And in The Lord of the Rings, Frodo is unable to jump clear over an Orc's head or shove them dozens of feet. Which is just as relevant as mentioning Beowulf in a thread about D&D.
Firstly, Frodo is obviously not a STR character. Duh.
Secondly Gandalf followed the Balrog down a frickin' mountain, fighting him all the way as fire licked at his flesh, before fighting him back up the mountain to the very top. Clearly Lord of the Rings has room for Heroic Fantasy as well.
Where did I ever state that this kind of fantasy is not legitimate?
By saying a character performing superhuman feats of heroism breaks the storytelling of the game you're implying you can't tell a coherent story with superhuman characters in it.
There's a big difference between stating you personally don't like this style of story and saying that the game has a fundamental problem with its storytelling, which is what saying the game is weak in the context/narrative department means. That is what I was pushing against, because if you happen to see your character as this larger than life hero then there is no gameplay/story dissonance coming from the high end performance of your character.
And just to nitpick, I'm guessing a level 1 fighter hasn't mastered every type of weapon as I assume that is why we choose our specialisations as we level up?
Fighters have proficiency in all martial weapons, which means they're trained in their use and can fight with them as well as any trained soldier. They further specialize in specific fighting styles in the form of Fighting Style choices, but even if you specialized in Great Weapon Fighting you're still as trained (proficiency bonus) in the use of a longbow as your resident rogue sniper is.
Fighters are masters of war who can pick up any weapon and fight effectively with it, but reach a new height of deadliness in a specialized style of combat. Even a 1st level fighter is meant to be a hardened combat veteran, a trained bodyguard, or a royal knight in the court of a king.
As contrast an actual nobody with a sword would be similar to a bandit, which has a CR of 1/8th. Which means it takes eight bandits to be a moderate challenge for four 1st level adventurers.
As for if the game wants us to see ourselves as nobodies or somebodies, I think the intro resolves that pretty easily. We see all around us dozens of bodies of normal folks who've been mind controlled by the Mindflayers and torn a part by imps. They're laying on the ground bleeding out as we march through the ship, weapon in hand, cutting through the imps and fighting our way to the controls.
We're clearly supposed to be someone exceptional. Someone that can earn the respect of a Githyanki pirate or a 200 year old vampire spawn. We go on to lock blades with ogres and come to blows with evil hags and flesh eating gnolls.
I dunno how much more clear the game can be that we're not average folk. We have a set of skills and abilities that make us exceptional, and that is why we're able to escape the Nautiloid ship in the first place.
