User blog comment:General MGD 109/Grimm Strength/@comment-5937321-20130618151219

This is a good question and something I've been thinking about for a while. Honestly, I think it simply  comes down to the show being wildly inconsistent. I mean, we are told time and again that Blutbaden are super tough badasses, they can shrug off a bullet, and you need to hit a certain spot on their backs to stun them if you want to take them on in an unarmed fight.

And then Hank knocks one out with one punch.

It's kind of a pattern with this show. When we are introduced to a Wesen for the first time, they are scary badasses. They second time we see them, Nick kicks their ass without effort. It happened to Hasslich and Schakals. They also tend to forget that they have superpowers (like super smell or leaping abilities). I wouldn't doubt that the next time a Siegbarste appears, Nick drops it with a punch.

Ignoring that for a moment, when it comes to strength, there are two things to remember. First, Wesen aren't really that powerful, at least when it comes to supernatural creatures on other shows (like Buffy). While some are strong, they aren't necessarily superstrong. The only feat of actual superstrength I can recall offhand is Monroe ripping a man's arm off. I can't remember anyone bending steel bars or lifting something extremely heavy.

Okay, there was the little girl Drang-Zom killing a full grown man, but you don't need to be superhuman to do that. Fang, claws, "crazy" strength, and the element of surprise would be enough. I mean, a crazy 8 year old with a knife can startle someone and then stab them in the neck. It's not like she picked a man up over her head and threw him or anything.

The other thing is a pet peeve of mine. It turns up a lot in "battle" threads (you know, "Can Character A beat Character B?"). People use the logic that, if A can beat B, A is stronger than B. That's just not true for a lot of reasons. Using the comic book example, most of Spider-Man's foes are stronger than him, but Spidey always beats them in a fight. On paper, he shouldn't have a chance against Rhino (who's about 8 times stronger), yet he always wins.

To give a real world example, an Olympic weightlifter can benchpress much, much more than a heavyweight boxer. But, in a fight, I don't think anyone would put money on the weightlifter. Or you can look at MMA. On the UFC Ultimate Fighter TV series, big, fat Roy Nelson easily manhandled the bigger and stronger Kimbo Slice. Why? Because Kimbo was a rookie streetfighter and Nelson holds two black belts and has years of experience.

Speaking of experience, my mind comes back to Nick being able to casually knock around Pierce and the 3 Jagerbars from Bears Will Be Bears. In those cases, you were dealing with teenage Wesen. I think it's wrong to say that Grimm are stronger than either species since Nick would have probably have had a harder time against Frank Rabe or Leo Taymor. Heck, the Jagerbars didn't really even attempt to fight Nick, they were blindly chasing after the two people they were hunting and ran full speed right into his punches and kicks. They probably didn't even realize what happened until they hit the ground.

Anyway, personally, I'd rather that they just said Grimms had some sort of superfighting ability rather than great strength. You could use that to explain why he's able to handle medievel weapons so well.

That being said, I think my favorite theory that I've ever seen is that Grimms are anti-magic:  They actually weaken Wesen is their presence. The person who came up with this theory tied it in to a Grimm's ability to see through a Wesen's disguise and that Grimms are immune to the magic of the coins. Plus, they pointed out Nick's inability to lift the fridge off the trapdoor in To Protect And Serve Man (which he should be able to do if he had superstrength).

I like this idea because you can use it to explain away a lot of plotholes. Hank could knock out the Blutbad because she was weak from Nick. Monroe gets his butt kicked regularly because he's weaker from hanging around with Nick (it would also explain why his sense of smell isn't as good as it was in the pilot).

I don't think the theory is true or that the show would ever use it, but I think it's cool.

That being said, I like your "as needed" strength theory. Sort of a Grimm adrenaline rush without the crash and burn that comes after normal adrenaline.