So I know Nords despise everyone who isn’t Nord and want to kick them out of Skyrim
That also means you, unless you play Nord
You know full well they’ll use you and kick you out like a subhuman
Perfectly sane choice either.
That’s just the US military at Ellis Island in the 19th Century.
I have not played this game in a long time, at least not in any way that involves paying attention to storylines that are not modded, but based on what I remember, not choosing a side is the worst option. The civil war was instigated by the aldmeri(?) dominion to put skyrim into chaos and keep them from pushing the elves back out while they silently take over the empire. It makes things slightly better, but I still didn’t like how terrible both sides were.
also the empire started in Skyrim the original Emperor was a Nord, so… Skyrim IS the Empire, as much as anywhere else or more.
Not like it’d be an option to not choose sides, there’s a storyline roadblock forcing you to finish the entire plot IIRC
and it’s not even just the right choice, it’s the choice that actually results in what the Stormcloaks supposedly want. Ulfric’s rebellion exclusively serves to benefit the Aldmeri Dominion he supposedly hates, whereas a unified empire at least has a chance to resist the elves.
Although if you really wanna dig into it, it makes zero sense that the Aldmeri were able to somehow build up enough of an army to attack the empire and enforce the White-Gold Concordat to begin with. Especially considering Hammerfell was able to beat them on their own. TES writers basically giga-nerfed the empire to allow the war to even happen.
the dominions goals are the subjugation of the empire, and the removal of man from the pantheon. it was an embarrassment in their whole identity of temporary impoverished gods. they did not want either the empire or the storm cloaks to win ultimately as forcing a war between two allies prevents them from joining forces or recuperating to fight back. it’s one of the reasons they didn’t really commit any of THEIR forces to the war.
the correct answer is either should win, even if skyrim didn’t officially recognize the man god, nothing much would change. they are lousey with deadric worshippers already and they are not sanctioned.
ultimately the aldmari dominion would seek a dragon break to force the man god to be non cannon.
The Aldmeri Dominion - Ulfric things always seems like something to repeat. It’s not like he was paying tithe to them or anything. Just because they want him in power doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be, and paying to that line of though only leads to more trouble. You see Skyrim mostly liberate itself, if the elves had helped or offered assistance, I think this claim would have been made to be more intentional rather than the oft-repeated reddit-spteak it is.
Honestly, with how the settings timelines are dictated by heros and divine lineages id actually figure every major event that doesn’t go as expected means a figure of legend has influenced it in some way or another.
So when it comes down to it, whoever you choose is kinda unimportant, as neither side seems very prepped to deal with the dragon threat without the dragon born, and Parthanax is unlikely to hold the dragons back from their dominating nature forever.
I just look forward to smashing the Dominion when the time finally comes
Me too! After star-whatever though I’m a a little scared
Star whatever?
Starfall? Starbridge? Starshit? Starcashgrab?
oh!
Starfield!
You don’t understand, I’m changing the stormcloaks from within
/uj it makes zero narrative sense to run off with the guy who was overseeing your execution, to the point that I don’t think it should be an option. It would be better if they made you go with the stormcloaks at first but then showed how flawed they were and gave you the opportunity to switch sides later
The main story of that game is fucking awful. I get they wanted to introduce some choice, and wanted that choice to somewhat kinda feel justified but JESUS did they do a shitty job.
Instead of giving us a messy political situation, where either party may have some legitimate claim to the land, they gave us Southern nationalists versus Northern racists who were here first and you’re meant to pick which one you like more.
Gee would I rather kill for the guys that literally don’t want me here, or kill for the guys that literally tried to kill me for being here? HARD FUCKING QUESTION.
I think I played through the main storyline once to completion, and every time before and after that I just skipped it once I got the rewards I wanted.
I don’t know that they care much for choice. Skyrim is really watered down in terms of roleplaying aspects compared to Oblivion, which in turn is really watered down compared to Morrowind.
Hell some genuinely complain about Morrowind not being a good RPG because of it missing aspects from Daggerfall, like the whole having to go to court if you commit a crime.
When it comes to Skyrim, I think the strength begins and ends in the world building. The characters are flat and uninspired. The quests are flat and uninspired. The voice acting is cringe and uninspired. If they’d bothered to write more engaging storylines, and have more than one pivotal character have a unique voice actor, they could’ve made something really nice.
Now it’s a nice sandbox, and you can have some nice experiences, but I wouldn’t call it a good RPG. Or a good action game. A fun sandbox world and modding platform with subpar quests and dungeons.
Hur durr no way best game ever made
It took me a long time to realize I missed the entire civil war plotline. I never sided with anyone. Did the main plot and some guild questlines. Skyrim hooked me less than prior TES games.
yeah, the magic system was gone and magic wasn’t viable, then they downgraded every form of alchemy enchanting and so on. smithing was a nice feature, but it’s kinda badly designed as you just end up crafting an excess of arrows, bolts, or daggers until you max it out. it’s just a much more hollow game in the end. they didn’t need to simply any system that far, it’s not like people who aren’t interested in custom spells are gonna be mad spellmaking exists. they just won’t do it.
How? When I tried to dodge that conflict, Todd was right-click-unzipping packs of fighting soldiers onto me. It felt like a meme interpretation of “If you aren’t interested in politics, politics are gonna start to be interested in you”.
It’s so incredibly shallow, from a series already suffering from such.
so shallow people still argue about it 15 years later
I dislike both sides so much that I skip those quest lines
Skip all vanilla quest lines, go do Dawnguard, get sexy vampire wife, grab the plantation from the creation club and live rest of my Skyrim days recreating the anime Farming Life in Another World while power leveling my alchemy.
The “natives” who are racist as fuck. I am still thinking about supporting empire because fuck Ulfric, but there is a long time before I come back to Skyrim yet again
The Nords’ early experience with elves was being the victims of genocide so it’s not like it comes from nowhere.
The Nords’ early experience with elves was being the victims of genocide
The lore leaves this ambiguous though. There’s lore that states that the Nords attacked first, and lore that states that the Falmer attacked first. What followed was a war that in the end left the Falmer driven underground, all but wiped out.
Some lore claim that the Nords justification for this is false. History tends to be written by the victors, so I lean more towards that theory, honestly. It seems unlikely that the Nords managed to re-populate with only Ysgramor and his two sons remaining. The inbreeding would explain why they all sound so dumb, though.
and it came to “Skyrim is for Nords”. which can be expected, yeah, but must not be tolerated
problem with these arguments is, that they are made from our world understanding and extracted out of an extremely condensed world.
yes, the racism that the different races in tamriel display is objectively bad. but tamriel is an extremely racist continent with an astonishing amount of actual races (not the crap, that is called races in our world). every race in tamriel is strongly racist, many support slavery and warmongering is just daily life. TESV just plays in the home of the nords and therefore we are more exposed to their flavour.
TESV is extremely condensed. how many citicens does windhelm have? maybe 15? the drunk asshole in the gray quarter is probably the most cited source for nord racism. but bethesda had to put one open asshole there, that is even too much for most other inhabitants - if they want to keep racism as a story telling instrument… actually i wish there was more to him. for example you could side with him and harass locals or beat some sense into him. both should have lasting consequences in the world. but that is just not the level of detail we got from TESV…
And there is also no option to say “fuck you both”, especially in negotiations where grey beards live. I hate this duality of being a simp of one side or the other
“With great power comes great responsibility”
I believe if the choice must be between bad and worse, not choosing at all is cowardice.
I could choose to screw both parties, if it were on the table. Also, Geralt of Rivia would like a word
Its not racist to resist change from outsiders who happen to be another race.
it is racist to treat argonians like shit, for example
Or to openly talk about purging your new ethnonation.
But they aren’t just resisting change. They openly talk about purging all the argonians and khajiit, etc.
I might have actually missed that part. Its been a while since I played, and I can’t remember much to do with argonians or khajiit at all besides the tent camps outside cities. What’s going on with all that?
still waiting to hear about the non racist natives in tamriel
feel bad for the dark elves in the gray quarter? go look at how the argonians are treated by them. go see that the only reason argonians arent allowed in windhelm is because the dark elves are racist as fuck and would start a riot if they had to live with argonians
Others are racist too so I must ignore Nords? Lol
when all races are racist how can you disparage one group for it but not the others? you dont like the nords because theyre racist, do you not like every other race in tamriel?
I am not involved with their leaders killing their kings and proceeding to put on a show of rebels against tyranny while being racist pieces of shit themselves. So yeah, as far as this story goes I don’t like Ulfric and his lot way way more than anyone else
thats thalmor sympathizer talk. ulfric and his merry band of rebels is a lot better than elenwen’s lap dog tullius and the rest of the empire
Yeah, especially what thalmor lap dog did at college of winterhold. We can do this for a long time
Yeah I remember considering both sides and then just saying fuck it and stopping the quest entirely when it came time to choose.
thinking of the same, honestly. probably add some bloodbath on my way out too
I don’t pick a side in the civil war, but I will murder Thalmor and Stormcloaks indiscriminately.
I fight for the one true cause. Shouting goats off the mountain.
Fus-Ro-Baaah
Godamnit
Bruh the Nords ain’t the natives.
Next you’re going to tell me Americans aren’t from America
well it’s not like Ysgramor left a lot of the native elves in a state to complain.
Who is downvoting this? The forsworn are native.
Well, the Falmer were there first really. They were subsequently enslaved by the Dwemer. Then the Atmorans (Nord) came along and performed a genocide and have been butthurt about it ever since.
I mean it’s getting a bit loose with the term native. The Nords have been there a long fucking time.
Humans on Earth are only native to Africa, but unique cultures have evolved elsewhere
HISSSS… THE LAND BELONGS TO THE LAND-FISH
I don’t consider the Maori indigenous to New Zealand for this reason. They arrived there after Europeans landed on North America. Although when I think about that it makes me wonder how long a culture/ethnicity has to exist in an area before it is Indigenous.
I’d argue it means the opposite.
In terms of Skyrim though the nords have been there for about 4,000 years.
I’d say if you’re the first people there congrats you’re that Natives. If you’ve replaced/eliminated the original population and lived there at least 1,000 years congrats you’re the natives.
Honestly the timing is arbitrary, I pick 1,000 because in modern day it’s nearly impossible to track back descent that far. Very very few people can. In a society like Skyrim I’d argue it’s after the last person that remembers that last person that moved there. About 6 generations or so
They’re not either. The dwemer and falmer are the natives.
But the dwemer fucked off / killed themselves while summoning their omnissiah (iirc the lore gets a bit weird), and the falmer… well… yeah.
The only living natives, sure!
Ya, the Nords are from Sweden
Eugh. I really hope not. I hate the pseudo-Nordic culture in Skyrim. The faux Nordic accent they forced on the voice actors makes me want to crawl out of my skin every time I hear it.
And the names! Gods, the names. Skjor is one syllable away from shirt. Aela sounds more Greek to me, but she’s apparently super Nord. Bjornolfr is unique, I’ve never heard of someone named Bear-Wolf in real, but I don’t hate it. Benor is like “hair-partings”.
Surnames here also tend to come in a couple forms
- Patronyms, in Icelandic Matronyms are also common
- Andersson
- Sigurdsdottir
- Svensson
- Adamsdottir
- Noble names, these tend to reflect a coat of arms
- Leijonhufvud (Lion’s Head)
- Uggla (Owl)
- Educated people often adopted Latin names
- Nobelius (see Alfred Noble)
- Linnaeus
- Some are very natural in origin
- Björk (Birch)
- Almgren (Elm branch)
- Bergfors (Mountain stream)
In the middle ages there were also by-names, where people were given a name to describe them. Like Jarl Karl the Deaf and his son Wolf the Horrible Son of Karl. Or a local (to me) figure, Erik the Lisping-and-Limping.
- Patronyms, in Icelandic Matronyms are also common
The funny thing about the civil war is that it can be safely ignored. Apart from one point in the main quest, where you need to negotiate a ceasefire, but you can’t possibly fail.
I never understood the hype for Skyrim, the world and story is so stale and incohesive
I really wanted to love Skyrim, the world is so cool, and it has so many cool story lines in there. It is just that they are so… shallow. Not connected at all. Not responsive or immersive in any way.
They spent all their time on building thousands of caves where the radiant / fetch quests can go.
I spent all my time in those caves. Thanks Skyrim
It’s literally hype for the creation kit and mods people create for it and having fun with how buggy it is.
Also there’s no shortage of ‘locations’ and ‘creatures’ there…
Also there’s no shortage of ‘locations’
Most of which being a grey blob. There are like a couple interesting locations.
Skyrim belongs to the Falmer!
Hear, ye! Hear, ye, Falmer! Lend supernicepojo your ears!
Is there actually a way to join the Falmer? Not talking about mods, but also, a mod would work.
I’d play a prequel set in the dwemer / falmer-before-eyeless times. That’d be pretty tight.
I am a Skyrim virgin.
Be gentle with me.
Giants are friends. They’ll be gentle.
No
You too get an arrow to the knee and you’ll like it
And I’m stealing your sweetroll.
Yep the strormcloaks are an extremely flawed anti-colonial movement. Still worth supporting.
strormcloaks are an extremely flawed anti-colonial movement
Lmao they’re literally a colour revolution propped up by the Altmeri Dominion and want to continue Skyrim’s occupation of the Reach.
Actually, this part of the Skyrim world is the one that I hate the least. Sounds like every proxy conflict ever. The parallels to many real-world conflicts from Vietnam to Ukraine are obvious.
And it is a nice dilemma: do you support the clearly colonial empire, which however seems to be half ok at running things, when they are not on an oppressive execution spree? Or support the self-determination of the people, who are propped up by a rival empire that is even worse, and half of them are horribly racist? It is pretty well balanced and not quite as black and white as the usual video game lore, it has layers, and makes you think. I like it.
Does it really surprise anyone that a story by Emil Pagliarulo has poorly written factions?
I am surprised that anyone would consider the Oblivion Dark Brotherhood faction and plot to be poorly written. It was easily the best story of the base game.
