BrettM

Which is why I like to put an arrow in Thonar after he gives me my stuff back. If you're quick enough about it and have a good stealth rank, you can do it without alerting any guards.

Using vampires for experiments, even if they're evil vampires, seems way out of line. One can argue that it is moral and just to kill a murderer humanely, but I can't think of a good moral justification for condemning them to death by torture. I do, however, wish there were some options for peacefully scoping out a situation to get proper information before deciding what to do. Peryite's quest is another one where everyone attacks you on sight. The Afflicted are apparently working on a plan and preparing materials to spread a deadly plague, and I think it's justified to put a stop to that. But, what about Orchendor, their leader? He supposedly betrayed Peryite somehow, which may mean that he's trying to stop the plague, which would make him one of the good guys. If I could have talked with him and gotten his side of the story, I would have let him live if this is the case. But, like the others, he attacks me on sight.

No. Not when the alternative means turning on your countrymen. So, if most slaves are content with their master but a few want to rebel, then the rebels should stand down if there is any chance their fellow slaves will fight on behalf of the master and might need to be killed? I don't think I like that logic. By your standards, no rebellion is ever justified because the rebels always have to war against some of their fellows who are advantaged by the status quo and will fight to maintain it. Who should make the decision as to whether or not a wrong can no longer be tolerated? It seems to me that the people who are being wronged are the only ones in position to make that call. It doesn't matter how many people have been directly victimized. Those who are in a position to rightfully fear wrong being done to them are entitled to do what is necessary to prevent that. I can't hold with any moral equation that says something like "x% of the population must be tortured and/or killed unjustly before the remainder is entitled to react." That kind of thinking is what leads the persecuted to do nothing until it is too late to do anything. Then years later, when the incident has passed into history, others ask "but why did they allow it? Couldn't they SEE what was being done to them? Couldn't they SEE where it would lead?" I'm not quite sure what you meant by citing those Thalmor Orders. Obviously Elenwen did not have the forces to spare to comb the Skyrim wilderness inch-by-inch to follow up on every rumor of a shrine. That doesn't mean that no Talos worshipers are being abused or that the Thalmor place a low priority on hunting down heretics. It only means that there are certain practical limits on what they can accomplish.

Just don't try to rush it. The path up there has some high-level critters meant to discourage you from getting there at too low a level.

Those in Fellglow Keep were conducting experiments on unwilling victims, including members of their own group. That makes them evil. The Caller was leading them in this effort. That makes HER evil. I have no compunction about refusing to negotiate with evil.

Yes, though hardly setting a precedent. There have been elven Harbingers in the past, beginning with Henantier the Outsider (mentioned in Great Harbingers). It seems as if the Companions are well ahead of the curve on racial inclusiveness and have been for some time. Which is pretty strange considering, as you described, their roots in racial conflict.

Even if you were correct, isn't that enough of an abuse? Would this arrangement be satisfactory to, say, a Christian who believes that God has commanded him to witness? Would this be satisfactory to anyone of any religion who wishes to gather with his co-religionists for services and have access to priests, temples, and other trappings of his religion? Being forced to keep your beliefs secret and worship only in private is being forced to live your life in fear. Doesn't sound like a great way to live to me. But it isn't as if the Thalmor have said that worshiping Talos in private is okey-dokey. They are more than happy to get evidence that someone is doing so, and they will act on it. They will even solicit people to get such evidence on selected targets. Nobody worshiping in private can be sure that some neighbor with a grudge or some collaborator won't drop the dime on them. Nobody can be certain that someone won't blackmail them by threatening to turn them in to the justiciars. Even someone who does not worship Talos can't be sure that they won't be falsely accused by someone with a grudge or someone who wants them out of the way. (Do you think someone like Maven Black Briar would hesitate for an instant to use this to her advantage?) I don't think the Thalmor are all that concerned with high standards of evidence and will be glad to round up anybody who has been accused. Grab them all and let the inquisitors figure it out. I would even be willing to bet that the Thalmor are more than happy to manufacture evidence if necessary when they want to remove someone they consider dangerous to their ambitions. The Empire has pretty much given the Thalmor a free hand in the matter, and I've seen no evidence that anyone is squawking about the need for fair trials for those accused of heresy. Even Tullius will tell you that he can't interfere in such cases when you ask him about Thorald. Habeas corpus is not an operative concept. Don't try to tell me that the Thalmor wouldn't have been in Skyrim at all if it weren't for Ulfric and his rebellion, so private worship could have continued forever with no problem. That's just laughable. Just because they hadn't yet put people into Skyrim back when Alvor was a boy doesn't mean that they never planned to do so. It just isn't reasonable to expect that they had the manpower to immediately send justiciars, advisors, etc. all over the Empire the day the WGC was signed. Skyrim was just a little further down the priority list given the continued fight in Hammerfell and the need to get people in place in Cyrodiil. When Ulfric was captured during the Great War, they turned him into an asset. Why, if they had no long-term plans to get into Skyrim?

The importance is in what it demonstrates about the abilities, intent, and power of the Thalmor. If the first case is true, the Thalmor are machiavellian manipulators with a long-term plan to rot the Empire from within before crushing it. If the second case is true, the Thalmor are simple opportunists who are no more dangerous than any other reasonably intelligent foe. That's one conclusion that someone can draw from the facts as currently known. Not everyone agrees, however, that it is the conclusion that best fits the facts. That's kind of the point of this thread and others like it: to connect the dots and see where they lead, and to debate the merits and flaws of the opposing theories. Just baldly stating your conclusion is not very productive, since we all know what conclusions are being debated in any Empire/Stormcloak discussion. The important thing is to show your thought process and open it up for criticism, as many posters in this thread have done and are doing. The Temple of Talos in Markarth is empty, full of trash, and has no priesthood. (Compare to the nearby Temple of Dibella, which has several priestesses.) The Temple of the Divines in Solitude has had the Talos shrine removed and a priesthood that denies his divinity. The Thalmor are actively arresting and killing other Talos worshippers, whether directly affiliated with the Stormcloaks, affiliated with the Blades, or unaffiliated. You can blackmail Rarek by threatening to rat him out to the Thalmor for his secret Talos worship, and you can curry favor with Ondolemar by getting evidence on Ogmund. In short, the evidence is all over Skyrim that the ban on Talos is very much in effect and being put more into effect each day. When you first enter Whiterun, which is the most strategically-important city in Skyrim, Balgruuf neither fully supports the Empire nor fully denies the rebellion. He does not allow the Legion to garrison his hold and there is no Imperial Legate stationed in Whiterun as there is in other Empire-supporting holds. OTOH, he seems to have a great deal of personal dislike for Ulfric, and he believes that the political and economic ties between the Empire and Skyrim are not to be broken lightly. Furthermore, like the jarl himself, his population is about evenly split on the Empire/Stormcloak question. Balgruuf is sitting on the fence and both sides are trying to get him to make a full committment to their point of view. Neither side can afford to ignore Whiterun because of its strategic location in Skyrim, which is why the battle for Whiterun is the true opening engagement in the civil war. The rebellion is about Talos. The attack on Whiterun is about the strategy needed to win the war. "Titus II was forced to officially renounce Hammerfell as an Imperial province in order to preserve the hard-won peace treaty. The Redguards, understandably, looked on this as a betrayal. In this, the Thalmor certainly achieved one of their long-term goals by sowing lasting bitterness between Hammerfell and the Empire." -- The Great War A signed treaty has the force of law, and the Thalmor had every right to demand that the Empire enforce that law on its citizens or be considered in violation of the treaty. The Empire had three choices: 1) enforce the law and treat Hammerfell as a province in rebellion, 2) resume the war by fighting on Hammerfell's side, or 3) declare that Hammerfell was no longer the responsibility of the Empire. The Empire chose to repudiate the actions of Hammerfell and kick it out of the Empire, leaving the Thalmor free to take the whole thing if they could instead of just the parts given away by the treaty. There was no diplomacy involved with Hammerfell. Hammerfell never asked to be released from the Empire. Hammerfell was kicked out, and they were kicked out only because the Empire had no ability to force them to obey the treaty while the ink was still wet on it. Skyrim, however, begins 26 years after the WGC was signed, and the Empire has recovered enough strength that they can put up a fight against any provincial rebellion. They aren't about to let Skyrim become independent, no matter how nicely Ulfric or anyone else asks them. The Empire can't afford to lose the taxes and resources that they are extracting from Skyrim.

The Empire imprisoned Ulfric after they reneged on their deal. Ulfric's father died while he was in prison, keeping him from attending the funeral. He was released later, when his sentence was completed, just like any other criminal who hasn't done anything worthy of life imprisonment or capital punishment. You seem to be implying that the Thalmor demanded to take Ulfric away after Markarth but the Empire refused. Where is this established? You make it sound as if the Thalmor had no real interest in Skyrim but were just willing to take advantage of a lucky opportunity that Ulfric was stupid enough to create. But, in fact, the Thalmor deliberately manipulated the situation to create that opportunity, doing everything in their power to stir up dissent between the Empire and Skyrim. The Thalmor had already let Ulfric escape their imprisonment during the Great War because they thought he would be useful to them. They didn't want Ulfric in one of their prisons after Markarth; they wanted him running loose to start a rebellion. The rebellion didn't make the Thalmor take more of an interest in Skyrim; the Thalmor planned for and encouraged the rebellion to give them an excuse to send in more force. If Ulfric had tried to let things quiet down after Markarth, the Thalmor would have found another way to stir it up again. They might have put more pressure on Ulfric to keep him agitated, or they might have used other assets who were more cooperative. Either way, they would have gotten the civil war they wanted.

This turns out not to be the case. If the Stormcloaks win, there are guards in or just outside Solitude who say that it's too bad they couldn't have taken Solitude in time to save Roggvir. The Thalmor who killed Acilius Bolar in Skyrim and are hunting Delphine and Esbern are not there because of the Stormcloak rebellion, but because of the clause in the WGC that disbanded the Blades and allowed the Thalmor to hunt down the remnants. Ancano's presence at the College of Winterhold has nothing to do with the Stormcloak rebellion, but is an attempt to gain control of an important power base that the Empire might use against them in the future. The Thalmor were going to be in Skyrim sooner or later because they want to slowly tighten their grip on the whole Empire, not just Cyrodiil. Given their losses during the Great War, it just took them a little time to get around to Skyrim. The rebellion was only an additional excuse, but one which they planned on and helped bring into being. Ulfric was still loyal to the Empire at the time he took Markarth or he wouldn't have turned it over to the Legion. He did not start his rebellion until after the Thalmor crackdown there.

Bravo! Very well said. While I don't agree with you on everything (particularly where the Greybeards are concerned), I could not agree with you more on this masterful summary of my own sentiments regarding the rebellion.

It is canon that they said it. It is not necessarily canon for the truth of what was said. NPCs can be biased, uninformed, or liars. No one is obliged to accept their unsupported word as truth in the absence of any solid confirming evidence. Anything said or written does not have to be taken as gospel until disproved, as you claim, but is open to question. This is especially true when one character is speaking of the motives of another. Since the NPCs are not established to be mind readers, anything they say on the subject must be taken as opinion. Their opinion is based on their interpretation of what they've seen or claim to have seen or have been told by others, which hardly makes it Revealed Truth. It is quite proper to have doubts about the validity of an NPCs opinion.

Except we do have evidence, which I cited and quoted just a few posts before yours. That evidence is crystal clear: the Empire sanctioned Talos worship in Markarth and later reneged on the deal when the Thalmor got wind of it.

These are fire, frost, or shock runes created by spells in the Destruction school of magic. They can be safely triggered from a distance in a couple of ways. One way that is convenient for a Dragonborn is to hit the rune with a quick Fus. Another way is to cast a ball of Magelight at it. Magelight is a cheap Alteration spell that even a non-mage character has enough Magicka to cast. (I find Magelight and Candlelight useful for all my characters. These can give you plenty of light for a time without the inconvenience of having a torch in your hand instead of a weapon, shield, or spell.)

The problem here is circular reasoning. Why are the Argonians kept out of the city? Ulfric is a racist. How do we know he's a racist? He keeps the Argonians out of the city. Brunwulf also keeps the Argonians out of the city. If the simplest explanation for this is racism, then Brunwulf is also a racist. If there is some non-racist explanation for Brunwulf's restriction, then why doesn't it apply equally well to Ulfric? (This is not a matter of the developers failing to carry through on changes following an Imperial victory, stopping the story before such changes would have time to take effect. Brunwulf is deliberately continuing Ulfric's restriction by his own statement. If he takes the throne, you can ask him if he intends to allow the Argonians into the city.)

The dossier says Ulfric is an asset, not an agent. There is a difference, and Ulfric is not proven to be an agent. Agents are assets, but not all assets are agents. Furthermore, not all assets are necessarily aware that the Thalmor consider them to be assets. For example, if the Thalmor know enough about someone to manipulate them without their knowledge, then that person would be considered an asset. If Ulfric were actually working for the Thalmor as an agent, why would they have to allow him to escape? This makes no sense. Agents are simply sent on missions, not tricked into thinking they escaped by their own efforts.

Like others, I have to question whether Torygg was really the High King involved with Ulfric's arrest. At one point Ulfric says it was "the High King" who allowed the Dunmer into Skyrim, and some people make the mistake of thinking that he means Torygg because they don't connect that statement with the fact that the Dunmer became refugees more than 150 years before the time of the game. A similar mistake could have been made by whoever wrote that UESP article. I know of no canonical source that explicitly states that Torygg was High King at the time of the Markarth Incident. Sybile Stentor's dialog seems to indicate that he was not, but stops short of making this a certainty. We do not know for an absolute fact whether the High King in question was Torygg or his father by any firm evidence I've seen, and the UESP article in question cites no references containing such evidence. I can't place any reliance on it under those circumstances, though I think it's going a bit far to brand the article fanboi fanfic. Simple sloppy scholarship is enough to explain the problem with it. But I'm not sure it matters, unless one is trying to pin most or all of the blame for the Markarth Incident on Igmund and/or Torygg. I believe there is plenty of evidence that this is not the case. I think it is a logical certainty that the Empire was more than pleased with Ulfric's action in reclaiming the Reach, whether there is any evidence of their explicit involvement before the fact or not. Ulfric had their tacit consent, at least, beforehand and their collusion afterward. To the extent that we can believe the biased author of The Bear of Markarth, it WAS the Empire -- not Igmund -- that agreed to allow Talos worship as the price of Ulfric doing the dirty work that they were too weak to do themselves at the end of the Great War. The author is unable to disguise the fact that the Empire made a deal with Ulfric. There is no mention of an agreement with Igmund. The best he can do is try to propagandize the situation, putting scare quotes around "grateful" and making it appear that the Empire was concerned with nothing more than defending the poor, suffering Reachmen against the war crimes of the lawless Ulfric. According to the author, Ulfric was somehow able to use the tender feelings of the Empire to blackmail them into agreement with his demands. The author is nothing but another apologist trying to suck up to the Thalmor and divert blame from the Empire. Awww, poor wittle Empire! How can they be blamed for risking war with the Thalmor to save the Reachmen? The Empire only agreed to a treaty violation because mean old Ulfric made them! The Empire made no attempt to give the Reach back to Madenach after they repudiated Ulfric, demonstrating that they had been negotiating with Madenach out of weakness rather than a heartfelt desire to see the Reach free of Skyrim. Anyone who thinks that the Empire restored, or even tried to restore, "rule of law" to Markarth is not paying attention to their own experiences there. Arrianus Arius's spin control on these points just falls apart in the face of our own observations. Can we really trust an apologist like Arius to be fully truthful in reporting that the agreement with Ulfric was only after the fact? I think this is open to serious doubt. When Ulfric restored the pre-war status quo in the Reach, the Empire was truly happy to accept it, and I have no doubt that they were equally happy to give Ulfric the reward he wanted, treaty or no. The Empire tried to pull a fast one on the Thalmor, and then they threw Ulfric -- and all of Skyrim -- under the Thalmor bus when they were caught, proclaiming that Ulfric made them do it. Trying to minimize the role of the Empire while emphasizing the actions of Igmund and Torygg seems like a serious distortion of the affair.

So then stop giving the Empire sh*t for banning Talos. Mr Modern society. The two cases are approx equivalent, there is no difference whatsoever. I'm sorry but that is wrong. So, Stormcloaks can worship their God but fck the Forsworn. It is their land and their Gods, JUST THE SAME as the Nords in Skyrim. Have you seen some of these Nordic ruins? What went on in there? Hmmm... Well, I will help you out with this one. Embalming tools, uhh walking Corpses who apparently weren't allowed to die, then we have sacrificial alters, Dragon worship/sacrifice. Shall I go on? Seriously folks. This is exactly why I quit being a Stormcloak because the ideology sadly, appears to somewhat selective, from the top down. Freedom for Nords alone. Then the opposite of that side of the logic is NO-FREEDOM for everyone else, EVEN if they're human == Evil == Thalmor Logic (Freedom for Elves alone). Do you really not see any difference between Talos worship and a Forsworn religion that sacrifices the innocent in their ceremonies? What do the ancient Nord ruins have to do with Talos or Ulfric? The Nords fought for hundreds of years to destroy the Dragon Cult following the Dragon War, and this was done thousands of years before Tiber Septim was even born. Yes, the ancient Nords had a barbaric religion with barbaric practices. They started a revolution back then to put a stop to that religion. How is this a reason for being disgusted with the Stormcloaks and their ideology? What is the connection? Unlike the Forsworn, the Stormcloaks are not trying to return to that ancient barbaric religion, and they aren't fighting for the right to create draugr and use the old sacrificial altars in the Dragon Cult temples. Talos worship has absolutely NO relationship to the Dragon Cult, and it's ridiculous to claim that Talos worship is equivalent to the old religion of the Forsworn because Nords used to have a Dragon Cult. There is no logic to that argument at all. The American Revolution fought only for freedom for the American colonies. Yes, the revolutionaries held that there should be liberty and equal rights for all, but they fought only for their own. As John Quincy Adams said, "She [America] is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." I pointed out that the Stormcloaks are probably not so enlightened and that they are fighting only for their own freedom without any guiding principles regarding anyone else's. So what? How does this prove that I am confused about my own beliefs and need to make up my mind? Many revolutions in the history of humanity have been fought only to secure the freedom of the revolutionaries themselves. Taking note of such facts does not in any way show that I do not believe in more general principles of liberty. Wishing well to the Stormcloaks in their fight for freedom and independence does not mean that I would support them in denying it to anyone else. When it comes to the Reach, let's not forget that the Forsworn are not representative of the views of Reachmen in general. Let's not forget that the Forsworn committed many atrocities against Nord civilians who had lived peacefully in the Reach for generations. Even if I agreed that Ulfric is racist, his treatment of the Dunmer amounts to nothing more than neglect. The racism of the Forsworn, however, is active and violent. Let's not forget that the Empire's attitude toward the Reach is no better than that of Ulfric, who was working for the Empire when he reclaimed it. The Empire is no lover of freedom and independence for anyone at all, so there is even less reason to support them on the question of liberty than there is to support the Stormcloaks. There are no Adamses or Madisons or Jeffersons on either side, so we can only choose between the sides we are offered even if neither of them is ideal from an enlightened point of view. I... I... ahhhh.... I'm afraid I can't respond to this garbage or any other part of your last post without insulting you. Sorry, cause I'd *really* like to. How are you against Socialism again? Cause you sound very much far left. Just an observation. You seem to be observing me in some kind of fun-house mirror if you think that statement is in any way far left or socialist. I was objecting to the kind of bleeding-heart liberalism that makes excuses for or ignores the bad behavior of those they anoint as "victims" while allowing no excuses for the bad behavior of those they anoint as "oppressors". I was objecting to the kind of thinking -- left, right, or other -- that apportions all blame to one side and tries to turn a gray issue into pure black-and-white. I am objecting to the kind of illogic that willfully disregards selected facts in order to reach a pre-determined conclusion. How in the world can that be characterized as sounding far left? Are you really claiming that you can't respond to a point of debate without resorting to personal insults and ad hominem attacks? Do you understand how sad that is?

You will need at least two witch heads to cure Kodlak, do the two "Purity" quests, and cure yourself. One head will be destroyed when curing Kodlak. For some reason, doing "Purity" does not destroy the head in your inventory, so you can do both of them with the second head. Curing yourself will destroy it. Once you have cured yourself, you will no longer be offered either "Purity" or "Totems" quests. So don't cure yourself until all five of those quests are done if you want to complete them all.

Regarding the Civil War, there are several scenarios that can justify a Dunmer becoming involved. 1. Sooner or later the Aldmeri Dominion is going to get around to Morrowind unless somebody else beats them first. The Dominion wants it all in the long run. A Dunmer who realizes this has good reason to evaluate the situation and decide whether a unified Empire or an independent Skyrim will have a better chance of beating, or at least delaying, the Dominion. So shouldn't this smart Dunmer throw his support to the side he thinks will give his homeland a better chance in the long run? 2. Dunmer have no particular reason to love either the Empire or Skyrim, having had troubles with both in the past. A vengeance-driven Dunmer might decide to pick the side that he believes will lead to the destruction of both those enemies in the long run. Or perhaps he actually supports the Dominion and wants to help them conquer more quickly by weakening their enemies. 3. A Dunmer might well decide to make Skyrim his permanent home, putting aside all thoughts of a Morrowind that has been wrecked for the foreseeable future. A young Dunmer might even have been born in Skyrim -- second or third generation -- and consider it just as much his home as anyone else born there, having no personal memories of Morrowind or Dunmer culture as it used to be. Such a Dunmer has just as good a reason to pick a side as anyone else who sees Skyrim as home, Nord or not. Perhaps he would support the Empire under the "strength in unity" argument, having not been raised as a Talos worshipper. Or perhaps he would support the Stormcloaks under the "right to self rule" argument. Or perhaps he was even raised as a Talos worshipper by Nord foster parents (like Brand-Shei in Riften, who was raised from an infant by Argonians) and is willing to fight for his religion. As you can see, a Dunmer (or any other non-Nord) character can easily be given a backstory that justifies involvement in the Civil War on either side. I think that's part of the fun of making non-Nord characters, because there are additional questions that need to be answered. E.g., why isn't your Redguard character fighting the Thalmor in Hammerfell instead of wandering around Skyrim?

Regarding the "irony" of suppressing the religion of the Forsworn while fighting for freedom to worship Talos, I don't think the two cases are equivalent. There are certain exceptions to religious freedom that even we enlightened modern people will admit to. Do we allow any religion to tie people to stone altars and cut out their living hearts with obsidian knives? Do we allow any religion to throw virgins into lava to placate the volcano gods? Do we allow any religion to toss babies into furnaces to satisfy Moloch? Yet we do not regard ourselves as religious oppressors for forbidding such practices. If you look at the "old religion" of the Forsworn, it seems to involve barbaric practices that are regarded with great distaste even by other Reachmen. (Speak to the woman who runs the Hag's Cure in Markarth, for example.) If nothing else, that religion is headed by hagravens who are created by a ritual involving the sacrifice of an innocent victim (see the "Repentance" quest in Darklight Tower). It is hard to understand how the idea of a jobs program came up to begin with. Are there any Dunmer in Windhelm who are unemployed? The only two beggars in town are Nords. Three Dunmer own businesses, one owns a prosperous farm, one is a farm worker, one is a nanny, and one has a responsible position with a shipping company. Who exactly needs a job? I have a hard time seeing how Ulfric and/or the Stormcloaks deserve condemnation for their supposed racism yet the non-Nords deserve only sympathy despite their equal racism and criminal ways. One of the Argonians is not shy about telling us that "our kind" (Nord or Dunmer) are not welcome on the docks. One admits to being an ex-thief. One is a skooma addict. One suggests that he is not averse to pilfering from the goods he handles. One of the Dunmer complains that Argonians are naturally lazy, and she has no qualms about dealing with pirates to shut down her employer's competition. One is either an outright fence or willfully ignorant about the source of the goods he buys. Another tells you that you had best not deal with him if you're the sort that cares about where he obtains his goods. One may very well be an Imperial spy, giving some foundation to Rolff's general suspicion. Do they deserve no censure at all for their morally-casual, racist ways? It seems pretty hypocritical to put Ulfric's actions under a microscope while turning a blind eye to the flaws of those he allows to exist in his community.

Ulfric HAS talked with the Empire. In fact, he made a deal with them. And then the Empire broke that deal and threw him into jail. Can anyone really blame him for concluding that the Empire will not negotiate in good faith and that revolution is the only option remaining? As for being safe from bandits, that is not the reason that the Legion is in Skyrim. Name one instance in which the Imps ever took on any bandits or any of the other problems (vampires, necromancers, etc.) with which we must constantly deal in all holds, Imperial or Stormcloak. Suppressing banditry and the like is the responsibility of the jarls and always has been, not a responsibility of the Empire. The Empire keeps no one in Skyrim safe from bandits, so this is not a good reason for supporting them. The fight isn't about religious freedom in the abstract. The Stormcloaks aren't fighting so that all may worship as they please. They are fighting for their OWN freedom to follow their OWN faith, and true adherents of any religion have always put this first and foremost over other considerations. Did the early Christians deny their religion to obtain safety? Being thrown into arenas full of hungry lions doesn't sound very safe to me! Would we tell slaves not to fight against their oppressors because those oppressors keep everyone safe from bandits? Would we tell them that the rights of everyone else to safety from bandits trumps their right to be free of slavery? If not, then why is it wrong for the Stormcloaks to resist oppression without considering the costs to others?

Well, no. That was the point I was trying to make. One can't reasonably criticize a feudal ruler like Ulfric for failing to implement socialist, communist, or fascist solutions to social problems in his domain. Expecting a jarl in Skyrim to come up with the idea of job programs -- essentially a start at centralized management of the economy -- is unrealistic for the political system of their time and place. Ulfric may or may not be a bad guy, but if he is, it isn't because of his failure to take such actions.

Yes. The game seems bound and determined to encourage characters to follow dark paths. You have to skip a lot of quests to avoid the worst of those things, and you practically have to skip most of the game to avoid all of them. Even tiny things may offer only two wrong choices, though there is clearly a better choice that would be the natural thing to do in Real Life. Like Mac, I find this very frustrating.

And what time was this? I can't find a single reference to any example anywhere in Nord history where any high king was challenged at all, much less a reference to such challenges being "regular". The heirs of Ysgrammor held the high throne from his time until the time of King Borgas -- a period of some centuries. Perhaps there were challenges between competing heirs within Ysgrammor's bloodline, but we have no example that proves this. As far as we know, it never happened at all, much less being a common state of affairs. Nor do we have any examples following the War of Sucession save for Ulfric's challenge. (Yes, obviously there must have been such challenges because you don't need a custom for something that never happens. That is a far cry from being a "regular" occurrence, though.) Furthermore, the thu'um was never an everyday weapon like a sword or axe. It took years to master, just as it does for the Greybeards in recent times, and only a rare few had the necessary dedication and aptitude. The Tongues of the ancient Nords, like their battle mages, were rare and valued. Read, for example, the journal of Skorm Snow-Strider. When he ran into a situation that everyday arms could not handle, he had to request that a Voice Master be sent to his army. According to the Thu'um lore article: "Most if not all Nords have some talent for the thu'um, but it takes particular talent and many, many years of study and training to become a Tongue." I suspect that the ancient Tongues were a tightly-knit order that spent much time in secluded training and study, much like the modern Greybeards. Nonsense. The principles of the Way of the Voice are inscribed on the 10 tablets lining the 7,000 Steps. When we go to High Hrothgar, we see pilgrims studying these tablets and meditating on them. The story told by those tablets must be well known among the Nords, spread by those who make the pilgrimmage, including the principle that the Voice only be used for True Need and never for wars of conquest. "While the Greybeards are famed keepers of the Way of the Voice, the core precepts of the philosophy are still reflected in Nordic culture." (Emphasis added.) What makes you think that the use of the thu'um had already started to wane by the time of Jurgen Windcaller? I have seen nothing in the lore that even implies this, much less states it so baldly. Where does this information come from? What makes you think the Way of the Voice is simply pacifism? Not supporting wars of conquest does not make one a pacifist any more than it makes one an isolationist. The Voice is the Nordic equivalent of a nuclear weapon. Look at what Alduin did to Helgen and tell me that's not true. Even if no individual human Tongue could match that performance, a small group of them certainly could. For the Greybeards to try to keep such a weapon out of the hands of just anyone who wants it is hardly proof of pacifism. From Lore: Way of the Voice: You also keep accusing Windcaller of inventing the philosophy to save face. He claimed that the defeat at Red Mountain was a punishment from the gods for misuse of the gift that Kynareth gave them. How do you know that this isn't true? How do you know for a fact that Windcaller did not receive some divine revelation to this effect during his seven-year meditation? This is a world where the gods truly exist and do interact with mortals at times. You may be correct, but where is your proof that Windcaller made it all up out of butthurt? There IS a distinction between lore and gameplay, and gameplay can be under restrictions that do not exist in lore. This is an uncomfortable fact because it does lead to arguments over whether someone is arbitrarily picking and choosing, but it is a fact nonetheless. In lore, the thu'um IS that powerful. We are told so over and over again, and we are shown some of it. We are told that most of the Greybeards do not speak because their merest whisper could kill someone, yet the dovahkiin -- with a thu'um supposedly more powerful than Alduin's -- can do no such thing in gameplay. We see the earth shake when they welcome the dovahkiin and when Einar chastises Arngeir for refusing to help us get to Paarthurnax, yet they are just speaking ordinary sentences, not using phrases that have been defined as Shouts for gameplay purposes. We are told the ancient Nords had both battle mages and Tongues, and it is the Tongues that were called when an army needed to breach a fortress. Why, if the battle mages were more powerful? In lore, it is established that the Tongues had more power, yet this is obviously not true in gameplay. A young Voice Master brought down the main gate of Forelhost in lore, but our character can't even blow the door off a busted wardrobe in gameplay. I could cite more examples, but I think I've made the point. There is a major difference between the lore and the gameplay where the Voice is concerned, and only one of the two can be regarded as canonical. I pick the lore.