“common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about.”
Hoo boy. This extends to a “common in-game opinion that is wrong.” Predictably I’m gonna talk about Strong, but this is actually about the super mutants in general, but also in Fo4 specifically.
Namely that everyone assumes they’re dumb.
Usually SOLELY on the “evidence” that they are big, bulky, and don’t talk eloquently. This happens a lot to any strongman archetype characters but it’s extremely noticeable in the Fallout fandom because the opinion is reinforced by a lot of npcs ingame.
At its core, from a Doyalist perspective, this is literally just ableism. The idea that if you can’t talk cleverly you’re somehow less smart, and also that being smart on it’s own means you’re somehow more valuable.
Now I’m talking about the Fo4 super mutants specifically because of something not a lot of people seem to actually know? That they were created by the Institute.
Unlike the super mutants you see in all the other games that were made by the Master, the mutants in Fo4 were made by the Institute and also infantilized, locked up, and experimented on cruelly before being either killed for not being useful enough or being “tagged” and turned out into the wasteland with no support system and in most cases no memory.
I could go into an even longer rant about how much the mutants in Fo4 are autistic-and-disabled-coded, but more specifically I want to address the intelligence.
They routinely operate heavy machinery that requires careful maintenance to keep working. Just research how much soldiers hate machine guns normally, they’re a *bitch* to keep running smoothly. Irl, the average minigun technical manual is over 500 pages. They jam often, they have a lot of fiddly parts that can break down, they need cleaning and repair. That’s not even going into the other weapons SM’s routinely use. And no, there’s not nearly enough military grade weapons just laying around for them to have been using til they break then looting more. It’s been 200 years.
In addition, the mutants in Fo4 do have a social structure and more specifically a sense of fairness and right and wrong. They share everything with their family and despise greed and theft. They value honesty and protecting each other.
When you consider that they were all abused horrifically by humans before being dumped to fend for themselves, their society is extremely impressive. Also their hatred of humans? Literally the first and only humans they can remember is the freaking Institute. Of course they hate humans. When you actually take the time to befriend Strong he comes to respect not only Sole but most of your party. Notably with a huge distrust for your robot and Courser companions, for good reason.
Strong specifically talks about hating and distrusting technology because of the Institute, not because he’s dumb. He and all the other super mutants associate technology with their prison and the worst experiences they’ve ever had. They smash any tech they see because they don’t have a way to tell if it’s being used by the Institute to spy.
This is getting long so I should end here but again: not being able to express yourself well in English does not equal stupidity. Just ask literally anyone for whom English isn’t their first language and any autistic person.
Super mutants are not dumb and they know a lot more about the Institute than most wastelanders.
Eloquence does not equal intelligence.