Skyrim Civil War Part 4: The Superior Empire

SKYRIM CIVIL WAR-PART 4

THE SUPERIORITY OF THE CULTURE OF CYRODIIL, AND THE STORMCLOAKS’ PENCHANT FOR DIVISION.

(In this newest entry in the Skyrim Civil War series, we will compare the differences between Nordic and Imperial culture, and why it would be wise for the Nords to take notes from their Imperial counterparts, and why Nordic culture being more like Imperial culture is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. I will also cover why Ulfric continuing the war during the Dragon Crisis is irresponsible, and why the united Empire is the best option for Tamriel.)

As of right now, I’ve already done three articles on the Skyrim Civil War, propping up my idea that the Empire is in the right concerning the war, and that the Stormcloaks are getting themselves into more trouble than they think by raising their banners against the Empire. But then again, what’s the harm in beating a dead horse, eh? This article, I will say, was influenced by my playthrough of the Forsworn questline in Skyrim as well as me playing the prequel to Skyrim, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and seeing the culture of the Empire firsthand in its own capital of Cyrodiil.

IMPERIAL CULTURE: BETTER THAN SKYRIM’S

I just have to state the obvious: the Empire’s culture is leaps and bounds ahead of the Nords in Skyrim. Unlike Skyrim, Cyrodiil has a bounty system where criminals are tracked across all cities. It’s not like Skyrim where a criminal from one hold is a free man in another, which goes to show how Cyrodiil is more focused on justice than Skyrim is. The Imperial cities like Anvil, Chorrol, and Cheydinhal all look more well-built and more developed than Skyrim’s Holds are, where only Solitude looks like a proper city, while every other hold is barely as rich or as well-designed as Bruma. Most Holds like Winterhold, Dawnstar, Falkreath, and Morthal look like villages, while others like Markarth, Whiterun, and Windhelm are more reliant on ancient architecture. That’s not gonna be easy to defend if the Third Aldmeri Dominion sends an invasion force, or when dragons come by.

Especially since those smaller holds have wooden houses, perfect for a fire-breathing dragon to set aflame with a few gushes of fire breath. Better architecture and pursuit of justice aside, the people of Cyrodiil are also more friendly and hospitable, and the guards are less like the jock stereotype of Skyrim’s guards and act more like public servants ready to help the people. The guards in Skyrim often joke if the player is going to ask them to help recover stolen sweet rolls, or warning them to keep out of trouble, (with added racist words like “lizard” or “cat” for Argonians and Khajiit) while the guards in Cyrodiil, especially in the capital, often ask the player what they need and even invite them to ask the guards for help if there’s trouble, making it harder for a morally decent player to commit crimes in Cyrodiil when the guards are so nice to commoners.

The corruption in Cyrodiil is not as bad as in Skyrim, where the worst you got in the former is some captain taxing people for extra or another captain blackmailing shop owners. In Skyrim, we have Markarth and Riften, which are entire Holds where the corruption is far worse. In Riften, the Black-Briars control almost everything, from the Jarl, to the law, to even the Thieves’ Guild. Thieves run rampant and the government does jack shit against it, because the government controls them in the end, and even though the Jarl of Riften promises that her “good friend” Maven Black-Briar will deal with the Thieves’ Guild, she does not realize that Maven is their protector and employer, even though the common man in Riften knows it.

The situation in Markarth is worse, with the Forsworn terrorists being controlled by the ruling Silver-Blood family, who have the Jarl as a puppet while they control both the silver mines and oppress the native Breton populace, driving them into Forsworn hands, where the Silver-Bloods use them to attack anyone who gets in their way. Your character could be the thane of Markarth, a noble recognized by the Jarl for heroism and service to the city, and they would still get arrested by the guards for trying to expose the deal between the Silver-Bloods and the Forsworn. At least the Count of Cheydinhal tolerates the Dark Brotherhood because of bribes and threats, not because they were using the Brotherhood as agents for their self-gain.

And that’s not even getting into how Nords in Skyrim treat magic. As Tsun said, the Nords have forgotten their ancestors’ love of the clever craft, and their magical facilities have fallen into disrepair. Back then when the Mages’ Guild was in control back in Cyrodiil, almost every city has a base for mages, while the capital city has a university for magic. But in Skyrim, mages are a rare lot, usually only one per hold, working for the Jarl in the case of emergencies. The fact that Solitude has two puts it leaps and bounds above the other Holds that only have one. Yes, the Mages’ Guild collapsed during the gap between Skyrim and Oblivion for some reason, but the Synod and the College of Whispers rose to replace them, with the Synod gathering magic artifacts to gain more power for the Empire and the College of Whispers is experimenting with the once-forbidden magics of conjuration and necromancy as a focus, things that were once banned by the Mages’ Guild.

Which goes to show that in Cyrodiil and High Rock, the love of magic is still well and alive even as the Empire declines, while in Skyrim, magic has fallen so far in disrepair that the Mages’ College in Winterhold looks more like a community college than a center for magical learning for an entire kingdom, while you’ll be lucky to find two mages in a Jarl’s court. And despite the services rendered by the college, such as enchantments and training mages for the courts of the Jarls, they’re still unappreciated by the Nords despite all their service. This in a time when war against the magic-using Thalmor faction of Elves back in the Third Aldmeri Dominion can erupt in the future.

At most, the Nords use them for mundane things like enchanting dull blades or healing. At worst, the Nords despise the mages for their experiments, accusing mages of causing troubles like the destruction of old Winterhold or for the catastrophe with the Eye of Magnus, which was caused by one Thalmor mage that the rest of the College tried to stop. Granted, it’s not as bad as Redania in Witcher 3 where they go Order 66 on anyone that can use magic, or in Dragon Age where Templars keep mages enslaved in an order known as “The Circle” but still, it’s an annoyance, especially to magic-oriented players who see that Skyrim’s society does not appreciate magic at a time when elves are dragging away Talos worshipers and dragons are setting whole villages on fire.

The Nords, despite hating the Thalmor and wanting to pay them back for the White-Gold Concordat that banned Talos worship and all the damage caused in the last war, are still not prepared in terms of magic to combat the Altmer menace that the Thalmor represents. The Altmer are naturally gifted in magic. Every Thalmor squad comes with an experienced battlemage who is not only adept at using protective and destructive spells, but also summoning Daedric creatures from Oblivion to serve them. Plus, even the standard Thalmor soldier, aside from being encased in light plate armor, can use basic magic spells like conjured swords and flames. Are we supposed to believe that Nord soldiers wearing chain or plate with nary a magician backing them can stand up against that? The Nords are up against Altmer Nazis complete with their own Third Reich, who not only have better, lighter equipment, but also love to use magic all the time, and the Stormcloak Nords think they can defeat THAT with chainmail, steel, and national fervor?

When the player visits Nord tombs, we see undead magicians like Dragon Priests who were once the rulers of the Nordic peoples. Some Nord zombies even use frost magic and summon frost creatures. We see what Tsun was talking about: that the ancient Nords appreciated magic to the point where their religious and worldly authorities were magicians. Which meant that aside from being in cahoots with dragons, the Nords also had great magicians as their lords and generals. Back then when the traitor Dragon Priest Miraak caused trouble for both Nords and dragons alike, a Dragon Priest named Vahlok led the charge against the traitor, backed by an army of both Nords and Dragons, and they purged Miraak’s temple. Fighting Dragon Priests is a tough cookie, especially for lower-level characters playing in Adept difficulty or higher, with these priests not only having staffs with devastating attacks but also enchanted masks with powerful magical effects.

But now? The Nords who live and breathe barely have any magic left, to the point where most towns don’t even have a center for mages, they just have a mage in a castle serving the Jarl. It made me laugh when I once saw one of the Stormcloak Jarls, Skald the Elder, telling his court mage, a Breton named Madena, to go and prepare to fight the Empire, and she replied that she’s done with fighting and all she wants to do is light bonfires and cure crop diseases. He was going to send one mage into battle against the Empire. Imagine how much of a laugh that would have been if she got outnumbered ten-to-one and got torn to pieces by the Imperials in the middle of a fight, or worse yet, if Imperial battlemages showed up and blew her to hell.

As it stands, in Skyrim, there’s more mages in the wilds working with bandits or practicing necromancy than there are serving the Jarls or studying in the college. The Nords’ distaste for magic gives the Thalmor and the Empire a distinct advantage over Skyrim, which, in a world where magical ability is available to almost anyone who studies magic, affords the enemies and neighbors of the Nords an advantage over them. The Thalmor have their whole army practicing magic, not just the mages, while the Imperials are stockpiling magic artifacts and experimenting with once-forbidden schools of conjuration and necromancy. The Nords, meanwhile, are ignoring an obvious asset for power that could help them against their enemies.

Unlike Star Wars or Harry Potter, where the magical abilities are kept to a select few with the right blood, in Elder Scrolls, magic is a gift from Aetherius, and most of the people in Nirn aside from the Daedra are descendants of Aedra, which gives them the power to use magic. Other species like the elves have an advantage in it, but there’s nothing stopping humans, Khajiit, or Argonians from using magic or becoming mages. So why, in the name of Talos, do the Nords have such a dislike for magic? Their ancient ancestors had such a love of the craft that their lords and priests who acted as viceroys for dragons were magicians. Their enemies, the Thalmor are adept magicians as well. And Cyrodiil, down south, where the Empire of Talos is rooted, once had every city equipped its own establishment for mages, and now, pro-Imperial magic organizations are stockpiling magic artifacts and studying fields of magic that were once taboo in the heyday of the Mages’ Guild, so why does Talos’ homeland have a distaste for mages, in a time when dragons are attacking and magic is more necessary than ever to both save lives and improve the combat abilities of army units?

And of course, we get to the fighters’ culture of both Cyrodiil and Skyrim, where again, Cyrodiil has the upper hand. One would think that Skyrim would totally win over Cyrodiil here, but nope, they do not, despite the Nords’ legendary aptitude for battle. In Cyrodiil, we have the Fighters’ Guild, which is an organization of experienced warriors contracted to solve problems from pest control to banditry. In Skyrim, we have the Companions, which handle similar problems, from pest control to kidnappings. But the former has superiority over the latter when it comes to standards, especially when the Fighters’ Guild requires its members to have clear criminal records. As in, they don’t let your dumb average crook into the group. You have to be straight with the authorities in Cyrodiil to be allowed into the guild, while the Companions have no such standards, especially when, as I stated before, Holds track crime separately. So you can be a total criminal in say, Solitude or Windhelm, but if you get to Whiterun and join the Companions, there’s no problem with that, and they accept you with open arms, despite the fact that you could have been anywhere from a common thief to a brutal murderer in other cities.

Not to mention that the Companions have less of a moral compass when it comes to fighting. The Fighters’ Guild keeps it clean, and the only time they picked a fight with another organization was with the Blackwood Company, a rival private military contractor group that performed similar services as the Fighters’ Guild, except they make deals with bandits like Azani Blackheart, and they use bad hist sap from a corrupted hist tree that causes them to kill civilians and cause property damage-that leads them to kill the son of the guildmaster of the Fighters’ Guild, even though they were supposed to be just fighting beasts. So when the former champion of the guild sends you out to go and infiltrate them, with a goal of destroying them from within, it’s completely justified, considering they were a real danger to society. You see it firsthand when the Blackwood Company soldiers (including you) mistake civilians for goblins because of the bad hist sap, and a whole town is destroyed. God knows how many villages they’ve wiped out while they were high on bad hist sap.

While the Companions, in their private quest to join their upper echelon known as the Circle, not only invite you to partake in lycanthropy, turning you into a werewolf whose soul will eventually be enslaved to the whims of the Daedric Prince Hircine upon your death, but they also don’t care about collateral damage. When you first become a werewolf in Whiterun thanks to their invitation, if you kill a guard or an innocent person in your first outing, Aela, the Companions’ lieutenant who helped turn you into a werewolf, doesn’t even complain or berate you for killing an innocent person. None of them do. You could have clawed out a guard or an innocent man and there’s not a peep of protest from the great defenders of Whiterun despite the fact that you killed one of its residents unprovoked. And where do they take you to fight next? They take you to fight the Silver Hand, a group of werewolf hunters.

Which again, makes this whole quest less about justice and more about bloodlust. The Silver Hand hasn’t bothered anyone outside of the Circle, and hunting down werewolves is not necessarily an evil goal. Nobody outside of the Silver Hand knows about the Companions’ leaders being werewolves aside from the leaders themselves, and most of the other werewolves in the game are beasts that kill humans without mercy. Aside from the Circle, other werewolves kill their way through the countryside, unable to control themselves, so putting them down is a rather sensible goal. The only reason they’re the bad guys here is because they fight the Companions, who are heroes, but at the same time, the Companions like Aela loved to pick fights with them, provoking them and killing their members. For most players, the first time they laid eyes on Silver Hand forces was when Aela took them to attack the Silver Hand.

It’s not like the Blackwood Company where they drink bad hist sap and rampage through towns killing beasts and innocents alike. So while fighting the Blackwood Company was justifiable, attacking the Silver Hand really isn’t. Yes, they don’t differentiate from werewolves who can control their urges to werewolves who can’t, but can you really blame them, when all they know of werewolves is that they kill humans without mercy? But of course, you do your duty as a member of the Companions and kill more of them, especially when they kill one of the members of the Companions, Skjor, so what do you think will be the reaction? Naturally, the Silver Hand strikes back and they kill the Companions’ top leader, Kodlak White-Mane. And of course, Kodlak is such a local celebrity to the point where he gets a state funeral that even has Jarl  Balgruuf of Whiterun attending, but really, were the Silver Hand evil for striking out at him? Or were they just retaliating justifiably against a group of werewolves who not only have celebrity status as humans, but were also killing Silver Hand forces left and right?

The only truly honorable things you do as a member of the Circle is killing the Glenmoril witches who gave the curse to the Companions in the first place, and releasing Kodlak’s soul from being trapped in Oblivion so that he can go to Sovngarde at last. So for most of the special quests from the Companions, you were picking fights with people who were justifiably scared of werewolves, while in the Fighters’ Guild, you were going after a PMC that was genuinely dangerous towards society, one that already had a reputation for callous ruthlessness and lack of moral restraint. And as I said before, the Companions don’t care if you have a bounty in another city-so long as it’s not Whiterun, they don’t care, and they’ll let you in, while the Fighters’ Guild will not let you in if you do have a criminal record that’s not been paid off.

Economics-wise, the Empire is also more honest, employing corporations like the East Empire Company to facilitate trade and help make money for provinces like Skyrim. Whereareas the Stormcloak Nords have their equivalent of that with Clan Shatter-Shield, who also have a trading and shipping company, but unlike the East Empire Company which is just paranoid about security, Clan Shatter-Shield employed pirates, known as the Blood Horkers, to attack the East Empire Company, while at the same time, Clan Shatter-Shield treats its Argonian dock workers like dung, paying them less than Nord workers and leaving them in horrible working conditions, while the East Empire Company hasn’t been shown to engage in such disgusting practices, in Skyrim or in Cyrodiil.

So, to recap, we have several points that show how Imperial culture in Cyrodiil and their representatives in Skyrim is superior to the rest of Skyrim, especially the Stormcloak half of it:

Cyrodiil’s peacekeeping forces track down criminals from one city to another, while Skyrim’s Holds allow a criminal from one hold to walk freely in another.

Cyrodiil architecture is sturdier and stronger than Skyrim’s, where, outside of Solitude, there isn’t a proper city with strong, modern architecture in sight, mostly ruins like Whiterun, Windhelm, and Markarth, and all the other holds are practically wooden villages.

The guards and people are nicer in Cyrodiil than in Skyrim.

The corruption in Cyrodiil is not nearly as bad as in Skyrim. The former has corrupt captains doing bad things under the table, while the latter has entire cities mired in corruption and are under the thumb of corrupt families like the Black-Briars and the Silver-Bloods, as well as their pawns, the Thieves’ Guild and the Forsworn.

Both during the Oblivion Crisis and the Dragon Crisis, the Imperials see the importance of magic. In the former, they had Mages’ Guild chapters in every city and an Arcane University at the capital, while in the latter, they’re stockpiling magic artifacts for power and exploring previously-banned fields of magic like Necromancy and Conjuration. The Nords, however, ignore magic, and their Mages’ College receives no government support while the most magic each Hold has is a Jarl’s court mage who’s there for emergencies. This in a time where war with the magically-proficient Thalmor elves is looming on the horizon, a civil war is going on, and dragons are attacking everywhere.

The Fighters’ Guild in Cyrodiil employs people with clean criminal records and goes after real threats, while the Companions in Skyrim don’t give a rat’s ass about criminal records and toy around with dangerous Daedric lycanthropy. The Fighters’ Guild went after a dangerous PMC that was getting high on bad hist sap and was going around killing innocents, while the Companions pursued a vendetta against werewolf hunters who were rightfully fearful of werewolves, and said vendetta got the leader of the Companions killed.

Imperial money-making companies like the East Empire Company are less corrupt than their Stormcloak counterparts in Skyrim, Clan Shatter-shield, which not only employs pirates to attack the East Empire Company, but also treats non-Nords like their Argonian dock workers rather poorly.

So when I hear complaints from Stormcloak fans that an Imperial victory would erode Skyrim’s culture and make it more like Cyrodiil, my answer to that is: THAT IS A GOOD THING. THEY SHOULD BE MORE LIKE CYRODIIL. Cyrodiil’s culture is vastly superior and is on the right track. Nordic culture as it is in Skyrim needs to be more like Cyrodiil and less like Skyrim’s. The Jarls of Skyrim need to support the magic arts, they need to have a uniform system for tracking down criminals across the Holds. They need to build sturdier buildings that aren’t easy for a dragon or a Thalmor battlemage to set on fire. The Companions need to have higher standards, and the guards of each Hold should be more polite towards other races and their own people. Copying Cyrodiil isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing, which is why the most secure place in Skyrim is Solitude, where they not only have good architecture, their Jarl, Jarl Elisif, responds to threats decisively. When necromancers were poking around in a cave causing strange lights, Elisif wanted to send soldiers right away, before her steward convinces her to send the player instead.

On the other hand, Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, the man hailed by Stormcloaks as the savior of Nordic culture, has so many threats in Windhelm that he’s ignoring because of that damn war that he started. There’s a murderer loose on the streets, killing Nord women. Some kid is trying to summon the Dark Brotherhood and nobody tries to console or stop him. There’s racial tension within the city between Nords and Dark Elves that Imperial agents can easily use to undermine the Stormcloaks if they actually bothered to act there, and again, no response from Ulfric. A dragon attacked Kynesgrove, a village that is within walking distance from Windhelm, and there wasn’t even a response-no Stormcloak soldiers trying to keep the people of that village safe from the dragon, not even soldiers checking the place out after the dragon was destroyed. When some watchtower near Whiterun was under attack, Jarl Balgruuf sent men to check it out, along with a survivor from Helgen and his own personal majordomo, Irileth. But the man hailed as the second coming of Talos can’t even bother to check on a dragon attack happening in a village near his city?

Also, there’s even an Altmer thieves’ group known as the Summerset Shadows, causing trouble in Windhelm, and Ulfric does nothing about it. He doesn’t commission a hunt nor put a bounty on their heads. A bloody Altmer gang is trying to move in on the capital of the Stormcloaks, and the Stormcloaks, who pride themselves on not letting men get bossed around by elves, are basically turning a blind eye as a bunch of elves are robbing the city blind. Is this the kind of culture that the Stormcloaks want? A culture so wrapped up by petty wars caused by ambition that they can’t even take care of themselves? And that’s ignoring the fact that Ulfric also turns a blind eye when bandits raid non-Nordic settlements and traders, or the fact that he doesn’t even let Argonians who were born and raised in Skyrim to get inside Windhelm, whereareas other cities like Riften don’t care about Argonians mixing in with Dark Elves, and that’s a city that, despite being on the Stormcloak side, is ruled from the shadows by the pro-Imperial Black-Briar clan. That’s the kind of leader Ulfric ends up being: despite the fact that he started the war out of what he says is a sense of duty to Talos and the Nord ways, in the end, he’s a guy who starts a war to satisfy his own emotional doubts and fears while ignoring the real-life needs of his people, in his own city and Hold.

And the kind of “old Nordic culture” that Ulfric is trying to restore is even worse. He wants to restore trial by combat as a legitimate way of getting rid of kings-which was his excuse for getting rid of King Torygg. Of course, Ulfric isn’t looking at the long-term consequences of this trend, which can open a whole can of worms for the future. Say that Harkon, Miraak, or an evil Dragonborn want to replace Ulfric as either Jarl of Windhelm or High King of Skyrim, and one of them challenges Ulfric to a duel. Fair enough. If Ulfric refuses, these powerful individuals would devastate the city, with Harkon siccing vampires on the populace, Miraak sending in dragons, and the last Dragonborn just running around killing guards and citizens with Dragon Shouts and Daedric weapons. It would make Ulfric look weak, unworthy of being the High King, just as Ulfric tried to make Torygg look unworthy of the throne by challenging him to a duel and expecting him to back down. If Ulfric accepts, then Harkon’s vampire lord powers would allow him to devastate Ulfric even without transforming, while Miraak and the Dragonborn’s greater mastery of the Thu’um shouts, far greater than Ulfric’s, will allow them to crush Ulfric like a bug in a duel.

Congratulations: now Skyrim has a vampire for a ruler. Or a mind-rapist who commands dragons. Or a master thief/sadistic killer/bloodsucking vampire who parades around as a dragon-slaying hero. See how easy it is to abuse? It’s as Alvor says to the player if he or she joins Hadvar out of Helgen: once the Jarls start killing each other over power, it’s back to the bad old days. Days when people were ruled not by the wisest or most understanding of rulers, but days when they were ruled by the strongest, by those who only cared for power.

So yeah, in terms of cultural standards, Skyrim needs to take notes from Cyrodiil. And it’s no wonder that the best places in Skyrim are owned by the more sensible Jarls who think like Imperials: Jarl Balgruuf deeply cares for his people and is concerned about trade and economics, while Jarl Elisif also cares for her people and does her best to protect them, down to the point where as I said, her answer to a bunch of necromancers causing strange lights to pop up in a cave was sending a full battalion of soldiers to check it out. And yet they are both Nords who still worship Talos. They’re also far better than Jarl Ulfric, who, despite being the model of Nordic “badassery” and leadership to at least half the country, barely reacts when threats like dragons, Altmer criminal organizations, murderers, racial tension, or a possible summoning of the Dark Brotherhood all take place within or near his city. And as for the rest of the Jarls, aside from Jarl Ravencrone, they are either puppets, idiots, or both. When one Countess in Cyrodiil being racist against Argonians is the exception to the norm, it goes to show that the average Count in Cyrodiil is better than his Nordic Jarl counterpart.

STORMCLOAK RACISM: DIVIDED WE FALL

Speaking of racism and race relations, the cosmopolitan nature of Cyrodiil stands in stark contrast to the Nords. In Cyrodiil, your average city has many different races owning businesses and wearing anything from rags to fine clothing. The Blackwood Company, prior to being exposed as a threat, was considered a legitimate business in Cyrodiil, and its leadership consists mostly Khajiit and Argonians. The Black Horse Courier, the Imperial City’s most prominent newspaper that has human couriers, is owned by three Khajiit brothers. In contrast, back at Skyrim, we see that the Khajiit traders aren’t even allowed into cities and they’re forced to sell goods outside, and non-Nords are kept to a low standard, especially in Stormcloak-owned territories. One of the most prominent blacksmiths in the city of Whiterun, Adrianne Avenicci, states that when the Stormcloaks took the city, her business has gone down dramatically, and the only reason she’s allowed to keep her business is because she’s married to a Nord. All because of the fact that she’s not a Nord herself, she’s from Cyrodiil. Maybe she ought to go down there after the Stormcloaks win, and take her husband with her.

Even in Imperial Holds like Markarth, we have cases of the Nords oppressing non-Nords and treating them like garbage, and in Stormcloak Holds like Windhelm, it’s the local populace doing it, not some rich family like the Silver-Bloods. It’s the commoners and locals who mistreat the Dark Elves, while the authorities turn a blind eye to all the racial tension. It’s almost as if they’re asking for the Imperials to manipulate that racial tension into a weapon against the Stormcloaks, especially since Dark Elves, like their Altmer cousins, are adept in the powers of magic, and as the race select screen at the start of the game can attest, they have a strong resistance to fire. They even have a racial ability that can surround themselves in fire for 60 seconds, That would be very useful in the tight, cramped quarters of the city if the Dunmer ever decide to riot. They’d burn the Stormcloak soldiers that would come to stop them. That would be a major embarrassment for the Stormcloaks to have riots in their own capital. A riot that could easily be arranged by Imperial agents smuggling weapons into the city.

Speaking of the Silver-Bloods, it’s quite fitting that a family that supports Ulfric Stormcloak from within Imperial lands turns out to be one of the most disgustingly racist families in Skyrim. When compared to the pro-Imperial Black-Briar family back in Riften, the latter comes off as near-saintly since all they have are business arrangements with a bunch of thieves in the Ragged Flagon. In Markarth, the Silver-Blood family owns the silver mines, the prison, and the Forsworn. That’s right, those anti-Nordic, half-Breton, Daedra-worshipping Forsworn are goons of the Silver-Bloods, and they use the Forsworn to eliminate competition and keep control of the silver and anything else important in the city. And of course, the Silver-Bloods do not have an alliance with the Forsworn out of friendship. They do not treat Bretons better due to their alliance with the Forsworn. Instead, they mistreat those of Breton origin, and even Nords who knew too much, driving these undesirables into the arms of the Forsworn, who, ironically enough, secretly serve the Silver-Bloods despite wanting to free the Reach of Nordic influence. It’s a brutal cycle. Silver-Bloods mistreat Nords and non-Nords, the latter go to the Forsworn for help, and the Forsworn kill people who can compete with the Silver-Bloods in terms of power.

Who would have guessed that the shrine to Molag Bal in Markarth would be one of the least corrupt places within it? At least Bal was honest about what he wanted-he just wanted the soul of some priest who desecrated his shrine, and giving that to him gets him to reward the player with his powerful signature weapon-the Mace of Molag Bal. Who would have thought that a Daedric Prince with his shrine in Markarth, known far and wide as the “king of rape”, ends up being one of the most honest dealers in that city? Same goes for the Thalmor agents wandering around in the Understone Keep-the Jarl’s center of government in Markarth. They’re elven religious extremists who want all worshippers of Talos to be hunted down like dogs, but just like old Molag, they were more honest with the player than the authorities of Markarth ever were. All you need to do is help them obtain proof of Talos worship in the city, and not only do they reward you for it, their captain, Ondolemar, who is the leader of all the Thalmor Justiciars in Skyrim, starts acting as if you’re his best friend. That’s right, an Elven captain who is the equivalent of a Nazi SS officer, Ambassador Elenwen’s own Heinrich Himmler, starts acting as if you’re his best friend and actually treats you as a trusted confidant. Remember all those Thalmor patrols running around, taking people against their will to be tortured for information about Talos worshippers? THEIR LEADER begins to see you as a trustworthy friend and greets you with respect. Even black-hearted elven Nazis know how to show gratitude. While as I said before, even if you’re a thane of Markarth who has done service for the city, they authorities will still throw you in jail if you look into the corruption of the Silver-Blood family and their ties to the Forsworn.

The Silver-Bloods use the fact that they imprisoned the Forsworn King, Madanach as leverage, to get the Forsworn to kill rivals of the family and anyone that might threaten their power in Markarth. As the player enters the city, the Forsworn kill a woman who was trying to buy Cidhna Mine, which was both a silver mine and a prison, from the Silver-Bloods. Said woman turned out to be an Imperial agent who knew of the Silver-Blood family corruption in the city, and was trying to get Cidhna Mine away from the hands of Thonar Silver-Blood, the leader of the family. In Game of Thrones terms, that’s like if the Lannisters captured the king of the Wildlings and was using him as leverage to get the Wildlings to kill a Baratheon agent that was trying to buy Casterly Rock and all its gold mines away from the Lannisters. But how did this come to pass? How did Madanach and the Forsworn come to serve a bunch of Nord elites? Well, that goes back to the story of our dear friend, the esteemed Jarl of Windhelm, Ulfric Stormcloak, and his “heroic” re-taking of Markarth from the “savages” of the Forsworn.

After the Great War ended with the signing of the White-Gold Concordat, Ulfric Stormcloak was called in by the Jarl of Markarth, Hrolfdir, to retake the Reach from the Forsworn, promising open worship of Talos as a reward. With the ban on Talos worship enforced by the White-Gold Concordat, Ulfric Stormcloak and his militia of fanatical Talos-worshipers jumped at the chance. Nords on the Stormcloak half of Skyrim, as well as their supporters in the Imperial half, tout this as an accomplishment of Ulfric Stormcloak, that he followed in the footsteps of Talos in defeating the Reachmen at the Battle of old Hroldan. Here, the Stormcloaks attest that their leader was able to restore peace and order while the Empire’s forces were away, fighting Thalmor elves from Alinor. Many a Stormcloak fan used this case as an example of Ulfric’s military prowess, citing this example as a reason why he should lead the fight against the Thalmor, especially when the Forsworn, unlike the Nords, were very adept at magic, and Ulfric defeated them nonetheless, using the power of the Thu’um as a weapon to blast off the Forsworn fortifications. But looking deeper into this episode of Stormcloak “heroism”, one can see how Ulfric is once again in the wrong.

During their short tenure as rulers of the Reach, the Forsworn, according to sources such as the in-game book “The Bear of Markarth”, tried to rule fairly. They overthrew the Nordic rulers of the Reach in a rebellion inspired by the Nords’ poor treatment of them, and then they ruled peacefully for the two short years that they were in power. Some crimes were committed against Nordic landowners who abused their subordinates in the past, but on the whole, the Forsworn focused on peace, not revenge, and they were even sending overtures to the Empire to be recognized as a member state of the Imperium. So not only did the Forsworn rise up in the first place due to injustices done against them, they also tried to play nice within the system, even going so far as to ask the Empire itself for protection and recognition instead of slaughtering all the Nords they can get their hands on. Which, of course, puts them as the opposite of Ulfric Stormcloak when he strolled into town. Before the Forsworn and the Empire could finalize their agreements, Ulfric and his army rolled into the Reach and took back Markarth for its “rightful” Nord rulers. However, it is what Ulfric did right after retaking the place that shows his true colors: where he was not a hero, but a murderer. The book paints Ulfric’s actions in rather graphic terms:

“Every official who worked for the Forsworn was put to the sword, even after they had surrendered. Native women were tortured to give up the names of Forsworn fighters who had fled the city or were in the hills of the Reach. Anyone who lived in the city, Forsworn and Nord alike, were executed if they had not fought with Ulfric and his men when they breached the gates. ‘You are with us, or you are against Skyrim’ was the message on Ulfric's lips as he ordered the deaths of shopkeepers, farmers, the elderly, and any child old enough to lift a sword that had failed in the call to fight with him.”

Ulfric relentlessly slaughtered anyone associated with the Forsworn, instead of just accepting surrender and coming to terms with them. His troops ruthlessly tortured women to give up the names of the Forsworn soldiers who fled from the Nords. Anyone that didn’t rise up against the Forsworn during the siege of Markarth were executed or jailed. Shopkeepers, farmers, the elderly, and even the young were executed just because they tried to stay neutral in the fighting. It is here where we see what Ulfric is: he isn’t a hero. He’s no savior. He’s not a servant of the Nine. No devoted servant of Talos would engage in such barbaric cruelty. I remembered how in the Knights of the Nine DLC, how those with infamy in their records have to clean themselves before going on the quest, and how in Oblivion as a whole, shrines like the shrine of Talos would refuse to bless the player if they killed innocents publicly or had an unpaid bounty on their heads.

So that goes to show that the Aedric gods themselves are active players in the chessboard that is Nirn, and they actively despise the killing of innocents, yet here we have the supposed chosen servant of Talos, the “Defender of the Faith” in the eyes of the Stormcloak supporters, committing war crimes unapologetically and without mercy. Torturing women, jailing or killing innocent people, just for not fighting alongside the Nords or for working with the Forsworn when the latter ruled the place. It is clear now that Ulfric is using Talos’ name as a weapon for his own ends, to further his own ambitions of becoming High King of Skyrim. Either that, or he has a warped view of Talos worship that ignores the fact that the Nine despise injustice and harming the innocent, just as Ulfric ignored the prohibition on using the Thu’um as a weapon of aggression that applies to all who aren’t Dragonborn. Whatever Talos was before he became an Aedric Deity, when he became one, his shrine, like all others, despised evildoers and refused blessings for the corrupt. And yet here, the man who is supposed to be the one to restore Talos worship can’t even follow the precepts of the Nine. What a disgrace.

And as I previously mentioned, things got even worse afterwards. Ulfric and his forces spared the Forsworn King, Madanach, but not out of charity or mercy. Instead, they had Madanach imprisoned in Cidhna Mine, a mine owned by the Silver-Blood family that adored Ulfric Stormcloak. There, they kept the king as a hostage and a bargaining chip: the Forsworn outside the prisons have to do as the Silver-Bloods want, or their king is history. This includes terrorizing and harassing the locals, keeping them scared of the Forsworn, as well as killing any would-be competitors in Markarth that might compete with the power and influence of the Silver-Blood clan, including Imperials that tried to buy Cidhna Mine from the corrupt Silver-Bloods. Markarth continued as it was, a city that, on the surface, supports an Empire that stands for human solidarity and anti-slavery, but in reality, Stormcloak supporters within the city control its guards and its prison, as well as all the silver, and they use the Forsworn as their slaves to do their bidding.

The Forsworn went from honorable people running a country peacefully, wanting to gain the status of a client state within the Empire, to becoming terrorists in their own lands, pawns of the same order that kept their people down. That is why the Forsworn that the players meet in the game are Daedra-worshipping savages who kill any strangers they meet and bow before Hagravens, sacrificing people to become Briarhearts. Prior to that, they tried to rule peacefully and ingratiate themselves into the civilization of the Empire, and now, they’re just bandits with different clothes who despise all outsiders. All because the Nords oppressed them. Sure, Jarl Hrolfdir was killed after trying to make peace with the Forsworn, but once again, by that time, the Forsworn were under the control of the Silver-Bloods due to their control of Madanach, so it’s more likely that the Silver-Blood family got tired of working with Hrolfdir and had the Forsworn dispose of him.

I remember when I first played the game, I just hated the Forsworn because they were savages who attacked me on sight. More than once, I died to them because I was unprepared, and that really annoyed me. So when I first played the “No one escapes Cidhna Mine” quest, despite being jailed by the Silver-Bloods, I hated the Forsworn so much that I just had my character kill Madanach, then run like a bitch and avoid everyone as I got to the exit, then Thonar “pardoned” me and gave me all my stuff back. But for novelty’s sake, in my second, “perfect” playthrough, my second character decided to take the Forsworn route. Madanach had her sent to meet Braig, a man who was forced to watch his daughter get her head chopped off just because she begged the guards to throw her in prison instead. He got in trouble because he spoke to Madanach once, and to spare him from prison, his daughter offered to take his place, but the Nords chopped her head off and threw him into jail anyways.

Linking that with what my second character read from the book, “The Bear of Markarth”, she chose to stick with the Forsworn and help them in the riot in Markarth, where she killed Thonar Silver-Blood after donning her new Forsworn outfit. She made it to the outskirts of the Forsworn camp with Madanach as a dragon attacked, where she fought alongside Madanach to kill the beast. This second character, who was more pro-Imperial than the first, (she once fought alongside the Champion of Cyrodiil before getting sent to the future by an Elder Scroll, so she had a pro-Imperial bias, having fought alongside Emperor Martin Septim) now had more reasons to hate the Stormcloaks, aside from the fact that she already sees Ulfric as a pawn of the Thalmor.

Speaking of Ulfric, again, his “Skyrim is for Nords” crap really doesn’t sit well as a good war strategy. It’s not pragmatic, it’s not helpful, and in the end, it means he has less troops to fight the Thalmor with once the second war starts. This Skyrim Civil War, as I had said before, entails getting one half of Skyrim to pound the other into pancake batter. Skyrim is going to need allies after the war in order to help rebuild and be ready for when the Thalmor strike. Ulfric’s city of Windhelm already has Dark Elves and Argonians present-he could have used this to his advantage to make friends with them and have them visit their homelands to try and convince them to ally with Ulfric and the Stormcloaks. Both Morrowind and Black Marsh had already left the Empire, and neither one shows a penchant for aligning with the Thalmor or their Aldmeri Dominion. So it would be perfect for Ulfric to cook up a third side to the Tamrielic balance of power, have Morrowind and Black Marsh join a free Skyrim and pool their resources together so that neither the Imperials nor the Thalmor can force their will upon these three kingdoms. Recreate the Ebonheart pact, which was once an alliance between Nords, Dunmer, and Argonians, and have them combine their strength of arms, magic, and assassins to make a formidable force.

The Nords can serve as the muscle, the raw strength and steel of the army. The Dunmer can be the magicians, using their sorcery to back up the Nords. The Argonians can be the guerillas and poisoners, using their homeland’s inhospitable environment as a harvesting ground to wage biological warfare by creating poisons that can kill Thalmor elves or bossy Imperials, as well as creating an Argonian navy filled with people who can breathe underwater being the naval force of the new alliance. The Argonians can also resurrect the traditions of assassin groups like the Shadowscales by working with the rebuilt Dark Brotherhood back in Skyrim and training a new batch of Shadowscale warriors that can hit crucial targets in both Imperial and Thalmor camps. This stuff practically writes itself. Ulfric can go over to these kingdoms and preach against both the Empire AND the Thalmor, and stress the need for an alliance of free kingdoms to keep the warring superpowers out of their business, an alliance that can rival both powers in terms of strength, both political and martial. An alliance that can finally show that Tamriel need not be divided along the lines of Imperial or Dominion.

But instead, Ulfric mistreats the Dunmer and Argonians in his city. The Dunmer are stuck in a squalid part of Windhelm known as the Gray Quarter, which is about as racially sensitive as sticking a bunch of Chinese immigrants in a slum called “Yellow Town”. The Dunmer could barely make ends meet, and they’re constantly harassed for not contributing 100% to the Stormcloak war effort, despite the fact that we don’t see the same kind of racism in the Imperial Holds outside of Markarth, the one Hold that was secretly controlled by Stormcloak supporters. Ulfric doesn’t heed their cries when Dunmer outside the city walls get preyed on by bandits, despite the fact that he already protects Nord caravans outside of the city. And he has the Argonians treated worse: kept outside the city even though some have been born in Eastmarch and have worked in the docks for years. And yet we’ve seen in other cities like the Black-Briars’ home of Riften where Dark Elves and Argonians mix all the time.

For a guy who’s waging war against one superpower and planning a future war against another, Ulfric sure sucks at making friends and having a long-term view of what will keep Skyrim going. Once the war ends with a Stormcloak victory, the Stormcloak holds are going to be exhausted after conquering the Imperial half of Skyrim, and said Imperial half is going to be in shambles since they just got pounded by the rebels. There’s gonna be bad blood between the people of Skyrim due to one half supporting the Empire and losing. Ulfric will have one half of the country exhausted and the other half battered and weak, which is not a good economic base. Instead, the kingdom of Skyrim will be ripe for invasion, which will make it easy for the Thalmor to sail a fleet all the way to Skyrim and take the kingdom. With the Imperials paralyzed after losing a province and their best general, and the Stormcloaks tired after their victory, a Thalmor assault will catch Skyrim off-guard and will end with the Dominion subjugating the Nords. Then the Thalmor can do anything to the Nords, from torturing Talos worshippers in the streets of each Hold’s capital, to massacring the Nords to “avenge the loss of the Falmer”. Speaking of the Falmer, the Thalmor might even do what the Dwemer did to them and force the Nords into slavery, just as the Ayleids enslaved the humans of Cyrodiil in the past.

The Stormcloak fanboys can keep citing Hammerfell as an example of an independent kingdom defeating the Thalmor, but Hammerfell was devastated anyways; the Thalmor withdrew not because they were too weak to hang onto the province, but because there’s nothing worth defending since they’ve already trashed the place. And a devastated Hammerfell will make for a poor ally for Ulfric. What will they send, a couple thousand troops to reinforce Skyrim? At a time when their nation is bleeding and in need of recovery? While the Thalmor, who haven’t bled at all during the Skyrim Civil War, could send tens of thousands of soldiers, overwhelming the exhausted Stormcloaks. The Stormcloaks are already getting tired despite the fact that they’re mostly fighting leather-bound auxiliaries hired from local Nordic villages instead of the heavily-armored, battle-hardened legionnaires guarding the border with the Aldmeri Dominion. How would they fare against fresh Thalmor troops that were the equals of the hardened legionnaires that fought in the previous war? Poorly, that’s for sure.

And as I’ve covered in a previous entry, Ulfric’s a poor general. A great warrior in his prime, perhaps, but just because they’re great warriors doesn’t always mean they’ll be great generals. Ulfric’s military career consists of getting captured twice, first by the Thalmor, and second, by his former co-workers in the Empire. His accomplishments were A) defeating the Forsworn, who were focusing on trying to rule the Reach fairly and trying to get Imperial support for their reign, and B) defeating a boy-king in combat that he could have easily turned into an asset. He defeated the Forsworn not because of tactics or strategy, but by using the Thu’um on them, just as he did against Skyrim’s legitimate High King, Torygg. And as any player of Skyrim knows, the Thu’um can be blocked by magical wards of any kind. No wonder why the Thalmor caught him. His blasts of the Unrelenting Force shout was probably rendered useless once Thalmor troops started using protective wards. (Which, by the way, even the common Thalmor soldiers can do)

Ulfric was captured by the Thalmor and released, where he did exactly as they wanted and caused a civil war in Skyrim to erupt after the signing of the White Gold Concordat. Before that civil war, Ulfric’s brutal retaking of Markarth and the Reach showed him to be a base barbarian whose idea of rooting out the influence of the Forsworn was to rely on things like torture, murder, and imprisonment, for anyone who cooperated or even barely talked with the Forsworn. Instead of relying on goodwill, or trying to convince the Forsworn supporters that laying down their arms and following the Nords is in their best interest, Ulfric showed himself to be cruel, merciless, and tyrannical, relying on torture and murder as a crutch instead of an alternative to cooperation and diplomacy. Ulfric kicked off the civil war by challenging Torygg to a duel and then brutally killing him, instead of molding the young king who admired him into a future ally to get Skyrim to secede from the Empire peacefully. Then, when he fought the Imperials, once General Tullius joined the fight, Ulfric was captured rather easily. He surrendered rather meekly, in fact, sullying that whole notion that he was a hero who would fight to the death for his beliefs.

So what we’ve got here is not only a leader who doesn’t even have the slightest clue about how to build multinational alliances or how to rule a multiracial city right, he’s also a bad strategist and tactician. In battle, he got captured twice, by both the hated Thalmor elves that his fans greatly underestimate, and by the “corrupt and dying empire” that he and his fans have written off as a lost cause. When it comes to dealing with politics, Ulfric would rather kill the king and cause a civil war in his own country rather than convince the king to join his side and secede Skyrim from the Empire peacefully. When he was called upon to put down the Forsworn uprising, he did so in the most gruesome and cruel manner, employing imprisonment, torture, and execution in a liberal manner to the point where many Nords wound up joining the Forsworn. To sum things up, Ulfric sucks at battle tactics to the point where he got captured twice, which would have cut his campaign short if his enemies didn’t take prisoners. His strategy for rooting out rebels is to be the quintessential, mustache-twirling bad guy who tortures, imprisons, and kills people at the drop of a hat. His idea of freeing Skyrim from the Empire is starting a civil war within the kingdom that would leave it weak to the Thalmor, instead of molding Skyrim’s young king into an ally to secede Skyrim without spilling a single drop of blood. And despite the fact that people from other kingdoms like Argonia and Morrowind come to his city, he treats them poorly instead of civilly, neglecting the idea that these people and their respective homelands can be allies against the likes of the Empire and the Thalmor.

So not only are the Stormcloaks fighting the Empire AND the Thalmor alone, without any backup, but they’re led by an absolute moron who A) falls for the traps his enemies set and unwittingly does what they want, B) has no sense of mercy and kills, imprisons, or tortures anyone he suspects of being an enemy, C) has no care in the world for how his war is damaging his own country, or how his war is distracting the authorities from dealing with all sorts of trouble in his city, and D) has no eye for diplomacy and fails to make allies out of his own king or the other kingdoms that are independent of both the Empire and the Thalmor, instead choosing to kill the former and discriminate against the people that come from the latter. Once again, as I said, divided we fall. And Ulfric has done everything to divide. Which is irresponsible, given the threats that emerge in Skyrim that the world
faces: Alduin, the World-Eater.

THE DRAGON CRISIS AND ALDUIN: ULFRIC’S LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY

Despite all that has been written about the Skyrim Civil War and the plot with the Thalmor, they’re all side stories in Skyrim. Skyrim’s main story concerns the Dragon Crisis and the return of Alduin, the world-consuming dragon. In the beginning of the game, in the city of Helgen, right as the Imperials have Ulfric Stormcloak lined up for the headsman’s axe, and right before the player loses their head, Alduin attacks and sets the city on fire. His thunderous dragon shouts blow back the Imperial defenders and summon a hail of fire from the sky. He flies around and opens fire on the garrison as fireballs blow holes on fortifications. By the end of it, Ulfric and the captive rebels had escaped, and the city was destroyed, while the player escapes the carnage with either a Stormcloak rebel or an Imperial legionnaire. But by the time they reach the quiet village of Riverwood, news of what happened at Helgen began to trickle down to the other Holds. By the time the player gets to Whiterun, the threat of dragons is serious enough that Jarl Balgruuf was prepared to send troops to Riverwood for defense, even though his councilor warns him that the Jarl of Falkreath will view that as a threat.

As for Ulfric, however, he doesn’t bat an eye at the dragon problem. He still mostly talks about the war and how to defeat the Empire. The Empire likewise is focused on the Stormcloak issue while not necessarily focusing on the dragons. And as the player discovers over the course of the main quest, the dragon Alduin is the harbinger of the end times, the one destined to end the world. As the story progresses, the player, if they haven’t yet finished the civil war questline, has to enlist the aid of the Jarl of Whiterun to entrap one of Alduin’s allies. The Dragonborn has just won their first battle against Alduin, and now Alduin has gone into hiding, necessitating the use of Dragonsreach, the castle of Jarl Balgruuf of Whiterun, as a trap for the dragons. However, Balgruuf has a problem: both General Tullius and Ulfric Stormcloak are putting pressure on him to side with one of them, and he needs them both to stop before he devotes time and resources to helping the Dragonborn catch a dragon. This leads to a peace council being called by the Greybeards to discuss the dragon threat and get both sides to tackle the dragon menace.

And right before that council, before the player gets Ulfric Stormcloak and General Tullius to show up, you hear talk of how the people see the Greybeard council. Some are quite shocked at the news, other people are hopeful, thinking that “there’s hope for Skyrim yet” and the war might be ended there, with the Imperials and the Stormcloaks working together to end the conflict. Even Balgruuf has the hope that the war could end in the process and the country can focus on the very real threat of the Dragon Crisis. Even Ulfric, it seems, is straightened out by the threat of the dragons when you tell him about the proposed truce and he agrees to come. General Tullius comes too, if only to avoid losing face.

Both parties arrive at the council, and the player has a choice of whether or not to allow the Thalmor ambassador Elenwen to stay. Whether or not she does, the negotiations begin.

And then Ulfric opens his big mouth……..

The first thing he says? “This is only a temporary truce”. And the second thing he says? His price for a truce is gaining Markarth and its silver mines.

Well, there goes the hope of this peace council ending the war…….

Ulfric’s attitude during the council really lessened my opinion of him. Prior to that, I saw him as someone who was a more sympathetic shade of grey. A rebel whose treason came from understandable origins. And I thought that something like the dragon menace would really get him to come around, especially since he seems to be knowledgeable when it comes to Nordic myths and recognizes Alduin as the world-eating dragon. But quite literally, the first thing he says is that this peace will not be permanent, that the war will come back, once Alduin has been dealt with. And his price to even agreeing to a truce is to gain a resource-rich Hold overflowing with silver. While General Tullius seemed just as brash, in his own words, he is willing to treat with Ulfric in good faith, even if it meant giving up Markarth’s silver mines. Not to mention the fact that when the Blades scholar, Esbern, starts talking about the threat of Alduin, Ulfric threatens Esbern’s fellow Blades warrior, Delphine, telling her to shut him up. The Blades were there to help explain the kind of threat that the world as a whole faces from the dragons, and Ulfric’s response to that is a veiled threat.

As Esbern speaks, he reveals to the attendees that Alduin gains more power by consuming souls in Sovngarde. This war that is fought between pro-Imperial Nords and Stormcloak Nords is feeding Alduin’s power. He grows in strength for every soldier slain in the war that amounts to a pile of beans when compared to the literal end of the world, or at the very least, the enslavement of all mortals under the revived dragons. And yet Ulfric is content to make sure that this peace doesn’t last. He doesn’t even stay to discuss HOW to stop the dragons once he gets what he wants. General Tullius does, staying with Jarl Balgruuf and discussing the plan to catch Odahviing, one of the dragons under Alduin. But, speaking of Esbern and Alduin, part of the prophecy that foretells of Alduin’s return is partly due to the civil war in Skyrim. As the song goes:

“And the Scrolls have foretold, of black wings in the cold, that when brothers wage war come unfurled! Alduin, bane of Kings, ancient shadow unbound, With a hunger to swallow the world!”

— Song of the Dragonborn

So, factoring in Ulfric’s insistence that the Greybeard Council will only be a temporary truce, coupled with the fact that he was unwilling to stay for the plan to take down a dragon by using a neutral Jarl’s castle, and added with the fact that the war that Alduin is profiting from is a war that Ulfric himself started, it’s quite clear that Alduin’s return and his increasingly growing power can be blamed on Ulfric Stormcloak.

Ulfric was the one who started the war, by killing King Torygg and by waging war against the other Jarls loyal to the Empire, instead of molding the young king into a friend who can peacefully secede Skyrim from the Empire the way Black Marsh and Morrowind left. He was the reason why the player starts the adventure in Skyrim in chains, and why the player also almost lost their heads, because the Imperials being jittery about rebel activity is what caused the Last Dragonborn to be arrested, and that’s due to the rebel activities of the Stormcloaks, since even the horse thief in the opening says that the Empire was “nice and lazy” before the civil war. And Ulfric’s war, which was avoidable in so many ways, is the very thing that was making Alduin stronger. Of course, Nords die now and then, which would mean that even without the war, Alduin would be able to feed, but the war is sending young men and women to their graves at a faster rate, either directly because of the war, or because of bandit attacks due to lack of patrols. This war is sending large numbers of Nords to their graves, which means Alduin gets to feast like Jabba the Hutt in a banquet of souls.

The very least that Ulfric could have done is realize that his war is feeding the World-Eater’s power, and at least try to end the war by forcing the Imperials to a permanent truce or apologizing to Torygg’s wife, Jarl Elisif, who was present in the council. He could have even proposed an alliance against the dragons, with Imperials and Stormcloaks taking on the dragons and working together to capture Odahviing. If he wanted to, he could have made the Imperials look like buffoons by proposing a permanent peace so long as the Holds that support him are left alone. He can make the case that he would help the Empire fight the dragons so long as his Holds are allowed to secede from the rest of Skyrim and the Empire, and therefore, be free from the White-Gold Concordat so they can worship Talos in peace. That way, if the Imperials press the case that he should be decapitated, he can make them look like the bad guys for turning down a permanent solution for peace. But no, instead, almost everything Ulfric does in the council points to him as the aggressor. Almost everything he does there shows that he’s too self-absorbed to see the real threat that the dragons pose. As it stands, the only way to make him realize his “mistake” is to kill him in the Skyrim Civil War questline and then meet him in Sovngarde afterwards before the final battle with Alduin. Only there does he realize that the war he started was a big, fat mistake:

"Skyrim was betrayed, the blood of her sons spilled in doomed struggle against fate. And so in death, too late, I learn the truth - fed by war, so waxed the power of Alduin, World-Eater - wisdom now useless. By gods' jest in this grim mist together snared, Stormcloak and Imperial, we wander hopeless, waiting for succor.”

Of course, all of this makes Ulfric a very three-dimensional character. He only wanted what was best for Skyrim. He only wanted to make it strong, to make it great again, to make it so that the followers of Skyrim’s most cherished son aren’t persecuted by their hated foes. But make no mistake-he’s no hero, as much as he would like to believe that he is. His actions will lead Skyrim into ruin, lest he be wise enough to recruit foreign allies and gain a Divine’s blessing, and given his bloody and ruthless actions, not only against his king and countrymen, but also against the people of the Reach, that’s highly unlikely. Just like Dagoth Ur before him, he thinks he’s saving Skyrim from a foreign Empire and restoring it to glory. But just as Dagoth Ur’s Morrowind would have just been a zombie-infested wasteland worshipping a giant robot that he controls, Ulfric’s Skyrim will be one battered realm, ripe for invasion by the Thalmor, a country that shows disdain for non-Nords and has a poor grasp of magic, not to mention a poor economy with money-making, pro-Imperial establishments like the East Empire Company packing up and leaving once the Empire is gone. In short, he’s your typical, well-meaning villain who unwittingly enough is leading his country to ruin, just like General Shepherd from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2.

THE NEED FOR A UNITED EMPIRE: EVERYTHING WAS JUST BETTER BACK THEN

Quite simply, the last time Tamriel had a golden age was before the Oblivion Crisis, where all the races got along just fine and the whole continent was under the rule of the Empire. A united Empire was better for everyone: it facilitated trade, it kept the provinces quiet and peaceful, and it kept the peace, allowing people to pursue other goals other than competing for power in warfare. The fact that the Imperials needed a blood sport like the gladiator-style Arena games goes to show that there’s so little open warfare during those days, that people who wanted to see blood and gore had to pay to see volunteers for it kill each other or kill animals in a coliseum. They were so bored that joining the Arena was the only way people could legally kill each other. Whereareas during Skyrim, anyone can join the armies of the two warring factions, and if Skyrim splits from the Empire, there will be more war ahead, as both the Thalmor and the Empire are guaranteed not to leave Skyrim alone for long.

Plus, one should consider the fact that separate kingdoms will inevitably lead to war. If Skyrim and Morrowind have a spat over boundaries, for example, there will be no Empire to rein them both in and force them to a compromise: The Stormcloaks and House Redoran will not negotiate with each other, especially since the former hasn’t really treated the Dunmer populace in their capital with respect. More likely, it will come to war. Similarly, if High Rock decides that the Silver-Bloods have pushed around the Bretons of the Reach for long enough, and they decide to make their move, no Empire will be there to stop them and force them to negotiate with Skyrim. Once again, it will lead to war. Whereareas if Skyrim remained a part of the Empire, not only will they have more economic strength, they’ll also have more bargaining power with other kingdoms. Morrowind won’t risk war against an Imperial Skyrim, and since High Rock and Skyrim are both Imperial provinces, war between the two will be highly unlikely.

I remember a part in Witcher 3 where the Redanian intelligence chief Sigismund Dijkstra has a talk with the main character, the Witcher Geralt of Rivia. In it, he discusses with Geralt how he and a previous Redanian monarch named Vizimir made Redania the strongest kingdom in the North. He questions Geralt if the Witcher knew what made it so strong.

“Its armies, I’d wager…...” Geralt answers.

“And you’d bloody lose, you idiot!” Dijkstra responds. “Mass mobilization? Inciting peasants to take up their scythes, straighten them? Where’s the art in that? Much harder to build a strong state with healthy commerce, manufacturing, solid alliances, progressive science, and fair, independent courts that hand down just judgements! Vizimir and I managed to do just that-through YEARS of f***ing hard work! I will not sit on my hands as that little shit squanders that! Radovid the Stern, my arse, Radovid the Witless, I’d say!”

Dijkstra’s comments on Radovid talks about how while Radovid, despite being an excellent battle tactician who can (and will) win against the larger Empire of Nilfgaard with a smaller kingdom like Redania, is still an idiot and a madman when it comes to actual ruling. Radovid, unlike Ulfric, is an actual tactical genius who can win wars against larger armies using smaller ones. If left alone in the Witcher 3 storyline, he can, and will, defeat Nilfgaard, despite the latter having armies that are larger and stronger, and also being led by a strategic mastermind, Emperor Emhyr Var Emreis. But like Ulfric, Radovid allows non-humans to get screwed over by bigots like the Church of the Eternal Fire. Radovid is even worse than Ulfric when it comes to distrusting mages, persecuting them.

And all the while, despite the fact that he does a better job than Emhyr does in waging war, Radovid does a worse job in ruling, which can potentially lead to his death when assassins come in and kill him, assassins who comprised of A) his own court sorceress, B) his minister of intelligence, and C) a Witcher who was once a friend of his. He’s obviously no warrior like Ulfric, I mean, put the two up against each other, and even if Radovid comes with a battalion, and Ulfric only comes with a small escort, Ulfric’s Thu’um will win the day. But still, the lesson stands: being better at war does not make one good at ruling. Napoleon learned that the hard way: he won his crown on the battlefield, even snatching it from the Pope during his coronation mass and putting it on his own head. He wound up losing all his allies and having all of Europe come after him due to the fact that his way of ruling, which is “my way or the highway”, caused wars to continue, from his war with England, to his brother’s rule in Spain being beset by rebellions, and his loss in Russia causing the rest of Europe to turn against him, leading to his final defeat and banishment.

When people like Radovid and Napoleon, people who are better at waging wars than Ulfric is, can still wind up losing because of the inefficiencies of their rule, then what chance does Ulfric have? Ulfric, as I have pointed out before, has no allies outside of his own Holds, and his ruling style has allowed problems in Windhelm to fester while he’s busy with the war that he started-a war that he started by killing a potential ally. And even if he does get his free Skyrim, it will be a Skyrim that doesn’t have trading partners or allies. Neighboring Morrowind won’t be kind to him, considering how his people mistreat the Dark Elf populace of Windhelm. Cyrodiil will be cold and distant, since Ulfric broke Skyrim away from their Empire. High Rock, being another Imperial client state, will also close its doors, especially when Ulfric was excessively cruel to the Breton populace of the Reach during the Forsworn Uprising. And Skyrim’s economy will be in shambles due to the fact that one side of Skyrim is exhausted after waging war, the other side will be battered because of the war. With no trading partners, the economy won’t recover in time, which will make the country ripe for assault from the Thalmor forces, and considering that Skyrim isn’t an Imperial province anymore, nobody will come to reinforce poor Skyrim when the Thalmor forces arrive in droves.

Whereareas as I said, an Imperial Skyrim will have many of the advantages that Dijkstra talked about when he and Vizimir ran Redania. Solid alliances with other Imperial provinces like High Rock and Cyrodiil will ensure that other nations like the Dominion and Morrowind will keep their claws off of Skyrim, with the former not invading lest they feel the full wrath of the Empire, and the latter respecting Skyrim’s political strength because it is bolstered by the Empire’s other provinces. A healthy economy bolstered by trade and manufacturing is made possible by keeping trade with Cyrodiil and High Rock, as well as Imperial companies like the East Empire Company keeping the trade going and keeping the money flowing for more investments like manufacturing and infrastructure, not to mention more money for the military so they can get better equipment and training. Progressive sciences, like exploration and funding of the magical arts that can give Skyrim an advantage when fighting the magic-using Thalmor forces of the Aldmeri Dominion. Fair independent courts that hand down just judgments can be made possible by being more like Cyrodiil, and not allowing biases against non-Nords to color the eyes of judges, not to mention that a country-wide bounty system can allow for easy tracking of criminals who won’t be able to escape justice by running to another Hold.

Many Stormcloak fans think that nationalism and religious fervor is enough to run a country, that it’s enough to make a country “healthy and strong”. Well, if that were the case, the Spanish Empire would still be standing today! They had a lot of nationalism and religious fervor. The populace was loyal to the Spanish King, not to lords or nobles. The Catholic Church was in full control to the point where the Inquisition tracked down religious deviants and punished them with expulsion or death. And yet the Empire was beset with so many problems that its fall was inevitable. Inflation caused by an under-developed economy due to a reliance on gold and silver from the New World became an even bigger problem once the gold and silver mines ran out. The suppression of the Jesuit Order robbed the Empire of its intellectual class, replacing a once-vibrant intellectual religious class with blind faith and obtuse traditionalism. Discrimination against non-Peninsulares (Peninsulares were Spaniards from Spain) robbed them of the highest-ranking jobs in the colonies, causing them to revolt, to the point where even rich, pure-blooded Spaniards helped the rebels because they A) weren’t born in Spain and B) wanted a shot at ruling that they could never have while under the power of the crown. So when Naopeon invaded Spain, even the Creole elite of the colonies had no problems rebelling against Spain. By the time the Jesuits were restored after the Napoleonic Wars, the Empire was in shambles, and its remaining colonies didn’t remain loyal for long, breaking away less than a century after most of the Empire was lost, thanks to Spain’s brutal military tactics in Cuba and racial discontent in the Philippines.

So even in real life, religious fervor and nationalism isn’t enough to carry the day, especially when it comes with a lack of economic ingenuity, intellectual pursuits, and racial tolerance. A massive Empire that spanned territories across the globe collapsed because it lacked those three. What more can we say for a province like Skyrim if it lacks those three as well? An independent Skyrim that has racial intolerance for the likes of the Reachmen and the Dark Elves will run afoul of countries like Morrowind and High Rock, which might use the turmoil to invade. A weak economy will leave Skyrim flat-broke if the Thalmor decide to invade of if Skyrim’s neighbors wanted to take a bite out of it. And a lack of intellectual pursuits, namely, a lack of supporting the magic arts, will leave Skyrim’s soldiers flat-footed against any of its potential opponents, be they from Cyrodiil, High Rock, Morrowind, or if they were the Thalmor. Because last I checked, High Rock’s Bretons were adept magic-users, Morrowind also has a strong tradition of magic, and as I previously stated, the Imperials in Cyrodiil are stockpiling magic artifacts and exploring previously-banned schools of magic like Conjuration and Necromancy. And the Thalmor are practically a Magocracy mixed with the Nazi SS.

Hence why in unity, lies strength. Keeping Skyrim wedded to the Empire means that High Rock and Cyrodiil will remain as allies, not as foes, giving Skyrim more political weight and clout, not to mention more allies and trade partners, which will bolster the economy. A bolstered economy will allow Skyrim to recover faster from the Civil War and from dragon attacks, not to mention more money for the army for equipment, recruitment, and training. Being more like Cyrodiil will also entail patronage of the magical arts and tolerance for other races, which means that not only will the Nords be more adept at magic and ready to counter the Thalmor battlemages, but also have potential allies in Morrowind and Black Marsh, considering that the Jarl who replaces Ulfric, Brunwulf Free-Winter puts racial harmony as a top agenda, which can make it easy for Skyrim to make friends with Black Marsh and Morrowind by being nice to Argonians and Dark Elves in Windhelm and using them as ambassadors to get their respective homelands on Skyrim’s side. Which will, in the end, “make Skyrim great again”, to borrow a phrase from the current American President. With increased power from economic and political clout, Skyrim can heal faster and become stronger, which will, in turn, make the Empire stronger. Strong enough to repudiate the White-Gold Concordat, especially if Imperial Skyrim manages to get Black Marsh and Morrowind in its circle of allies. Then Skyrim can have Talos worship back, and they can tear the Third Aldmeri Dominion a new hole to breathe out of.

THAT is how Skyrim can defeat the Thalmor and restore Talos worship. THAT is how Skyrim can become great again. THAT is how one can create a better world for the future of Tamriel: not through disunity and chaos, but through unity and strength.