I will give Ulfric credit

[billyro]

I would like to "join" the Stormcloaks, but only as an Imperial spy.

[Linsolv]

Also, Ulfric is an easy guy to understand.

 

For me, it's a better comparison to ask if a character with honest motivations (not "get money have sex," which is essentially vice-as-character) would take a path. And in that case, yeah. Someone might honestly believe in religious freedom, hate the Thalmor, and want to fight back. Hint: Empire ain't doing it.

 

Fallout 3 was the biggest offender to me. First time you get to choose to be evil, and it's... blowing up a town. For what? FOR SOME GOLD. Talk about putting the moral event horizon right at the beginning. From there, you never get a chance to be anything but pure good or pure evil. Not in a storyline sense, anyways.

 

New Vegas seemed like it was more balanced, but it wasn't. There were 2 good options and 2 evil options. I honestly as a person had a decent amount of respect for Caesar's Legion, but they were early on established as going WAAAAY too far so anyone who agreed with the idea of punishing the corrupt was immediately marginalized and made to be evil to agree.

[Sheralynn]

First of all, they all are racist in TOS. The Khajiit, the Dunmer, the Argonians, the Redguards, all of them have lines in which they either elevate their own race and heritage or talk with disdain about others. Somehow that's not perceived as racism. Only when it comes to the Nords, then it becomes racism. Art imitates life? Because in real life racism is often synonymous with white supremacism, it doesn't seem to apply for blacks, jews or asians.

 

Secondly of course Bethesda made Ulfric Stormcloak into the biggest unsympathetic stereotypical bigot and opportunist they could manage without becoming totally ridiculous. Thats the only way to portray a (white) nationalist and not getting crucified. Imagine the flak they would have gotten if they made him into a sympathetic character with a genuine cause, someone who really wanted to free his people. So it's either Bethesda message or they just chose the save path of political correctness.

[CloudVvulf]

Ulfric is a Thalmor "asset". At least according to the Thalmor dossier on him.

[marharth]

Ulfric is a Thalmor "asset". At least according to the Thalmor dossier on him.

He is only considered an asset because he betrayed the empire while he was in the legion to escape from the Thalmor. The Thalmor do not want a stormcloak victory.

 

They wanted the war to keep going on as long as possible so both sides were weakened.

[LobselVith66]

 

Bethesda has departed from the regular "good side"/"bad side" conventions in Skyrim....which is kind of refreshing. While you personally can choose to do "good" or "bad", the situation you find yourself in is typical of the real world. There isn't any group out for the benefit of mankind....every faction is out only for power and itself, and just pretends they are in the right.

 

I agree. I don't see General Tullius or Jarl Ulfric as entirely good or bad - and the Legion and the Stormcloaks are organizations that have good and bad aspects to them as well. Jarl Ulfric has no problem making a Dunmer protagonist the Thane of his Hold, he doesn't expel the Dunmer living in the Gray Quarter, and while he wants power, I don't see that as evil - the Legion wants to maintain its power, which is why it's trying to hold onto Skyrim after losing Hammerfell. I like that there are reasons to side with the Legion and the Stormcloaks - it gives the player reasons to see the outcome for both sides of the narrative.

 

Overall, I think it's good that both General Tullis and Ulfric Stormcloak are not one-dimensional characters, and that there are different views that can be held of both characters and their current (and past) actions. I like the fact that neither one of them is a saint, and both of them represent factions that have good and bad aspects to them. It all boils down to a matter of opinion and what we think might be true, because we are likely never going to know how much is accurate, and how much is bias, about events that are outside the knowledge of our protagonist. If nothing else, the one thing Tullius and Ulfric have in common is both men despise the Thalmor.

[Lachdonin]

Jarl Ulfric has no problem making a Dunmer protagonist the Thane of his Hold, he doesn't expel the Dunmer living in the Gray Quarter,

 

Expelled, no, but they live in the rundown, cespit of a slum, are aforded no protection beyond being inside the city walls, and are view as vagrants and undersirables. If you're going to argue that that situation isn't blatant racism, then you\d have to also argue that very little of the racial segregation up until the Civil Rights movement in the States wasn't racist.

 

Picking and choosing who you help based on their race is Racism, and Ulfric is worse about that than any Dunmer was back in Morrowind.

[marharth]

Jarl Ulfric has no problem making a Dunmer protagonist the Thane of his Hold, he doesn't expel the Dunmer living in the Gray Quarter,

 

Expelled, no, but they live in the rundown, cespit of a slum, are aforded no protection beyond being inside the city walls, and are view as vagrants and undersirables. If you're going to argue that that situation isn't blatant racism, then you\d have to also argue that very little of the racial segregation up until the Civil Rights movement in the States wasn't racist.

 

Picking and choosing who you help based on their race is Racism, and Ulfric is worse about that than any Dunmer was back in Morrowind.

His entire city is a slum. The grey quarter is not much different then the rest of the city.

 

It is not the same as the civil rights movement because nearly all of them are immigrants trying to escape Morrowind. If the Nords were really so racist they would have just told them to go away.

[terzho]

It's funny because I didn't know Ulfric was at all bad until people started saying he was. I haven't seen any of the "power hungry" or "greedyness" people have talked about before. Also if you think about it the stormcloaks are kind of in the right. The Empire is a sinking ship and they want off. Also their main religion was banned.

 

To put things in perspective, it's like a foreign power taking over America and banning christianity.

[Lachdonin]

To put things in perspective, it's like a foreign power taking over America and banning christianity.

 

Its nothing like that. It would be more like if Washington, the nations capital, banned Christianity. Cyrodiil and the Empire are NOT foreign powers. Cyrodiil was made capital because of its central location, the Empire is actually a Nordic creation.

 

His entire city is a slum. The grey quarter is not much different then the rest of the city.

 

It is not the same as the civil rights movement because nearly all of them are immigrants trying to escape Morrowind. If the Nords were really so racist they would have just told them to go away.

 

1; in game, yes, but in game the city has about 50 people in it. Hardly a village at that count. Based on the statements from people in game, the Grey Quarter is in considerably worse condition than the rest of the city.

 

2; The Dunmer refugees fled Morrowind almost 200 years before Skyrim. At the time, the Nords were among the most welcoming of peoples in Tamriel. Temperments change, however. The point remains that 'doesnt kick them out' and 'lets them live' are absolutely piss poor arguements against racist tendancies. You could have just as easily argued that no one in Alabama was racist because they didn't send the blacks back to Africa. The arguement its self is racist.