BrettM

My Khajiit character finds it surprising that guards are amazed to see fur coming out of his ears.

There are about as many bad Imperial jarls, and I don't see an advantage for either side in average quality of rulers. Laila may be clueless, but at least she's good-hearted and might actually be decent if we could get rid of that steward. The Imperials put Maven on the throne. Is evil better than clueless? Siddgeir is corrupt and decadent. Igmund doesn't even control his own city guard and is unaware that the Forsworn are operating inside his city despite his uncle's attempts to get him to face reality. Idgrod is pretty good, but lacks the confidence of her people. I'd say Bethesda went out of their way to balance the situation, so you can't pick a side based on who provides better governance.

Magic is not traditional? Someone had better tell that to Tsun. If you tell him that your right to enter the Hall of Valor is due to your position as Arch-Mage, he will tell you that mages were highly valued by the ancient Nords and are still honored in Sovngarde despite the views of the modern Nords. You will also see mages among the heroes inside the Hall of Valor. The draugr, who are all ancient Nords, are mostly warriors, but include a few mages as well as a few Tongues. There are references that mention battlemages among the armies of Skyrim during the early eras. Kings had a battlemage among their advisers and every jarl right up to the present day has a court wizard. The College of Winterhold has existed since the time of Shalidor in the First Era. I'd say there's plenty of evidence that magic use is traditional in Nord society and has been respected during most of their history. The real mystery is how it came to be so widely distrusted in the present day.

I don't think that Beth would even need to resort to a dragonbreak to make it come out any way they want. No matter which side you choose, there is no firm conclusion to the civil war during the time period covered by the game. If you pick Stormcloak, Ulfric is still not officially on the throne at the end of the storyline, Elisif and the deposed imperial jarls are still alive, and the Empire still has troops scattered around Skyrim and might still kill Ulfric before he can become High King. If you pick the Empire, the Stormcloaks still have not been entirely crushed, the deposed rebel jarls are still alive, and a new rebel leader might arise, leading to the death of Tullius in the near future. So the next game could legitimately claim either side as the ultimate victor, with both Tullius and Ulfric being killed before the civil war was finally over for good. The history book covering the war doesn't have to say which one died first, so both player choices would fit either canon equally well without the need for a dragonbreak. Likewise, the assassination of Titus Mede II can be canon no matter which choice a player makes regarding the DB quest line. The history books can simply say that there are rumors that the Dragonborn was involved, but no solid proof. Thus, any choice the player makes fits the canon that TM II was assassinated in Solitude.

Once I fast traveled to Morthal to visit the apothecary. A mudcrab popped out of the swamp at the other end of town and took down an NPC with one shot. I had less than a second to react and the NPC was yards away. Even if I had already had a bow in hand, I could not possibly have nocked, drawn, and fired at a distant target in the time available. Please tell me what I did wrong. Once I fast traveled to the Riften Stable. A dragon appeared and I ran to engage him. So did the stable master and his assistant though they are unarmed and unarmored. The dragon insta-charred them before I got in my first hit. Please tell me what I did wrong. I started Dawnguard with a level 74 character. I mapped to Whiterun. I heard shouting behind me. By the time I drew my sword, turned around, and ran towards the commotion at the gate -- a matter of seconds -- Adrienne and Ulfberth were dead. Please tell me what I did wrong. This didn't start with Dawnguard, but the vampire attacks are making it more common. It is annoying, though not "game breaking", to no longer be able to buy a horse in Riften or to do business at Warmaiden's. But I don't see how that annoyance is caused by any failure on my part. It doesn't seem reasonable to expect me to do the impossible, especially when faced with NPCs who are stupid enough to try fisticuffs against a dragon instead of running away.

I always try to let him live despite his questionable moral outlook and repulsive reverence for his ancestors. He's more stupid than evil, but he is capable of learning the error of his ways. If you let him live, go visit him in the museum later and you will see that his attitude has changed. He's been scared straight. The problem I have is that he doesn't always give you the choice. Sometimes he will just skip the dialog that allows you to let him go and attacks you immediately, so you have to kill him in self defense.

Despite their bias, these books have value or it would have been pointless for Bethesda to have included them in the first place. If nothing else, the presence of these books and others (e.g. The Talos Mistake) is a demonstration that the intelligentsia of the Empire have become Thalmor sycophants. That is a sign of the failing health of the Empire. The establishment is pushing propaganda aimed at pleasing the Dominion and no alternative viewpoints are being published. But there is something else. When the bias is so clearly detectable, it is possible to read between the lines, discount the bias, and get some idea of the true state of affairs. For example, The Bear of Markarth gives us the basic fact that there WAS a deal between Ulfric and the Empire regarding Talos worship, regardless of whether we believe the assertion that the deal was a result of blackmail by Ulfric. I doubt the author would have admitted the existence of this deal if he could have pinned the arrangement on Igmund and Torygg's father, leaving the Empire entirely blameless. But the fact is so well known that he has to admit it and resort to the blackmail story to get the Empire off the hook. Likewise we can compare the author's claim that the Empire wanted to negotiate with the Forsworn, leaving those people free to rule themselves, with other facts at hand. If this is truly what the Empire wanted, why didn't they release Madenach from prison and give the Reach back to him once they had taken control back from Ulfric? It seems obvious that the Empire never did want the Reach to be independent, but they were forced to negotiate because the Legions were still too weak from the Great War to reconquer it. (Remember that this all took place very shortly after the end of the Great War.) Ulfric did the Empire a huge favor by reconquering the Reach for them, which the author is forced to admit if you read between the lines and ignore the scare quotes he uses when writing of the Empire's gratitude. I find these books quite worthy of discussion.

The situation has changed. In the three previous imperial dynasties (established by Alessia, Reman Cyrodiil, and Tiber Septim), the ruler HAD to be dragonborn to keep the Covenant of Akatosh. Only a dragonborn could wear the Amulet of Kings and light the Dragonfires that kept the doors of Oblivion closed. However, when Martin Septim was transformed into the avatar of Akatosh to end the Oblivion Crisis, the Amulet of Kings was destroyed and the Covenant of Akatosh was ended. There is now a permanent mystical barrier between Mundus and the Daedric Realms that prevents the Princes from invading, so there is no longer any need for the Amulet, the Dragonfires, or an emperor with dragon blood. Being dragonborn does not give a special claim on the imperial throne now.

Both books strike me as being very clearly biased. It doesn't matter that the bias is towards a party that is not in the civil war because the bias is against a party that IS involved. The author has a motive for exaggerating the virtues and minimizing the vices of Ulfric's supposed victims because his goal is to paint the darkest picture of Ulfric that he can. It's all pure spin control. Ulfric is now the enemy of the Empire and it's time to revise his entire history. Anything positive must go down the memory hole and everything else must be presented as evidence of long-standing criminal tendencies. I have questions about just how peaceable the Reach really was with the Forsworn in charge. Given the clear bias of The "Madmen" of the Reach, I find it telling that the author felt obliged to even mention any crimes committed by the Forsworn. If a biased author can't sweep those crimes entirely under the rug, they may have been much more extensive and serious than he is willing to admit. Likewise, the author is not able to pin the blame for the Markarth Incident entirely on Igmund but is forced to admit that there was, in fact, an agreement between Ulfric and the Empire. The best he can do with that uncomfortable fact is to portray the Empire as the victim of blackmail, which is extremely hard to swallow given that Ulfric was still a loyalist at that time. The Reachmen may certainly be a distinctive culture and people. However, many Reachmen do not follow the Forsworn or the "old religion" they've revived. In fact, many of them regard those old ways -- a culture that has been dead for centuries -- with clear distaste. Don't they have just as much right to a voice as the Forsworn minority?

Awww. Poor wittle Empire was forced by big meany Ulfric to make an evil agreement as the only way to save the suffering Reachmen from his criminal overlordship? I find that very hard to swallow. The author that claims that the Empire was "forced" into the deal is a Thalmor suckup who was trying to divert all blame for the treaty violation onto Ulfric and paint the Empire as his innocent victim. He might as well have written: "Please, dear Thalmor masters, don't blame the Empire! Ulfric MADE us do it! HE'S the Bad One, not us! We just wanted to get the poor Reachmen out from under his iron boot, and that's the only reason the Legions went there at all. It had absolutely nothing to do with the silver mines and other resources that we desperately wanted under Empire control, and we weren't at all grateful that Ulfric got them back for us at no cost to the Legions at all. Honest!"

The window lights in your "ghost house" look to me like a match for the windows in Dragonsreach.

My theory is that there is no such thing as a "word of power" in the sense that the power is built into the word itself. The dragon language contains many ordinary words that would be used regularly in normal speech that are also used in Shouts. For example, take Paarthurnax's greeting: Drem yol lok (peace fire sky). All three words are part of one Shout or another. Some words are even used in more than one Shout. I suspect that any given word can serve as a focus for one or more concepts encompassed by its meaning. Learning to Shout means internalizing and fully understanding a concept and then projecting that concept through the focusing word using the Voice. The word is like a lens that converts light (the raw power of the Voice) into a laser beam (a Shout). (I hope I'm explaining that clearly.) However, if you have sufficient control, then you can choose whether or not to project through that word, giving you the option of speaking it normally. Also, anyone who does not know how to Shout would be able to speak the dragon language normally, as it appears to have been the native language of the Atmoran colonists used in both speech and writing through the Merethic and First Eras. This theory would explain the Dragonrend Shout, which can not be understood or used by dragons even though the words (such as "joor") are known to them and used by them in ordinary speech. This Shout was invented by men. Men could thoroughly understand the concept of mortality, so they were able to project that concept through selected words once they had learned the Voice. These words were not "words of power" until someone learned how to put the power of the Voice through them. The power is not in the words themselves, but in the use made of them. The theory would also explain why you do not need to unlock "Call Dragon". You aren't using the words of Odahviing's name for any concepts behind their actual meanings, but to establish a connection with his identity, which is a function of all three words working together as a unit. His identity is a concept separate from the words of his name. (I would be interested to know if the expansion lets you learn to call Durnehviir without requiring an unlock. This should be the case if my idea is correct.) As with any language, the same word can express more than one concept. This would explain why a word may appear in more than one Shout. The concepts behind a given word are all related, but differ enough that the word can be a focus for any of them if you know how to "adjust" the focus for the concept you want to express. This might also explain how the Greybeards other than Arngeir manifest power no matter what they say, even when they are not actually Shouting. They have been concentrating on increasing the power of their Voice for years by using the power constantly as a strength training. Now their power is released in an unfocused manner every time they open their mouths, causing a general shaking. Perhaps they've even forgotten how to not use the Voice. Only when they are actually Shouting are they applying any focus to their words. It's just an idea, but it does seem to explain much of what we experience.

You can do all of the Blades quests, including recruiting, if you do them after finishing "Alduin's Wall" and before doing "Alduin's Bane". Once you've done "Alduin's Bane" then the quest "The Fallen" will automatically begin, so the next time you have any contact with the Blades they will demand that you kill Paarthurnax. After you do "Alduin's Wall", the next time you visit Sky Haven Temple both Delphine and Esbern will offer various quests. During this time you can take anything in the Temple -- Blades armor, Dragonbane, books, etc. -- without stealing it. The Atlas of Dragons will appear on Esbern's table when "The Fallen" begins, at which point you will have to steal any item you still want, even if you haven't yet spoken to Delphine or Esbern to get "Paarthurnax" added to the quest log.

You seem to be using a strange definition for the word "obedient". If you only drive over the speed limit when there aren't any cops watching, are you obeying the law? If parents tell a young child not to smoke, is he obeying them if he sneaks out behind the barn and smokes where they can't see him do it? How did Balgruuf obey the WGC by allowing a shrine to Talos to stand in the middle of his city with a priest of Talos spouting off publicly in front of it? How did the Jarl of Riften obey by allowing the presence of a shrine and priestess of Talos? How did the Jarl of Windhelm (Ulfric's father at the time) obey by allowing a temple and priest of Talos in his city? All of this, and more, was going on before the Markarth Incident, so it is laughable to claim that Skyrim was "obedient" until Ulfric came along. Disobedience was rampant in Skyrim prior to Markarth by any rational standard. The Empire just turned a blind eye to it until Markarth took away their plausible deniability and the Thalmor called them on it.

Obeyed? Cyrodiil -- Of course they obeyed. According to The Great War, the people there who demanded the war were now ready for peace at any price. Hammerfell -- Did they not flip Cyrodiil the one-finger salute? How do you characterize their response as obedience? High Rock -- We actually have no idea what's going on there. However, they don't really seem to have a dog in that fight. They didn't lose any territory and I don't think they're a hotbed of Talos worship. The WGC requires no changes in their internal behavior. Is it meaningful to speak of their obedience to a treaty that doesn't seem to have any effect on them? Skyrim -- Even those who side with the Empire aren't obeying the WGC. They shrugged their shoulders and figured they could just ignore it, as Balgruuf did, assuming it was not actually going to be enforced on them as long as they stayed under the radar. So they flipped the one-finger salute whenever the Empire wasn't looking instead of doing so openly. After the Markarth Incident this was no longer possible, and half the jarls did openly flip the one-finger salute at that point. How is this "obedience"? So, out of four provinces, we have exactly ONE -- Cyrodiil -- that can be fairly characterized as obedient.

You don't need to find a member of the Thieves Guild. Both general merchants and blacksmiths carry picks, and they are often found as loot on bandits.

There is one more bit of evidence, I think.

I've addressed this before, though perhaps not in this thread, so I'm not ignoring it. The Thalmor always had a long-term plan to move in on Skyrim. They took Ulfric prisoner during the Great War and then let him escape because they decided that he, as the son of the Jarl of Windhelm, could be useful to them in the future. How could he be useful unless they were already planning ahead to the time when they'd enter Skyrim, even before the Great War was over? They had their own reasons for being in Skyrim, and all they needed was an excuse. If Ulfric hadn't managed to give them that excuse, they would have found some other way. However, they would have had to have been pretty stupid not to expect SOME sort of incident in Skyrim that would allow them to yell "treaty violation" and demand satisfaction. They weren't caught by surprise one day and didn't say "gee, I guess we'd better do something about that even though we had no prior intention of having a presence in Skyrim." To place the blame on Ulfric is to portray the Thalmor as being simple opportunists of rather low intelligence. The truth is that they are far more than that. They are machiavellian manipulators who worked to set up a situation that gave them such an opportunity. It doesn't matter whether Ulfric was an actual agent or just a patsy, the ultimate blame must go to the Thalmor who stacked the deck.

Only one type, but there was a practical limitation on Tiber's heirs. They had the potential to absorb dragon souls to learn Shouts, but that was hard to put into practice without any dragons around. In Tiber's day there were still a few dragons to be found, but none since then. Presumably Tiber killed at least one and discovered his ability, at which point the Greybeards summoned him. The Greybeards ordinarily don't teach anyone who doesn't follow their philosophy, but you fall outside their rules because you can learn to Shout without any help from them at all. You can learn lots of Shouts without ever getting anywhere near High Hrothgar, unlike ordinary people. The only way the Greybeards can hope to influence you into using your power properly (by their standards) is by agreeing to teach some of what they know while encouraging you to adopt their philosophy. They're trying to make the best of what they see as a bad situation. That is why they summon dragonborn who already have the power, including you and Tiber. You are the first one since Tiber who has had the opportunity to put his potential into practice. However, if a dragonborn doesn't have any dragons to kill, he or she will never learn to Shout unless taught by the Greybeards. Why should the Greybeards summon a dragonborn who does not already have the power and just give it to them? The dragonborn in such a case can never misuse the power if the Greybeards never teach it, so their "problem" of controlling the use of the Voice is already solved.

Think of any totalitarian system you ever heard of in our world. What are the common elements to their oppression? Secret police (justiciars). Disappearances (Thorald and Etienne Rarnis). The midnight knock on the door. Purges. Gulags and torture dungeons. Collaborators and sycophants within the population (Gissur and Shavari), leading to neighbor fearing neighbor and parents fearing their own children. Political control officers overseeing those who occupy vital positions (Ancano). Economic manipulations meant to reduce the lower levels of society to grinding poverty, or worse. This is exactly the kind of system that the Thalmor are creating in Skyrim and have presumably created in Cyrodiil. It doesn't take much of this for a population to become too demoralized and weak to ever hope to strike back effectively. The social fabric unravels as the bonds of trust are broken. Even if there is a resistance movement, such movements have never freed their countrymen by themselves, but have only achieved their goals with the help of outside forces. What outside force is going to aid a Skyrim resistance if they allow the Thalmor to fully establish a presence? Resistance movements can also be very fragile, subject to betrayal from within and from civilians living in fear of retaliatory strikes that will decimate them every time the resistance kills one Thalmor. If Ulfric had chosen not to rebel but to wait until the Empire was ready to strike back, the Thalmor would have had more time to cement their control over both Skyrim and Cyrodiil. How prepared would Skyrim really be to fight after another decade or two of this? How prepared will Cyrodiil be? And what useful strength can either build when their provinces are full of spies and collaborators feeding information to the Dominion on troop numbers, training, readiness, locations, and plans? If Ulfric kicks out the Thalmor now, before it is too late, then Skyrim has a chance to build its strength without the destructive influence of the Thalmor occupation, not to mention the destructive effect of the resources being bled out by Cyrodiil. However, he has no way to drive out the Thalmor without first dealing with the Empire that is backing them up. If Ulfric had made, say, the Thalmor Embassy his first target, does anyone really think the Legions would have stood around with their thumbs up their butts? As long as the Empire is not willing to repudiate Skyrim as it did Hammerfell, the Empire is obligated to retaliate for any attacks on the Thalmor. And it is clear that the Empire is not willing to let Skyrim go because they want the resources even at the cost of making Skyrim less fit to fight in the long run.

The Blades SAY they serve the Dragonborn, but that isn't the same thing as actually serving. You should know something is fishy right from the beginning, even if you never hear Arngeir's warning about the Blades. Delphine blackmails you into contacting her, demands that you prove yourself to her at Kynesgrove, then sends you on a series of missions to carry out HER agenda rather than yours. She says she's "just trying to help", but it turns out that she is just trying to GET help. Your help. Once you've got her set up all snug and cozy in Skyhaven Temple, she has no further use for you unless you're willing to knuckle under and follow her orders. The gloves come off and you can see that they just want to use you. (Granted, Arngeir isn't in a perfect position to be throwing stones, given that he has been concealing information to try to manipulate you. If it hadn't been for your contact with the Blades, you might never have known this. However, he does back down when confronted, and I find the Greybeards far more trustworthy in the long run even if not perfect.)

"All the legitimate rulers of the Empire have been Dragonborn - the Emperors and Empresses of the first Cyrodilic Empire founded by Alessia; Reman Cyrodiil and his heirs; and of course Tiber Septim and his heirs, down to our current Emperor, His Majesty Pelagius Septim IV." -- The Book of the Dragonborn (Emphasis added) "Dragon blood" and "dragonborn" are two ways of saying the same thing. We are not the first dragonborn since Tiber Septim, though we may be the first since Martin. From Alessia to Martin, the gift of Akatosh was necessary to keep the Gates of Oblivion closed. Following the Oblivion Crisis, the Covenant was at an end and it was no longer necessary to keep the Dragonfires lit, thus there was no longer any need for the existence of dragonborn who could wear the Amulet of Kings and light those fires. Now, with the new crisis of Alduin's return, there is once again need for a dragonborn. But there is no continuing Covenant to ensure that the line will continue, and we could very well be the last dragonborn that will ever be needed.

Does Farengar even have a voice actor? To me he sounds like something out of a text-to-speech program. :)

I have no problem saying the hagravens are evil. Do the quest in Darklight Tower to find out how they are created. Is it not evil to sacrifice an innocent person to gain the power of a hagraven? The desire to "kill something pretty", as Melka suggests in Blind Cliff Bastion, is not exactly a mark of sainthood. I have as hard a time supporting a revival of this religion as I would supporting the revival of a religion that throws virgins into volcanos or uses obsidian knives to cut the hearts out of living sacrifices. The right to religious freedom does not trump the right to life of everyone else. The Companions as a whole are not evil, but that doesn't mean there are never any individual members who stray from the path of righteousness. The deal with the Coven was made hundreds of years ago. The Harbinger at that time had questionable judgement at least, but can we blame the current members of the Circle for his stupidity? Being a werewolf is not, of itself, evil. There are some pretty clear differences between the situation of the Stormcloaks and the situation of the Forsworn, despite the superficial parallels. The Stormcloaks are rising against a wrong that was committed on them. The Forsworn are rising against a wrong that was committed on their distant ancestors hundreds of years ago. As Bothela, the Reachwoman who owns the Hag's Cure, says, the Forsworn are trying to restore a way of life that was over long ago. Suppose that the U.S. government signed a treaty demanding the abolition of Christianity and some Christians started a rebellion to restore their religious freedom. Suppose at the same time a group of Seminoles started slaughtering people in Florida while demanding that the lands stolen from their ancestors be returned to them. Would you consider the two rebellions to be equivalent? There has to come a point at which an injustice is put aside save as an historical lesson. There is probably not a single person on the planet today whose ancestors weren't subjected to some injustice at sometime in the last 10,000 years. If we don't acknowledge the impossibility of rectifying those ancient injustices and find a way to move on, then we are all entitled to demand reparations from somebody else on the basis that their ancestors were barbarians or conquerors who took the land of our ancestors. The British can declare war on the Normans and re-fight the Battle of Hastings. The Normans can declare war on the Italians in retribution for the conquest of the Gauls by the Roman Empire. The Italians can declare war on the descendants of the barbarians who brought down the Roman Empire. It never ends. There probably is not a square inch of land on this planet that was not unjustly taken from someone at some point in history. Do any of us feel obligated to track down the descendants of those ancient owners and give our homes to them? Do we acknowledge their right to come and take it from us? If not, then why is it right for the Forsworn to kill Nords whose ancestors have lived in the Reach for generations?

Who says that? All of the emperors of the Septim dynasty, right down to Martin, were dragonborn.