Having the Falmer be Blind is Just Stupid

[David Brasher]

To state the obvious, blind creatures can't see. If a creature cannot see, then it is at a very great disadvantage in the world. In a battle, the blind creature would almost always be defeated by the one that can see. Some creatures use their sense of smell to great advantage. Hearing and touch can be useful. But you can't win a battle by groping around blindly trying to feel where your enemy is. You can't always hear where your enemy is. He may be sneaky and move quietly, or he may stand still and not make any noise. You can't taste your enemy until your teeth are sunk into him, but you have to find him before you can bite him. Some creatures have things like sonar or radar, but these are not nearly as precise as sight. Skyrim has never talked about any new senses that have been created especially for the game. Like Falmer who use the force to sense life. It has not been stated that all Falmer have a constant detect life magic ability, so I don't think that is the answer. That sense would only apply to other creatures anyway and would not help them navigate in the world and manipulate objects.

 

Blind creatures can't use bows! What are you going to shoot at if you can't see? And are you going to have any chance of hitting it? How do you gather up your arrows after the battle if you survive? I would think that blind creatures would only use things like swords and axes. With their keen senses of smell and hearing, they might be able to strike a foe, if they did not get killed first or if they did not strike another Falmer by accident.

 

Why do Falmer decorate things? They can't see! They cannot sense their decorations. They like to artfully arrange human bones and chaurus chitin pieces on the ends of staffs. I guess they could run their hands over these sculptures, but it seems to me like it would just feel like a jumble of bones and junk and would not strike the chord of artistic beauty in their minds.

 

I just think the whole idea of blind Falmer is dumb.

Edited September 21, 2012 by David Brasher

[dwellufool]

It's a fantasy game.

[Enatiomorph]

 

I just think the whole idea of blind Falmer is dumb.

Not really.

[Tidus44]

I don't think Falmer are blind as one thinks of blindness. Blindness is frequently used to describe a visual impairment, but the individual may have residual vision. The lore suggests they were fed a toxic fungus by the Dwemer to control the Falmer who were kept as slaves. A blind slave would be useless as well. Thus, I suggest the "blindness" is not totally without sight, but some visual limitation (ie: can't see in light or only in a certain spectrum of light).

 

The proof is that the Falmer in the game can "see" by some means and do have archers for example who do shoot arrows and I can certainly vouch for their accuracy over a long distance.

 

Of course, if this isn't an acceptable opinion I fall back on "its a fantasy game and isn't supposed to make sense".

[Moraevik]

I totally agree with David, here, regarding the inanity which is "blind Falmer" in this game. The game insists that the Falmer are "blind". Not "almost blind", or "partially blind", or "a little bit blind", or "a whole lot blind", but, simply, b.l.i.n.d. There's no ambiguity, there. This is an in-game fact. Another in-game fact, that is completely at odds with this one is that the Falmer act precisely like sighted persons.

 

Now, one of my best friends, years ago, was blind. There was a very good reason that in her home every thing had its place and no place that was not supposed to have a thing ever ... EVER ... had a thing. A single out-of-place object could have spelled disaster for her. Want to up the anty a bit? She was blind from birth. She had an uncanny sense of hearing, and could "echo-locate" by making clicking sounds with a little device she carried in one hand. It still wasn't good enough to let her know about small objects that might be in the way.

 

Now, about those presumably "blind" Falmer. I can have Sneak maxed out. I can move silently, even have shoes that muffle my sound. I don't make any discernible sound ... at all. I fire an arrow at a blind Falmer archer (now, there's an oxymoron if I ever saw one), and then step to the side. What does my opponent do? Exactly what a sighted opponent would do. He re-aims and fires his arrow in my precise direction.

 

Ever notice how when you fire an arrow to distract your opponents that they go into this odd back and forth searching motion, trying to locate the disturbance? First of all, real people under fire don't do that. They duck for cover and, guess what? They LISTEN. Animals do that, too. I guess the developers have never been in a real fire-fight. I have. You don't go into a stupid mini-patrol sequence when there's someone shooting at you. Anyway, one more lapse of reality out of the way. My point is that the Falmer do exactly the same thing that everything else in the game does. They go back and forth as though they're looking for something. Looking. Not listening.

 

Watch when a Falmer notices you. His head is turned directly toward you, just as a sighted person would. If he was detecting you by hearing that would not be the case. There's a reason that animals (or even a lot of people) cock their heads to one side when trying to locate a sound. At a 45 degree angle to the source of the sound you will get the most accurate bearing to that source. That's simple physics, dealing with the phase difference between sound waves reaching two audio sensors, and that's how we discern the direction of a sound with our ears, as well. Not so, Falmer. They just "look" right at us.

 

My point? It doesn't matter that the Falmer are blind. It's not an in-game disadvantage to them. It SHOULD be, but it isn't. They might as well have 20:20 vision.

 

Now to refute something that David said, though. I'm fair about these things. Why shouldn't the Falmer decorate things? If they were painting murals, that would be one thing, but what they're doing is sculpting tactile decorations. Most blind people are into touch in a big way. Many can discern textures that we sighted folk would swear are all the same. They can get a very accurate "image" of an object in their minds by feeling the object. Many can even, through an almost passing touching of a person's face, recognize individuals from each other.

[JanusForbeare]

I think this should answer all your questions.

 

I tried to find the video, but it's just not out there. :(

[Lachdonin]

We have hundreds, if not thousands of species in our world (a world free from magic) which use echolocation to determine their surroundings. So precisely, in fact, that some can navigate dangerous, moving environments, elude preditors and hunt their own prey. We know for a fact that you can create extremely detailed sonic maps of objects and environments, and that some animals brains are hard wired to do the same thing our most sensitive equipment is. As such, blindness, particularly in close, echoing environments like those you typically find the Falmer, wouldn't hamper them one bit. Provided, of course, they developed similar traits at a rapidly (ie magically) advanced pace. In fact, if they developed to the point where many subterranian species are in our world, the sound of your bowstring catching the wind would tell them where you are, the hell with the clattering arrow.

 

Gameplay mechanics, of course, are sorely lacking... Lets face it, the Lickers in Resident Evil 2 had a better sound-based targeting system than Skyrim.

[Inquart]

It's hard to disagree with some points that's been made so far, but what we're discussing here is a practical difference between the game's lore and the game itself or at least its mechanics. In theory and if I understand everything correctly, the Falmer are totally blind on one hand, but their other senses became much more acute on the other; they can't see the enemy, but they can smell or hear him coming from afar.

 

Now, that's theory. Lore. The game's more practical side - as it was already said here - is something different. Here the Falmer act just as if they could not only hear us coming, but also see us when we get close enough. That's a visible gap between theory and practice, but I think that we as players should, let's say, fill it with our own imagination; when a Falmer spots us with little trouble even though he shouldn't due to his apparent blindness, let's just think - for the sake of the gameplay, if you catch my meaning - that he's simply heard us, even if we have Sneaking maxed out and wear muffling shoes.

 

By the way, one thing puzzling me when it comes to the Falmer is their language: why do they need a written language if they're at least theoretically blind? Is it possible that over the years they've developed some kind of Skyrim Braille alphabet? Or is their blindness not as complete as many would think? Or maybe they are totally blind now, but were losing their sight gradually as the time passed?

[Moraevik]

The official lore on the Falmer is that they are "blind". I don't think there's any room for speculation regarding the degree of blindness. It's like saying someone is a "little bit pregnant". Neither is there anything in the game, or in any officially-released information on the Falmer that I know of to support any hypothesis that they've developed some form of echolocation ability, save for having acute hearing.

 

Regarding their written language, they were the "Snow Elves" before they were enslaved by the Dwemer, who took their vision from them. It's logical to assume they had a written language to go along with their spoken language.

 

Lachdonin, I think we're aware of the ability of animals such as cetaceans and bats to navigate in complex environments. However, there's no evidence to support a theory that the Falmer have the necessary anatomical structures to accomplish this. Dolphins and their ilk have very specialized structures which enable them to focus very high frequency sounds (ultrasonic, in fact, typically in the 100-120 kHz range). The Falmer clearly do not possess these structures. Bats are a different thing, altogether, and their ability to actually "visualize" the environment in the way that cetaceans do is very limited. They can dodge objects while they're flying, which is impressive enough, but it's not believed by most researchers that they can actually form an "image" of those objects. They have neither the "imaging hardware" or the brain specialization that would be required for this. For one thing, their vocalizations are not high-enough in frequency to give the necessary wavelength to actually resolve very small or narrow objects, although they can certainly detect echos which bounce off them.

 

Anyway, I think David and I have made a good case for a "reality breakdown" when it comes to the Falmer. I just chalk it up to the development team not fully thinking through all the ramifications of blindness. We do know that the use of light spells or torches will not give you away to Falmer, but in every other way they act fully-sighted.

[Tidus44]

With incontrovertible proof that the Falmer have the ability to see, it is a bit astonishing that there is still an unwavering conviction that the Falmer are blind because lore says so and therefore any suggestion they have any level of ability to see must be unfounded.

 

What evidence is required to prove that the Falmer can see and the lore is either wrong or has not kept up with possible changes the Falmer may have undergone?

From “The Falmer: A Study”;

In fact, one might even come to the conclusion that the Falmer are ready to change once again.

It would seem that at least one person in Skyrim has noted something about the Falmer and perhaps some changes they are undergoing. Should this be disregarded because it doesn’t adhere strictly to the lore?

 

In a world where one can shoot fire, frost or lightning from their hands from nothing, raise the dead to fight and steal a soul to enchant some object; is it inherently unbelievable that the Falmer may have developed some magical or other ability that allows them to see?

 

Quite simply, the Falmer do have an ability to see as this is indisputably evident within the game. The lore is therefore wrong regarding the Falmer being blind and any argument to the contrary is irrational.