Why Ulfric was right to kill the High King

[JimS61]

Imperial look: Ulfric approached the thron and challenged the High King. It was accepted, and Ulfric shouted, almost ripping him apart. The shout killed the High King.

 

Stormcloak and actual events: Ulfric challenged the High King, and used a shout to disarm Toryg. Ulfric actually killed him with his axe, no shout or special magic.

 

 

 

If a leader can't defend himself, how can he defend his people or his land?

 

Toryg was slain by a Jarl, which proves he was not fit at all for the throne. In doing so, Ulfric had a valid claim to the throne, and could call the moot even though wanted for treason by the Empire.

 

Toryg also only wanted to impress the High Queen, Elisif. Why try to impress when you lead a land? It made no sense.

 

Ulfric wanted Skyrim to be free from the AD. He wanted the slavery to end.

 

 

 

So those are three simple reasons. Ulfric killed Toryg, which proves he was unfit for the crown, and didn't deserve to be High King. A nord king should be powerful, and able to survive a battle. If he fell to a lesser, he can't survive every battle he had to face.

 

 

Toryg's death only proved that he was unfit for the throne, and Ulfric was the one who made that point. He was right to kill Toryg, 'nuff said.

[JimS61]

Ulfric was "WRONG" doing what he did!

 

The custom and law is the king must accept a challenge to "honorable" combat but what Ulfric did wasn't honorable. It was murder.

 

Honorable would have been to meet the king face to face with somewhat similar weapons but Ulfric had been planning this for a long time.

 

It takes years to learn just 1 shout and ulfric did just that, spent years leaarning a shout just so he could kill the king without taking a chance on himself being hurt.

 

No mortal except for the Greybeards and Dovahkiin can stand up to a shout and the king didn't know any shouts and Ulfric "knew" this

 

That was not honorable combat but was just a coward commiting murder.

[MacSuibhne]

That was not honorable combat but was just a coward commiting murder.

 

This from someone (the Dragonborn) who thinks he's a privileged character...even entitled to go around Skyrim killing people with shouts far more numerous and powerful than Ulfric's could possibly have been, without any apparent thought for honour or justice or simple issues like right and "wrong";

 

who, in all but exceptional cases, joins the Dark Brotherhood and unequivocally murders...let me say that again--murders...people for fun and profit or just because someone told him to;

 

who kills an old woman running an orphanage...in cold blood;

 

invades and ransacks people's homes and bullies innocent merchants;

 

and if that weren't depravity enough, loots graves, eats human flesh, betrays innocent and trusting people to malign powers, sometimes drinks peoples blood...and revels in it;

 

and then has the gall to accuse someone who does none of those things but adheres to an ancient code of honour and Tradition to remove a weak and self-serving king who has sworn allegiance to a distant and impotent Empire?! An Empire which is not only playing bum-boy to the most evil race in Tamriel but is actually engaged in a macabre dance of self-destruction by aiding and abetting them.

 

It's a joke, right? Go on, pull the other one...

 

If we were honest enough to judge the Dragonborn by the same standards we judge Ulfric, the Dragonborn is far more culpable, far more arrogant, far more self-serving and far and away less admirable than Ulfric at his worst.

Edited July 6, 2012 by MacSuibhne

[StayFrosty05]

That was not honorable combat but was just a coward commiting murder.

 

This from someone (the Dragonborn) who thinks he's a privileged character...even entitled to go around Skyrim killing people with shouts far more numerous and powerful than Ulfric's could possibly have been, without any apparent thought for honour or justice or simple issues like right and "wrong";

 

who, in all but exceptional cases, joins the Dark Brotherhood and unequivocally murders...let me say that again--murders...people for fun and profit or just because someone told him to;

 

who kills an old woman running an orphanage...in cold blood;

 

invades and ransacks people's homes and bullies innocent merchants;

 

and if that weren't depravity enough, loots graves,e ats human flesh, betrays innocent and trusting people to malign powers, sometime drinks peoples blood and revels in it;

 

and then has the gall to accuse someone who does none of those things but adheres to an ancient code of honour and Tradition to remove a weak and self-serving king who has sworn allegiance to a distant and impotent Empire?! An Empire which is not only playing bum-boy to the most evil race in Tamriel but is actually engaged in a macabre dance of self-destruction by aiding and abetting them.

 

It's a joke, right? Go on, pull the other one...

 

If we were honest enough to judge the Dragonborn by the same standards we judge Ulfric, the Dragonborn is far more culpable, far more arrogant, far more self-serving and far and away less admirable than Ulfric at his worst.

 

There are those of us who prefer to RP a much lesser violent and indiscriminate Dovahkin....your Dovahkin maybe all of the above, mine is very far from .....Ulfric did murder the High King, that was not an honorable challenge, Ulfric states himself that he knew Torvygg did not stand a chance and we all know though a Shout does not necessarily kill an opponent, it does leave them staggered, unguarded, weakened, or etc... and open to attack....not exactly a fair fight on equal ground for an official challenge.

[Archone]

This from someone (the Dragonborn) who thinks he's a privileged character...even entitled to go around Skyrim killing people with shouts far more numerous and powerful than Ulfric's could possibly have been, without any apparent thought for honour or justice or simple issues like right and "wrong";

 

who, in all but exceptional cases, joins the Dark Brotherhood and unequivocally murders...let me say that again--murders...people for fun and profit or just because someone told him to;

 

who kills an old woman running an orphanage...in cold blood;

 

invades and ransacks people's homes and bullies innocent merchants;

 

and if that weren't depravity enough, loots graves,e ats human flesh, betrays innocent and trusting people to malign powers, sometime drinks peoples blood and revels in it;

 

 

Ah... yeah. I'm on my second playthrough now. The first playthrough had the Dovahkin kill people mainly because they were trying to kill her (or because Ulfric told her to), killed the old woman who was abusing the orphans so badly that upon her death the children gathered around her corpse to dance and sing, never stole from anyone, and did a lot of trading in the enchanted arms and potions she crafted. This playthrough has a Dovahkin who kills people because they're trying to kill him (or because his superiors in the legion ordered him to), is presently debating whether or not to kill the vile old woman as well as whether or not to do the thieves guild stuff (I'm leaning towards making that another playthrough and letting Nelrim focus on cleaning up Riften), and is heavily invested in Skyrim's economy and hailed as a friend by the merchants he's gone into business with.

 

Perhaps you should stop projecting imagined faults onto the rest of us?

[Freyrgjurd]

I believe Mac was talking about things the game have for you to do. As of again, every single person has it's play style, but you can see that if you follow the game's trending, you'll do those things.

 

I started again, cleaning everything before the main quest. In my stop at Windhelm, a lot of passion. In Solitude, a lot of schemes, that remind me of King's Landing in GoT.

The High King was a devoted Talos worshiper, I believe ? The hold mage tells a history... of an unexpected challenge, bound to acceptance.

 

Again, I say, It's up to you to take you side. But, aside from lore and based analysis, too much conjecture until beth opens the rest of the history. Perhaps some with Downguard ?

[BrettM]

I believe Mac was talking about things the game have for you to do. As of again, every single person has it's play style, but you can see that if you follow the game's trending, you'll do those things.

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.

[MacSuibhne]

I believe Mac was talking about things the game have for you to do. As of again, every single person has it's play style, but you can see that if you follow the game's trending, you'll do those things.

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.

 

 

More than that...when faced with choices that embody ambiguity (and make no mistake Beth deliberately designed the game with lots of ambiguity) too many choose what's easy and what appeals to their own sense of self-congratulation; deliberately ignoring what little hard hard evidence we do have and avoiding all pretense of analytical thinking.

 

It is easy to listen only to the gossip of disgruntled NPC's. No digging, no interminable efforts to hear the other side, no having to think about it or maybe even do a little research. No pretense of fairness.

 

It is easy to brand ...accuse, condemn and dismiss...Ulfric and the Stormcloaks as racists (too easy, if you think about it). It is something we see and identify in our real lives (to the extent that we have real lives) and it immediately marks us as the "good guys" because we're not racist...heck, we're vigilantly and eternally on the look-out for those that are.

 

It's almost Jacobean in its zealotry. But amusing for all of that simply because so many would apparently rather be aligned with a faceless, soulless, dead-in-the-water, drone bureaucracy than a struggle for independence and self-determination led, as all such struggles historically are, by someone of extraordinary vision...and, perhaps, probably, extraordinary flaws, as well.

 

And while this is not a popular thesis here (in fact, it is nearly anathema to many, apparently) at some level there is a test of character going on that I believe Bethesda intentionally set up. How avidly do we embrace the dark side? (who's to tell us "no"? The game gives us a license to act without external restraint and thereby forces us to find limits within ourselves...such as there is, if any)

 

How rabidly do we join in the mob mentality of accusation and condemnation without trial, without verifiable evidence?

 

How readily to we take the easy way out, without thought or reason or logic? Are we sheep or...

 

It's all too easy to extol a standard of ethics...or morality or behaviour...for others; harder...much harder, apparently...to apply to our ownselves.

 

And it's all too familiar, as well.

Edited July 5, 2012 by MacSuibhne

[Deleted4666244User]

If ulfric was such a great fighter, then why use a shout at all?

 

Answer, to go overkill and show everyone how powerful he is "LOOK AT ME, I CAN USE THE VOICE. TO PROVE IT, I WILL KILL TORYGG AFTER I DISARM HIM WITH A SHOUT"

 

maybe Ulfric was right that Torygg was not the best candidate for high king, but he was wrong in trying to break away from the Empire and splitting Skyrim Asunder with his putrid civil war.

 

also, my characters are Dragonborn, and i do not need Shouts to kill people.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Guest

[Archone]

 

And while this is not a popular thesis here (in fact, it is nearly anathema to many, apparently) at some level there is a test of character going on that I believe Bethesda intentionally set up. How avidly do we embrace the dark side? (who's to tell us "no"? The game gives us a license to act without external restraint and thereby forces us to find limits within ourselves...such as there is, if any)

 

I agree with that, but not in the way that you imply it. There's the quest to obtain the Mace of Molag Bal, where you have to murder someone not once, but three times. There's the Thieves' guild intro quest that has you frame an honest merchant just because he's questioning the quality of the "snake oil" salesman who gives you the quest. There's also the shades of gray, as it were. The Stormcloaks fight for religious freedom. The Imperials fight for the stability of the Empire. Of course they set up a test of character. You get to play the sort of character you wish to play as. As heroic or vile as you choose to be. I know that there are some players who don't even bother with quests and instead focus on robbing and stealing from...everybody. (Actual quote from a friend: "Two guys were fighting in the Companion Hall when I walked in, so I hit one with my dagger... and for some reason everyone else got mad at me! So I had to kill em all. Should I start a new character?")

 

How rabidly do we join in the mob mentality of accusation and condemnation without trial, without verifiable evidence?

 

How determinedly do we cling to our preconceived notions regarding the subject of our fanboy crushes? You've been shown verifiable evidence repeatedly throughout this thread. I'm actually thinking of an episode of "the Boondocks," at this point, and the little boy convinced his favorite pop star should be found not guilty of urinating on an underaged girl despite the videotaped recording signed by the pop star, and the girl in question bragging about being the man's urinal. We've provided links to websites showing the lore, quotes from numerous characters ingame, and references to examples from our own world, as well as from previous games in the series. You've yet to provide any of that. Nor have you answered the previous challenges from post #382:

 

Okay, now I'm challenging you to provide two examples. First an example of Ulfric specifically renouncing the bigotry of his supporters. And the second being any point where I ever said that I was ever fine with the Thalmor.

 

Bear in mind that if you can't provide an example of the second, you will be shown as having engaged in the very same behavior you claim to lament: accusation and condemnation without trail, without verifiable evidence.