors, immediately throws his arms up and begins to run away screaming. It takes all of ten seconds to catch up with him and kill him since he's vulnerable to damage done by beasts. His sobriquet? The Uncatchable.
    • Finding a captain with a fear of a rival... that's a coward who runs away from almost everything. Having a scary captain who is terrified of a guy who runs from at least four different fears is stupefying.
    • A Captain with the "fear of his rival" trait can attempt to execute his rival in one event, only to freak out and run away at the sight of the completely helpless orc he was about to kill.
  • One of the Uruk has the nickname The Unkillable. You'll end up having to kill him over and over again, his appearance becoming worse each time. Eventually, his head is covered with a sack. A bloody old sack. And he still comes after you. He keeps coming after you, even after he's been messed up so badly that even he and his fellow Uruk cannot stand the sight of his face. He probably would have been better off staying dead after the first time.
    • To be fair, he is practically unkillable, given his immunity to practically every stealth finishing move available. The only way to beat him is to cut his head off, and there's no way to guarantee that that's what Talion will do.
• Some of the threats the Captains utter when they spot you can be incredibly, erm, jovial, such as:
  Captain: (if Talion appears riding a caragor) Brought your mother along, did you? I can see the family resemblance!
  Captain: (if Talion appears riding a graug, runs, and come back) What, no Graug? Shame, you made such a nice couple!
• Sometimes when you're about to kill a captain he will say: "Join the host of Mordor, they said... It's an Uruk's life, they said...". The kicker is how he says it, he sounds just like a grumpy middle-aged man that followed bad life advice than someone who's about to be executed by Talion.
• In the intro cutscenes for the various captains you engage, keep an eye on Talion's face during the Blade Lock. Watch as he fails to show any real emotion, as if this were an everyday occurrence for him. Which it is.

Gameplay - Other

• One of the collectible artifacts bears news from the Battle of Five Armies - the bearer of said news was referred affectionately to as "dinner". The ending paints the actions in an entirely different light, however.
  Orc Narration: Once again, the filthy humans sided with the Dwarves who had help from those sanctimonious bastards the Elves who were rescued by - and I am not making this up - the damned giant Eagles to slaughter thousands of our brethren in what we should be calling the battle to unfairly gang up on the Orcs. Our lands get invaded, our chieftains killed, and our people murdered. Where does it end? Well, I tell you, it ends here. And it ends right now! They can't stop the march of progress. They can't stop us!
• From the "Strange Rock" artifact's memory, involving a father talking to his daughter about a rock she found near Mount Doom:
  Now, Doom is a foul place, angry and mean. It will explode when Sauron is near and plotting, spitting all manner of foulness into the air: smoke and dust and rocks that burn the ground. It does this as a warning: I will not stay silent for long! Sort of like your mother. Don't tell your mother I said that.
• Among the Artifacts you collect, you find evidence that Saruman sent a spy to Mordor to report back to him what they are doing. The spy does his job rather well, but by the third (and final) report, he's been driven insane by the very presence... of Morgai flies. ''You'' try to listen to his report without sniggering. Though the flies are also implied to be extensions of Sauron's will which may dilute the comedy of it.
• The mere fact that one of the Traits for a captain is No Chance. Unintentional or not, it's still worth a good laugh to imagine an captain executing Talion to Vince's theme.
  • You don't need to imagine it, just watch Tear Of Grace and his Shadow of Mordor series. He usually plays a snippet of the theme every time he gets killed by a Captain with the trait.
• The First Sword legend mission, where you're assigned the task of killing 50 Orcs in a pit. After killing the 50th one, the roughly twenty Uruks left scream in abject terror, turning and running for their lives... leaving you standing there watching them run.
• When you hold onto a captain (or practically any Uruk, really), they'll start shouting things along the lines of "Not me, you idiot!" to whoever might hit him. Even if it's a caragor.
• Poisoning grog barrels is always fun, especially watching them turn on each other.
• That rare instance when you spawn in and almost immediately get a zoom in on a dying orc captain a couple hundred feet away.
• If you have excellent timing, you can light a warchief on fire right as they spawn. The result is that the warchief's introduction, complete with zooming, Time Stands Still, and Ominous Latin Chanting, will play as he stumbles around, burning and panicking.

Meta

• More of a meta example, but in a behind the scenes interview, Troy Baker and Nolan North hang a massive lampshade on their Fandom Rivalry.
• One curious player wondered what would happen if you spent the game avoiding any potential rivalries up to the Lord of Mordor mission, where your Nemesis comes back for one last fight against you. He carried out this experiment and found that the game just brings back Ratbag. It's probably a glitch, due to Nemesis!Ratbag not being voiced by Phil Lamarr, but it's a hilarious surprise all the same.

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