I think we already got an answer in game, it was for necrophilia. Not only does your character know the fine for the first offence, but they also know the punishment is more severe for re-offenders.
I’d always assumed that “lesser men” referred to the emperor being Dragonborn, rather than societal status. Uriel and Martin were both descendants of the dragon blood after all, and from what we’ve seen in Skyrim, Dragonborn are capable of some pretty incredible things.
The Dragonborn in Skyrim isn't much different from the Imperial Dragonborn lineage. Imperials have the "Voice of the Emperor" power which is probably similar to dragon shouts in some lesser form, and is also likely the very same shout that were used to subjegate/calm the invading Akaviri warriors, leading into the formation of the OG Blades.
The whole dragon blood makes one think if the Dragonborn would be able to take on the throne. Especially since they personally kill the then current emperor for the Dark Brotherhood. And the possibility that Uriel Septim V. has descendents on Akavir
@@HappyBeezerStudiosTheir dragonblood is not necessary anymore though. Sure, it would be prestigious and a powerful tool of war but it does not give you a claim or right to rule.
@@muffinman2546dude Voice of the emperor is just talking like Capt. Picard! And yeah its charming Also beggars use the voice… hence the odd voice changes after giving coin
@@MLBeaton Holy shit I never thought about the idea of the beggar going from well spoken gentleman to limey guttersnipe after they get my gold was them using voice of the emperor. Mind blown.
A bit like the "interview" with Doc Mitchell at the beginning of New Vegas. He even gives us equipment depending on which skills we pick, explaining that was stuff we had on us when we were found. So the Courier has a backstory and a preexisting skillset.
@@atredfaolanconan exiles has you choose the reasons you are crucified, although it's not clear if you are guilty or not. It's strictly for flavour, though.
Seeing as the Emperor can partly see your fate, he says your crime is not what you will be remembered for. If you didn’t commit a crime and were falsely imprisoned, I would think he would know you were innocent of any wrongdoing and not say that
Emperor Uriel Septim VII, sometime after ordering the guards to unlawfully arrest you: "Hmm, what's this prisoner doing in this super specific cell? How strange!"
Another counter argument to the "Hero of Kvatch spawned into existence right then and there by the gods"; The Night Mother in The Dark Brotherhood questline, since she states to have chosen you the player since their exitence in their mother's womb Valen recalling you being dragged into that cell is one thing, but the Night Mother remembering your character being conceived like any other person? Either the gods put falce memories into the only few claiming to have known of the player's existence prior to gameplay, or we did in fact exist and end up in prison for reasons that may or may not be something Hero of Kvatch actually did prior to us playing as them (probably excludes actually having committed murder, considering the Dark Brotherhood initiation)
What if _both_ theories are true? What if the Gods create you in your jail cell, but instead of simply building you from scratch right then and there, they literally rewrite history so that you are born and grow up, and then end up in the jail cell? This would make sense, as the Gods could mold the exact champion they have in mind, and then rewrite history to bring their champion right to them? For example, on one of my recent playthroughs, my character was a Redguard swordsman who grew up on Stros M'kai, and dabbled in some light piracy here and there; the piracy may or may not have had something to do with his incarceration, and when he asked the Emperor why he was in jail, he was hoping to get confirmation that his piracy years had caught up with him. Only to find out that not even _the Emperor himself_ knew what the charges were, so he made his way through the sewers, and from there it was a pretty typical playthrough. Visits Anvil, gets roped into buying Benirus Manor, eagerly joins the Fighters' Guild, reluctantly joins the Mages' Guild, yadda yadda yadda. But to look back at my theory: The character was a Redguard from Stros M'kai who engaged in some light piracy. I don't see why the Gods couldn't pull some timey-wimey shenanigans to create that exact sort of individual. The Gods want a former petty pirate, so by sheer "coincidence", history gives us a former petty pirate. I mean, Cyrodiil was originally a tropical rainforest in the style of the Amazon jungle, and Talos turned it into a temperate rainforest in the style of Western and Central Europe. And that was the actions of a _single God,_ so the entire pantheon coming together and rewriting history to give them the perfect champion doesn't sound so far-fetched to me.
Considering that is what the Elder Scrolls are capable off, that sounds pretty plausible. In fact, the thieves guild questline ends with exactly that happening when Corvus Umbranox uses a scroll to "fix" the curse on the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal.
My theory was the Emperor had us put there so we'd be in the right place to get the timeline he wanted. Until you mentioned the i've seen you in my dreams line. I forgot about that. It definitely gives the impression that he did not know you would be there.
Its left unknown simply for the player to fill in. just like how you choose your class. You might have been a bard that insulted the wrong noble. Could be a soldier who fled during a battle. Might be a merchant wrongly accused of selling illegal items. Or just a outlander that murdered some people. The idea of the story is that fate/the gods have something in store for you, and your true story begins here. Whoever you were and what you did before becomes inconsequential, and just a minor foundation for the skills you require in the future.
KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid. A policy first introduced when Todd Howard assumed the steering wheel in Bethesda. Rather than find good explanation for many ideas and question they are left deliberately vague, for good or ill. "Why was any of the heroes starting in Morrowind imprisoned?" "I dunno, who cares? Just fill in the blanks."
Arena, the Hero is a loyal member of the Blades / Emperor's elite members of his guard, though he was locked away after he realized Tharn is impersonating Uriel. The second game Daggerfall, is a blades agent. (Not the eternal hero of Arena), Though what happened to the agent, is an engima. Though a sixth ending was that The agent activated the Numidium, and it killed him out anger of being reactivated, and it took the combined forces of Highrock, Northern hammerfell, the underking, the Orcs, and Imperial legion to bring the brass titan down for good. Since all endings happened in Daggerfall.. Its canonically possible that Agent is dead.
Shows how important Uriel Septim VII is. The protagonists of Battlespire, Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion all are acting more or less in his name. And all the games take place within a 35 year timeframe.
My head canon has always been that while visiting some store, you tried to move something out of your way, and stole it by mistake, leading to you being beaten unconscious and thrown in prison. The concussion you suffered during the beating is what caused the retrograde amnesia.
My assumption is the hero of kvatch came from skyrim. And the reverse happened in skyrim as we come from tameriel. And it still works cause if you come from skyrim then you were just probably coming to tameriel for something and as someone mentioned got arrested by the jerk guard in the imperial city and got in a scuffle and knocked out.
Also, Glenroy the other Blade accuses you of being with the assassins. In fact, Glenroy tries to attack you and kill you until the Emperor stops him. Glenroy is always hostile towards you. He always sees you as a threat. He actually says, "The Emporer may trust you, but I don't! Stay out of our way "
He changes his tone with the more assassins you kill. I've gotten him to say "Maybe the Emperor was right about you, just stay out of our way and we'll get along fine."
The system of law in that setting has suspects guilty until proven innocent. A court hearing may have well been in the works, and the HoC was waiting for their hearing, and then the story elements started. So the HoC could be innocent, or guilty of something. But the guards checking out the empty cell would speak to the other prisoner who pointed out the emperor himself showed up and drug HoC away.
I think Daggerfall is the only entry in the main series where the player doesn't start as a prisoner, since Arena literally opens with you breaking out of prison, just like you do in Oblivion. In Daggerfall, by contrast, you are actually a friend or at least trusted agent of the Emperor and are sent personally to Iliac Bay as an imperial agent, with no mention of a pardon or prison sentence.
First one can’t be possible due to one of the vampire dreams saying “In a dream from your childhood you remember playing hiding games with your young friends on a warm summer afternoon. You hide in your parents' barn, sure you will not be found”
Since Baurus always tells me he believes I am a Bard, I like to think my character suffers from really bad hangover in the cell and doesnt remember anything he has done while under the influence of either alcohol or skooma. He gets scared to death from seeing a king enter his prison cell (imagine how it would feel like being in his sandals), goes along and fights for his life against magical assassins, giant rats, a zombie and a pack of goblins. Our character goes through some crazy stuff and all while having the headache of his lifetime too.
In this case I'm pretty certain that by "lesser men" Baurus is referring to the fact that Uriel is royalty and has the dragon blood. Don't think it's supposed to be a dig at the pc.
Honestly, there's another possibility: in Skyrim, there's a quest "A Night To Remember" where you get drunk with a disguised individual (_I'm keeping the spoilers to a minimum in case others haven't seen/played through that quest_) where you wake up, having apparently gone on a quite the chaotic rampage across Skyrim in your epically drunken stupor, but remembering literally none of it and can choose to go around trying to find out what you did. It's entirely possible that this same individual is the reason you ended up in prison, with the only likely difference being that very few saw what you actually did.
Alternatively the hero of Vvardenfell was directly guided to his destiny by the hand of Ashura, the divine with the most subtle yet constant presence in Cyrodiil is Nocturne, with an entire quest line dedicated to putting a character's name back onto the Elder Scrolls themselves after she removed a thief from the collective memories of the world. When not in Mask the first meeting with The Grey Fox he is surprised that you even noticed his presence and with repeated dialog he comes to point out that it's been years since anyone has approached him. That would infer the hand of Nocturne in the reason that neither the player nor anyone else remembers your crime. My personal theory is that the character was something of an independent footpad whom Nocturne chose as most suitable replacement for her personal servant in the capital city. In Skyrim we learned from the Nightingale quests that she controls the fates of all thieves and that when her favor is strong the thieves are invisible, but not matter their skills if they are easily caught when she is unhappy. Another approach is that by some chance the character touched the Mask of Nocturne, becoming the Grey Fox in the eyes of the gaurds for enough time to get arrested, but not enough for the memories to set into reality. Officially getting arrested in a case of mistaken identity, and then getting the crime memory holled the next time the forgotten count put the mask on himself.
That would be a difficult thing to pull off, especially considering that at the start of the game the emperor have just gotten the message and it only says that they were attacked.
@@Aewon84The messenger could be wrong/confused as well. Maybe the messenger wasn't even around to witness it but was merely told to deliver a message and couldn't get into specifics. Lots of things could go wrong leading up to that being a plausible scenario
Obvious answer is we don't know so as to allow the answer to be projected onto the character. But whatever the encounter was likely happened within the city and was considered obvious enough to involve rapid processing. But also a lesser enough crime to not draw any eyes afterwards. You also have no valuables stowed from your arrest and are not recognized by anyone in the city. Nor do you have any holdings or station to fall back on after release. So my assumption is you are poor, itinerant and unimportant. Your crime likely did not involve anyone but the guards, so it was likely a case of being in the wrong place, or you were rounded up in an unrelated aspect of an investigation and forgotten once it resolved otherwise. Either this or your crime was petty. Your cell apparently was not normally used if it was primarily there as a method of escape, so either the cells were packed and your stay was considered short, or the guard processing you was new and inexperienced. Either way everything seems to point at you being a poor nobody who either did something technically wrong or was caught up in something a guard didn't like.
Uriel was imprisoned in Mehrunes Dagon's realm of Oblivion and impersonated by Jagar Tharn. (Probably spelled that wrong) but during his time, he was sleeping and he had dreams of your character stopping the Oblivion Crisis. That's why he trusted you so much. Battlespire is pretty much rescuing Uriel and stopping Tharn.
Actually, picking a class at the end of the tutorial implies that we were created and placed in the cell by divine power. If our class truly rpresents skills we already know then we should already be in possion of those skills before the story begins. Likewise, the fact that we have no Birthsign is more evidence that we did not exist before the start of the story. Presumably, a birthsign is something we get at birth (otherwise the name makes no sense whatsoever). If we existed before the story started, we would already be in possion of a birthsign and we would already have a class.
What if I told you, that the entirety of The Elder Scrolls, was a dream? A dream of a massive entity known as the God Head. When one achieves CHIM, like Vivec, they realize their reality is a dream, but their willpower is so strong, that they will themselves into reality, and disappear from the dream. Like the dwarves (debatable) and Vivec himself. TES lore is insane.
Oh yeah, the God Head is a very real thing. CHIM is almost like a philosophy it's said it leads you to self realization which zero sums you out of reality. Only by achieving CHIM can you exist outside the dream, or "God Head." It's a major theory concerning the disappearance of the dwarves. Once they were able to get to the Heart of Lorkan and strike it with a hammer, they zero summed. Possibly by uncovering the truth about their existence, due to their hunger for arcane knowledge.@@HappyBeezerStudios
I mean it could be that he was put in there as an agent of the Blades or he could have been put in there due to him being a slave on a ship that got caught and confiscated at the docks where the pirates are. It could be anything.
To go off your theory, I think what happened was not only were they wrongly accused, but awaiting trail. It makes sense that there was a mixup with someone just thrown in a random cell to await some sort of trial or conviction.
I was always under the impression that the character was a stowaway on one of the ships in the Water Front District from a far away land. The character go caught shortly after unloading the boat. It’s ambiguous enough for people to be from anywhere.
My theory is: If you're in prison; base on what kind of player. Like, killing, stealing, fighting. For my. Am in prison cause I keep stealing people bread and gold.
9:50 The issue with this theory is it's explicitly stated the Aedra can't create anything without exacting a significant loss to themselves. It took the vast majority of Aedra just to help Kynareth create a small amount of the worlds foliage. Creating Mortals nearly killed the 8 Divines, and Oblivion and the Daedra exist specifically because they refused to create *anything* in mundus in order to retain themselves, opting only to alter what had already been created. Akatosh lost nearly all of his remaining power just in creating the Amulet of Kings and Auriel's bow. The power Akatosh regained when the Amulet of Kings was destroyed was enough for him to manifest and fight off Mehrunes Dagon for *10 seconds.* Creating a new living being from nothing would require leveling a small chunk of Secunda. That being said: they can still influence people. Like granting a Septim the greatest Mysticism abilities ever. Most TES games involve the player being arrested on questionable charges and carted off somewhere against their will, and in each circumstance while Uriel Septim VII is alive he's the one directly responsible for placing you where you need to be. Champion of Tamriel, Agent of Daggerfall, and the Nerevarine were all hand picked by Uriel Septim, arrested, and conscripted to fulfill a vision he had of his empire's success. Uriel VII being the most powerful Mystic to ever live in TES means he has the ability to divine future events decades in advance and converse with Daedric Princes on equal footing. He *knew* Jagar Tharns', King Lysandas', Azura's, and Mankar Cameron's plans in advance by 50 years and made plans to ensure the safety of Tamriel well beyond what his visions couldn't show him. It's not entirely out of character to say Uriel could've orchestrated the Hero of Kvatch's *birth* specifically to aid Martin, knowing what he did just to find/create the Nerevarine. As for why he acts like he doesn't know why you're in jail, to quote Caius Cosades: "That's how the empire operates. Let not the Left hand know what the Right is doing."
As soon as you mentioned shackles, I thought to myself, "Hold on to those shackles." I'm not totally sure why. Maybe it isn't easy to find enchantable hands-slot items that *don't* count as armor? I'm into controlled leveling, and sometimes, you need to avoid leveling either armor skill.
I like to think he stole a apple on a Saturday when the main warden was off and got jammed in the last cell available due to the overflow from the celebrations on Grey Prince's Friday night throwdown at the Arena.
There isnt a single answer. Because it is up to the player. A player makes a nord. He is a massmurderer that is why he is in jail. He lies "why am in jail?" Then you decide to make a redguard. He got thrown in for the night in wrong cell for being drunk (or they just thought he was drunk) A bosmer that crossed the border without papers. Then a high elf that arrested by a corrupt guard wanting a bribe. The nine placed a breton there. A guard was blank in his eyes. Controlled. "Come with me" and put in jail. Etc etc
I like to imagine the skeleton in the cell is the prisoner who belonged there. As opposed to the 9 simply willing your character into existence something similar to the Adam and Eve story where you are actually created from a portion of the skeleton. The divine could have conjured you into the cell in a manner similar to that. Due to you being created by the 9 could somewhat explain why the emperor is unable to see your death as you are created from something outside of what he has the ability to see.
Theorizing about this completely defeats the purpose of it. It's literally a blank slate start that you create your own reasons for. Even a good character could have been framed or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even in Skyrim you're caught crossing the border. Why you were crossing the border is what you create your own reason for.
I think there are three answers: 1. Because it's a theme Bethesda goes for. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all begin as penniless criminals (or former criminals) that start with nothing. 2. To give us a sense of ambiguity. We make our own reasons why we got there and how our character would react to it. 3. The gods placed us there to cross paths with Uriel and path us to stopping Mehrunes Dagon from taking over Tamriel. The secret 4th answer is so we have an excuse to go back and whack Valen Dreth during the Dark Brotherhood quest.
In my imagination when playing oblivion my prisoner is secretly a member of imperial intelligence and your boss had you placed their so that you could meet the emperor so that you carry out your destiny without gaining any undue attention so that they look like any other prisoner but we're placed in that convenient cell just for that purpose it is also why their is no hue and cry or wanted posters when you escape because it's all covered up by someone with the power to do so
Citizens in a medieval kingdom would absolutely NOT know how their king looked like, because they would not see him almost at all. They could recognise him because of his clothes, or if he had an extremely recognisable feature - like a facemask (Baldwin IV) or a huge scar, or something along those lines.
9:50 lol the perfect hero willed into existence... only to spend hours and hours (years of in-game time even) procrastinating by assassinating people, serving daedra, duplicating lockpicks, stealing from themselves simultaneously as arch mage and thief guild member, stealing from the empire itself, disrupting the imperial guard, crawling in and out of sewage, contracting and curing vampirism, fighting in the arena, and eating random bread from dungeon barrels all while Oblivion gates are still wide open because they're not "fun"
Others have pointed this out but a likely possibility is that the hero partied too hard at a tavern and was probably thrown into the “drunk tank” for the night
knowing how the game world works it's pretty obvious why you were imprisoned: you accidentally picked up an owned object, you couldn't pay the fine and in the process you knocked over a bunch of objects which due to the physics engine killed several bystanders in the process
I don't support the "divinely popped into existence" theory, but to play daedra's advocate, i think if the gods spawned the hero from nothing, they could probably give him the appropriate outfit. Also even at face value, Dreth never says anything like "i saw them put you in there" so they could have dropped ya off, yknow, as he was asleep. All he needed to know is that you were new, and he was gonna mess with ya.
It is possible that the prisoner was put in the cell as a temporary measure. The cell you start in isnt meant to be used as a long term holding cell, or ever, as the last prisoner's remains are still there, but turned to a skellyboi. So it seems that the cell was meant to remain vacated for worst case scenarios, such as the one you are witnessing at the start of your adventure. It is possible that the divines did intervene to put him in the cell, perhaps through an agent who falsely arrested him on no charges, or through a bureaucratic mishap/setup to put the character in that specific cell. As for the character's amnesia...well, that's not easy to explain, but perhaps there is nothing behind it except leaving room for the player to create a backstory themselves. I don't think the divines would just spawn a deus ex machina character. If they would, then...why spawn a single person rather than just spawn tremendously powerful creatures to invade Mehrunes' plane or anything else more overpowered.
How ironic that Bethesda made a lost daedric prince in ESO that basically explains all the heroes existence and how the heroes are all the only ones with any kind of free will
I would posit the option that The Hero is an addict and a graverobber. He’s just unlucky enough to have been caught in the act of removing some very nice pants from a very dead person when, “STOP THERE CRIMINAL SCUM! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” {💭don’t say graverobbing, don’t say graverobbing} “Groping!” { 💭F*¢£! }
I imagime the prisoner in the cell opposite you is the source of knowledge about the crime of necrophila. Given his background, taste for insults and attitude.
let's be real. The payer is a murder hobo who will rise up to be simultaneously the world's greatest hero and villain. We did something to deserve being locked up.
only dudes with some bad-bad, weirdo-type charges would try pulling something as wild as an amnesia-excuse! I think the Hero of Kvatch most likely did something foul and is on a List back home in Vvardenfell..
Maybe the reason why you are in jail might be just created on the players imagination same as your character backstory. Something common on early RPGs.
I doubt most people would know what the emperor actually looks like. Unless they're a noble or servant who are allowed near the emperor all most people would have seen is a figure in the distance or a rough painting. This is not a world with photography or film. So all the prisoner had to go on was what (s)he saw, an old man with expensive looking clothes and bodyguards.
we need a new land mod where the dragonborn meets the vestige , We got already got two other mods where you meet The Champion of Cyrodiil and The Nevaraine.
Bethesda has a prisoner fetish. I really wish they break this trend for elder scrolls 6 seriously this whole routine has been done for at least 5 times. I really want the player for once create their own backstory that affects their character starting. For instance a player who orients towards combat skills starts out as a guard, a player who orients toward charisma is a travelling merchant, a player with magic skills tends to be the town local novice mage, a player who orients towards range and stealth is a wandering hunter. Only players who orient towards thief or assassin style builds should start as a prisoner implying they were a thief or assassin who got unlucky
The mod " another life or alternate start " let you choose who you want to be in skyrim . Choose a breton and you have the option of being a forsworn . High elf you can choose to be a thalmor . Ect
@@antonfowler6582 Same goes for Oblivion btw. There is a mod called 'Alternate start by ship' which let you create a decent backstory of your life. @RocketHarry865 This seems to be a very good idea! But knowing Bethesda they will most probably stick to their usual MO, meaning we will start as a prisoner. But I'm pretty sure there will be mods like 'Alternate Start', just like for the previous games.
Theres lots of ways to explain that away They got "lost" You didnt have anything on you when you got arrested (maybe you got arrested for public indecency?) Maybe your stuff was destroyed because you were being excuted?
Fallout: The choosen one Fallout 3: Big deal scientists' only child Fallout New Vegas: Courier 6 Morrowind: Nerevarine Skyrim: Dragonborn Fallout 4: Vengeful Dad Oblivion: a convict 😂
Considering the jail cell had a skeleton but was otherwise clean my vote it was a "scared straight" situation where a misbehaving kid (who'd say, got in a drunken brawl the night before) was thrown in across the way from a foul mouthed prisoner to try and get him to see the error of his ways.
That sounds incredibly logical. The cell isn't usually used, the cell is clean, there is a skeleton in that hasn't been removed. All that hints to the fact that it's a setup.
I think it was illegal skooma smuggling in all games. They take the player character crossing the border and throw them in a cell. Then the game begins.
In the previous games youre just an imperial agent. The pretext is that the emperor can put you wherever he wants to. IE, you start on a prison ship in Morrowind but by direct orders from uriel septim. Youre also an agent for and apparent super close friend to Uriel in daggerfall as well. @@Sylvershade
As with all of the other games (except for Elder Scrolls: Redguard), I don't think a single detail about the player character's backstory before the start of the game is set in stone. Bethesda made it intentionally ambiguous so that the player could write their own backstory, not hunt for answers that were never intended to exist. But that's just one eldritch horror's opinion.
Other than the fact that Bethesda literally said exactly what you just said, it's also pretty obvious because that was cool at the time (and still is, dammit) The only point of this video is fun speculation. Also obvious because that's what is cool at this time.
Iirc in the Arena the character is in the court of the emperor, and in Daggerfall they're supposed to be good friends with them, but that's as much detail as they'd ever get into
"Stand up... there you go. You were dreaming. What's your name?" The simple answer is its just a great way to open an rpg. The question of how your character wound up in prison could be answered endlessly in a variety of ways. It gives your complete freedom in deciding who and what your character is. It lays the foundation for creating a story for your character.
Another idea: - The Hero was a criminal who committed a serious or a petty crime. This is another plausible explanation, as the Elder Scrolls games allow the player to choose their own moral alignment and actions. The Hero could have been a murderer, a thief, a bandit, a smuggler, a spy, a forger, a traitor, or any other type of criminal who broke the law and was caught by the guards. The Hero could have also been a necromancer, a vampire, a werewolf, a daedra worshipper, or a practitioner of any other forbidden or illegal magic or religion. The Hero could have even been a necrophiliac, as some fans have jokingly suggested, based on the fact that the Hero knows the fine for necrophilia in Cyrodiil is 500 gold.
You know, this comment is making me wonder if this is really the hero we need or deserve. A thieving, murdering, forging, spying, smuggling, traitor bandit who is also an illegal daedra worshipping necromancer, werewolf, and vampire who practices illegal magic. And also a necrophiliac on top of all that?!
I like to use a mod that delays the main quest ("Main quest delayer") until you commit a crime and get arrested. The way I get "arrested" is by taking part in the corrupt guard quest in the Imperial City, only instead of reporting him to another guard, I confronted him myself. Of course, him being corrupt, he used my accusation as an excuse that I "attacked" him and arrested me and then the main quest began with me being unjustly imprisoned.
@@burge117 thank you. It also allows you to get revenge on that guard by turning him in after you start the main game. Just make sure you're not carrying anything important or expensive on you at the time of your arrest, as everything will be confiscated and locked up in the prison, meaning you'll have to steal it back.
I like to think Audrns Avidius imprisoned the Hero of Kvatch, it just makes a little too much sense to me that maybe you looked at him and he took it the wrong way or you couldn't pay his made up fine or maybe you accidentally bumped into him. Just some pre determined misunderstanding that the corrupt watchman took advantage of and hastily put you into the first cell in the Prison where the escape happened to be
That would've been a really cool idea, and it could have been our characters payback to get him arrested. Would've been neat if he had dialogue like "your face looks familiar....I've arrested you before..."
Best part about this theory is it doesn't destroy the illusion of no backstory. Just that you get arrested by a jerk using his power on people. Which explains why the character don't know why they are there cause he could have got forceful and knocked the character out and he had other guards book & cell the character which wakes up to see themselves locked up.
Baurus' comment about "lesser men" was not referring to strength of character or ones station. But literally that the Septims are on a higher standing than everyone else. They are recognized by the Divines to be the ones to rule Tamriel. And for asking the Emperor himself why you are there. That's the beauty of the writing. It could be that the PC doesn't know why they were imprisoned. It could be that they do know, but don't think they should be. It could be pre-determinism, that they were always meant to be there in that exact moment. It could be that they were magicked into being there, either teleported or being created. Are they amnesiac, self-righteous, indignant, a manifestation of the Divine's will? The Emperor doesn't know, but the player does, because it's whatever you want it to be(within reason(or not)).
I like your theory I think the Dark Brotherhood set you up for a murder. in the mission we had to kill the dark elf the prison and they knew you were in that prison 2
Turns out the DB were pulling the strings all along. They set up the Hero of Kvatch to become what he became just to fuck with the Mythic Dawn, a rival daedra worshiping murder cult.
This is a interesting theory. I'd like to add that Shezzar/Lorkhan might also be behind the divine intervention. This comes from the Knights of the Nine DLC where the player takes up the same title as Pelinal Whitestrake, famous knight who also battled Daedra and their worshippers (the Ayleids). Pelinal is often called a Shezzarine, essentially an avatar of Shezzar who does his bidding. If true (which is highly unlikely) then that puts the player on the list of potential Shezzarine candides but that's to deep a rabbit hole for a TH-cam comment.
I like the add on for the theory! If the gods all make the player a puppet for their wills and even the Daedric gods too I think it becomes more plausible!
The player always ends up doing the gods bidding in all games if you really think about it. From the Neverarine, to the Champion of Cyrodil and even the dragonborn. it seems whenever a mortal of high skill and power emerges the gods all sort of turn their focus on them. @@ABardsBallad
3:19 If playing as a female Dark Elf he comes on to you and sound really creepy, suggesting he ask the guard to let us share cell. I rather prefer him to insult me!
Pelinal didn't care much for being called a Shezarrine. One guy who proclaimed him a Shezarrine was "smothered by moths" but let's be honest, Pelinal was a brutal bloodthirsty murderer who just so happened to occasionally kill the right people, he probably choked the guy out himself. When the Nords saw him drenched in elf blood and proclaimed Shor had returned, he spat at them for profaning Shor's name, even though if Pelinal was a Shezarrine, he would technically be an aspect of Shor, as Shor is one and the same as Lorkhan, who is one and the same as Shezarr. Since Tiber Septim ascended to godhood specifically by mantling Lorkhan (though CHIM also played a part), that means, retroactively, Tiber Septim is Talos is Pelinal is Lorkhan is Shor is the Last Dragonborn and possibly several other main characters. Elder Scrolls lore is fucking wild. Something tells me Kirkbride wasn't the only writer for the series prone to massive drug binges.
there's a flimsy - but interesting theory that Sheogorath put you there to test your worth to see if you can take his mantle later on. but that was only made after the expansion came out (as said, its a flimsy theory) there used to be a mod where you could start out elsewhere in the game, but the moment you got arrested and agreed to go to jail (in the imperial city), that's when the story mission would kick off. the mod wasnt around for long, but i miss when i had it downloaded. it kinda made the intro make more sense
@@xxXXRAPXXxxTrying to predict the madness of a true madman is impossible Basically he's so mad you don't know what he'll do. He could have had a plan, he could have not. Only he can truly know
That would be cool but I can definitely see why that wouldn’t make it into the game. Much more accurate to real life but absolute hell trying to figure out what coincidental action begins the main quest line. Obviously everyone playing the mod probably knows you need to get arrested but that’s just hindsight
There is only one game in the Elder Scrolls series that you do not begin the game as a prisoner. Daggerfall, the second game in the series, does start you in the very first dungeon, Privateer's Hold, but if the player decides to look at the journal to read their character's backstory they would find that there are some choices during CharGen that actually have the character vary in background from being childhood friends of the emperor all the way up to the usual thing of being a prisoner who is summoned by the Emperor to that meeting experienced in the intro cutscene. However, that cutscene will ALWAYS have Uriel state that you are his friend. "I ask this as your Emperor. And your friend." My experience with the first game, Arena, was very brief and I downloaded it when they were offering it on their website as a free download before they released the Anthology with all five games in one boxed set. Argonians were some green human model in that game and that threw me off and I never touched the game again.
I downloaded Arena when it was free on steam. I got lost in the cell after battling copius amounts of rats, rested to heal, only to have the rest interrupted by more rats, repeatedly, and eventually died from them. Also haven't touched it since.
Starting each game as a prisoner was given some weird significance after the fact, starting with Morrowind. It was always hinted at but MK pointed it out explicitly out of context. The Daggerfall protagonist, the only one who arguably didn't begin the game as a prisoner (but who also arguably did) and who was in the only game until Skyrim that gave the player significant choices (as in, choices that would affect final outcomes for the world- Picking a Great House in Morrowind does not really change anything that happens thereafter, but deciding who gets the Mantella or who wins the Civil War definitely does, and Daggerfall and Skyrim both feature justifications for a "Dragon Break" that resolves mutually-exclusive outcomes into a single timeline), is called "the Agent," which on the one hand means a kind of "secret agent" sent by the emperor to perform certain discrete tasks, but also has the meaning of "a being possessing free will." The "metaphor of the prisoner" in general can be interpreted in two opposite ways: Either by beginning in a state of imprisonment and escaping, the prisoner becomes conscious and demonstrates liberation, gaining free will at the moment that they become the player's handle (from this perspective, because of the player they are among the few beings in this universe that can actually act of their own agency), or they begin as prisoners as a metaphor for the fact that they are among the few beings in this world that actually have no agency whatsoever, their every action being decided by some outside force (ie the player, who is controlling them). The fact that the answer could go either way and isn't clear and is really an abstract philosophical question rather than an actual answer may not be satisfying, but that is the lore reason that since Morrowind the player character starting the game as a prisoner was codified into a rule for the series. What they were imprisoned for doesn't really matter (though Skyrim actually tells us, kind of), and they could just as easily start the game as a slave or indentured servant for example.
Todd Howard was open about this introduction. It's intended to be open to the player's interpretation. The player is able to come up with any explanation they like for why they're there. As they intended, there is NOTHING in the game to definitively say how and why the player arrived in prison.
But it does make you wonder if the person/people who wrote it had any intentions at the time, what they envisioned. Although I definitely lean towards the end of the spectrum that if something is not readily available info it probably was not written in the first place.
@@monhi64 writers can definitely write something in such a way that you think they know more information than they're telling you, and that can definitely be a delightful sensation in the audience. This game did not make ME wonder what the writer knew that I didn't know. The mean dark elf (dunmer) in the other cell for instance just made we go "oh gosh, they don't sound like they did in morrowind at all!" In fact, that dunmer seemed to be lacking the dignity most elves are known for, and I thought it was distracting. I didn't and still don't think that he knew what my character did to end up in prison. I thought he was just being a miserable for the sake of it, or maybe he was hazing my character.
I think we already got an answer in game, it was for necrophilia. Not only does your character know the fine for the first offence, but they also know the punishment is more severe for re-offenders.
I am so glad to see I'm not the only one who knew this answer off the top of my head.
canon
Good point
What
@@elvenatheart982 Go to Skingrad and talk to a dark elf named Falanu Hlaalu.
The conversation is hilariously memorable.
I’d always assumed that “lesser men” referred to the emperor being Dragonborn, rather than societal status.
Uriel and Martin were both descendants of the dragon blood after all, and from what we’ve seen in Skyrim, Dragonborn are capable of some pretty incredible things.
The Dragonborn in Skyrim isn't much different from the Imperial Dragonborn lineage.
Imperials have the "Voice of the Emperor" power which is probably similar to dragon shouts in some lesser form, and is also likely the very same shout that were used to subjegate/calm the invading Akaviri warriors, leading into the formation of the OG Blades.
The whole dragon blood makes one think if the Dragonborn would be able to take on the throne. Especially since they personally kill the then current emperor for the Dark Brotherhood.
And the possibility that Uriel Septim V. has descendents on Akavir
@@HappyBeezerStudiosTheir dragonblood is not necessary anymore though. Sure, it would be prestigious and a powerful tool of war but it does not give you a claim or right to rule.
@@muffinman2546dude Voice of the emperor is just talking like Capt. Picard!
And yeah its charming
Also beggars use the voice… hence the odd voice changes after giving coin
@@MLBeaton Holy shit I never thought about the idea of the beggar going from well spoken gentleman to limey guttersnipe after they get my gold was them using voice of the emperor. Mind blown.
"why are you in prison" could be the start of a character creation line of questions.
A bit like the "interview" with Doc Mitchell at the beginning of New Vegas. He even gives us equipment depending on which skills we pick, explaining that was stuff we had on us when we were found. So the Courier has a backstory and a preexisting skillset.
I was a 1. career name who 2. fatal flaw/quirk and I 3. reason why in prison. and 4. how i was caught. since then I was 5. prison hobby.
Could get spicy if you are in there for killing kids or something.
Darktide does this. Think Conan Unchained did in it’s early days too.
@@atredfaolanconan exiles has you choose the reasons you are crucified, although it's not clear if you are guilty or not. It's strictly for flavour, though.
Seeing as the Emperor can partly see your fate, he says your crime is not what you will be remembered for. If you didn’t commit a crime and were falsely imprisoned, I would think he would know you were innocent of any wrongdoing and not say that
Emperor Uriel Septim VII, sometime after ordering the guards to unlawfully arrest you: "Hmm, what's this prisoner doing in this super specific cell? How strange!"
That makes a disturbing amount of sense, lol.
Another counter argument to the "Hero of Kvatch spawned into existence right then and there by the gods"; The Night Mother in The Dark Brotherhood questline, since she states to have chosen you the player since their exitence in their mother's womb
Valen recalling you being dragged into that cell is one thing, but the Night Mother remembering your character being conceived like any other person? Either the gods put falce memories into the only few claiming to have known of the player's existence prior to gameplay, or we did in fact exist and end up in prison for reasons that may or may not be something Hero of Kvatch actually did prior to us playing as them (probably excludes actually having committed murder, considering the Dark Brotherhood initiation)
What if _both_ theories are true? What if the Gods create you in your jail cell, but instead of simply building you from scratch right then and there, they literally rewrite history so that you are born and grow up, and then end up in the jail cell? This would make sense, as the Gods could mold the exact champion they have in mind, and then rewrite history to bring their champion right to them?
For example, on one of my recent playthroughs, my character was a Redguard swordsman who grew up on Stros M'kai, and dabbled in some light piracy here and there; the piracy may or may not have had something to do with his incarceration, and when he asked the Emperor why he was in jail, he was hoping to get confirmation that his piracy years had caught up with him. Only to find out that not even _the Emperor himself_ knew what the charges were, so he made his way through the sewers, and from there it was a pretty typical playthrough. Visits Anvil, gets roped into buying Benirus Manor, eagerly joins the Fighters' Guild, reluctantly joins the Mages' Guild, yadda yadda yadda.
But to look back at my theory: The character was a Redguard from Stros M'kai who engaged in some light piracy. I don't see why the Gods couldn't pull some timey-wimey shenanigans to create that exact sort of individual. The Gods want a former petty pirate, so by sheer "coincidence", history gives us a former petty pirate. I mean, Cyrodiil was originally a tropical rainforest in the style of the Amazon jungle, and Talos turned it into a temperate rainforest in the style of Western and Central Europe. And that was the actions of a _single God,_ so the entire pantheon coming together and rewriting history to give them the perfect champion doesn't sound so far-fetched to me.
Considering that is what the Elder Scrolls are capable off, that sounds pretty plausible. In fact, the thieves guild questline ends with exactly that happening when Corvus Umbranox uses a scroll to "fix" the curse on the Gray Cowl of Nocturnal.
main character has some sus intel on necrophilia tbh 😂😂
😂😂😂 I think so
My theory was the Emperor had us put there so we'd be in the right place to get the timeline he wanted. Until you mentioned the i've seen you in my dreams line. I forgot about that. It definitely gives the impression that he did not know you would be there.
Its left unknown simply for the player to fill in.
just like how you choose your class.
You might have been a bard that insulted the wrong noble.
Could be a soldier who fled during a battle.
Might be a merchant wrongly accused of selling illegal items.
Or just a outlander that murdered some people.
The idea of the story is that fate/the gods have something in store for you, and your true story begins here.
Whoever you were and what you did before becomes inconsequential, and just a minor foundation for the skills you require in the future.
KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid. A policy first introduced when Todd Howard assumed the steering wheel in Bethesda. Rather than find good explanation for many ideas and question they are left deliberately vague, for good or ill. "Why was any of the heroes starting in Morrowind imprisoned?" "I dunno, who cares? Just fill in the blanks."
It's easy to figure out we were in jail. We probably accidentally knocked over a bottle at a tavern, or picked up a book in a store
Arena, the Hero is a loyal member of the Blades / Emperor's elite members of his guard, though he was locked away after he realized Tharn is impersonating Uriel. The second game Daggerfall, is a blades agent. (Not the eternal hero of Arena), Though what happened to the agent, is an engima. Though a sixth ending was that The agent activated the Numidium, and it killed him out anger of being reactivated, and it took the combined forces of Highrock, Northern hammerfell, the underking, the Orcs, and Imperial legion to bring the brass titan down for good. Since all endings happened in Daggerfall.. Its canonically possible that Agent is dead.
Shows how important Uriel Septim VII is.
The protagonists of Battlespire, Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion all are acting more or less in his name. And all the games take place within a 35 year timeframe.
I always felt the prisoner start is so the player is free to decide why their character is in prison. Allowing them to decide how they start.
My head canon has always been that while visiting some store, you tried to move something out of your way, and stole it by mistake, leading to you being beaten unconscious and thrown in prison. The concussion you suffered during the beating is what caused the retrograde amnesia.
Imagine finding that secret passage on your first night in the cell, a few goblins later and you are home free.
My assumption is the hero of kvatch came from skyrim. And the reverse happened in skyrim as we come from tameriel. And it still works cause if you come from skyrim then you were just probably coming to tameriel for something and as someone mentioned got arrested by the jerk guard in the imperial city and got in a scuffle and knocked out.
Also, Glenroy the other Blade accuses you of being with the assassins. In fact, Glenroy tries to attack you and kill you until the Emperor stops him. Glenroy is always hostile towards you. He always sees you as a threat. He actually says, "The Emporer may trust you, but I don't! Stay out of our way "
He changes his tone with the more assassins you kill.
I've gotten him to say "Maybe the Emperor was right about you, just stay out of our way and we'll get along fine."
@@dragondude9637 I’ll have to try that. Thanks. 😊
Watching this whilst on my break at work. It's rejuvenating.
Considering the hero of kvatch knows the fine and penalties for Necrophilia I think we know why they’re in prison
The system of law in that setting has suspects guilty until proven innocent. A court hearing may have well been in the works, and the HoC was waiting for their hearing, and then the story elements started. So the HoC could be innocent, or guilty of something. But the guards checking out the empty cell would speak to the other prisoner who pointed out the emperor himself showed up and drug HoC away.
I think Daggerfall is the only entry in the main series where the player doesn't start as a prisoner, since Arena literally opens with you breaking out of prison, just like you do in Oblivion. In Daggerfall, by contrast, you are actually a friend or at least trusted agent of the Emperor and are sent personally to Iliac Bay as an imperial agent, with no mention of a pardon or prison sentence.
First one can’t be possible due to one of the vampire dreams saying “In a dream from your childhood you remember playing hiding games with your young friends on a warm summer afternoon. You hide in your parents' barn, sure you will not be found”
Since Baurus always tells me he believes I am a Bard, I like to think my character suffers from really bad hangover in the cell and doesnt remember anything he has done while under the influence of either alcohol or skooma.
He gets scared to death from seeing a king enter his prison cell (imagine how it would feel like being in his sandals), goes along and fights for his life against magical assassins, giant rats, a zombie and a pack of goblins.
Our character goes through some crazy stuff and all while having the headache of his lifetime too.
In this case I'm pretty certain that by "lesser men" Baurus is referring to the fact that Uriel is royalty and has the dragon blood. Don't think it's supposed to be a dig at the pc.
Depends on how we roleplay tbh. Currently on an Orc that happens to be signed Theif, he just derps around and happens to be a Goth.
Yes! Very fair with regards to the immersion!
Honestly, there's another possibility: in Skyrim, there's a quest "A Night To Remember" where you get drunk with a disguised individual (_I'm keeping the spoilers to a minimum in case others haven't seen/played through that quest_) where you wake up, having apparently gone on a quite the chaotic rampage across Skyrim in your epically drunken stupor, but remembering literally none of it and can choose to go around trying to find out what you did. It's entirely possible that this same individual is the reason you ended up in prison, with the only likely difference being that very few saw what you actually did.
Alternatively the hero of Vvardenfell was directly guided to his destiny by the hand of Ashura, the divine with the most subtle yet constant presence in Cyrodiil is Nocturne, with an entire quest line dedicated to putting a character's name back onto the Elder Scrolls themselves after she removed a thief from the collective memories of the world. When not in Mask the first meeting with The Grey Fox he is surprised that you even noticed his presence and with repeated dialog he comes to point out that it's been years since anyone has approached him. That would infer the hand of Nocturne in the reason that neither the player nor anyone else remembers your crime.
My personal theory is that the character was something of an independent footpad whom Nocturne chose as most suitable replacement for her personal servant in the capital city.
In Skyrim we learned from the Nightingale quests that she controls the fates of all thieves and that when her favor is strong the thieves are invisible, but not matter their skills if they are easily caught when she is unhappy.
Another approach is that by some chance the character touched the Mask of Nocturne, becoming the Grey Fox in the eyes of the gaurds for enough time to get arrested, but not enough for the memories to set into reality. Officially getting arrested in a case of mistaken identity, and then getting the crime memory holled the next time the forgotten count put the mask on himself.
Falsely accused of involvement in the murder of the emperor's sons. That's what I'll run with in my playthroughs.
I like it! I can totally see it too!
That would be a difficult thing to pull off, especially considering that at the start of the game the emperor have just gotten the message and it only says that they were attacked.
@@Aewon84The messenger could be wrong/confused as well. Maybe the messenger wasn't even around to witness it but was merely told to deliver a message and couldn't get into specifics. Lots of things could go wrong leading up to that being a plausible scenario
Obvious answer is we don't know so as to allow the answer to be projected onto the character. But whatever the encounter was likely happened within the city and was considered obvious enough to involve rapid processing. But also a lesser enough crime to not draw any eyes afterwards. You also have no valuables stowed from your arrest and are not recognized by anyone in the city. Nor do you have any holdings or station to fall back on after release. So my assumption is you are poor, itinerant and unimportant. Your crime likely did not involve anyone but the guards, so it was likely a case of being in the wrong place, or you were rounded up in an unrelated aspect of an investigation and forgotten once it resolved otherwise. Either this or your crime was petty. Your cell apparently was not normally used if it was primarily there as a method of escape, so either the cells were packed and your stay was considered short, or the guard processing you was new and inexperienced. Either way everything seems to point at you being a poor nobody who either did something technically wrong or was caught up in something a guard didn't like.
Mephala surly has a subtle touch. I would not put it past her to put the character in the right spot at the right time to get arrested for something.
It could have been that corrupt imperial watchman
honestly the first theory just makes the most sense, your character doesnt even know about the gods or anything about the world he is in.
Uriel was imprisoned in Mehrunes Dagon's realm of Oblivion and impersonated by Jagar Tharn. (Probably spelled that wrong) but during his time, he was sleeping and he had dreams of your character stopping the Oblivion Crisis. That's why he trusted you so much. Battlespire is pretty much rescuing Uriel and stopping Tharn.
Actually, picking a class at the end of the tutorial implies that we were created and placed in the cell by divine power. If our class truly rpresents skills we already know then we should already be in possion of those skills before the story begins. Likewise, the fact that we have no Birthsign is more evidence that we did not exist before the start of the story. Presumably, a birthsign is something we get at birth (otherwise the name makes no sense whatsoever). If we existed before the story started, we would already be in possion of a birthsign and we would already have a class.
Enjoyed my week off from work by just watching Oblivion content. Great job 👍
What if I told you, that the entirety of The Elder Scrolls, was a dream? A dream of a massive entity known as the God Head. When one achieves CHIM, like Vivec, they realize their reality is a dream, but their willpower is so strong, that they will themselves into reality, and disappear from the dream. Like the dwarves (debatable) and Vivec himself. TES lore is insane.
With how wacky and out there the lore can be at times, that would be fitting.
Oh yeah, the God Head is a very real thing. CHIM is almost like a philosophy it's said it leads you to self realization which zero sums you out of reality. Only by achieving CHIM can you exist outside the dream, or "God Head." It's a major theory concerning the disappearance of the dwarves. Once they were able to get to the Heart of Lorkan and strike it with a hammer, they zero summed. Possibly by uncovering the truth about their existence, due to their hunger for arcane knowledge.@@HappyBeezerStudios
As far as i'm concerned, my Oblivion character was in there for all the sweetroll thefts
I mean it could be that he was put in there as an agent of the Blades or he could have been put in there due to him being a slave on a ship that got caught and confiscated at the docks where the pirates are. It could be anything.
"Hey! You! You were trying to cross the border, right? Same as us...and that thief over there..."
To go off your theory, I think what happened was not only were they wrongly accused, but awaiting trail. It makes sense that there was a mixup with someone just thrown in a random cell to await some sort of trial or conviction.
I was always under the impression that the character was a stowaway on one of the ships in the Water Front District from a far away land.
The character go caught shortly after unloading the boat.
It’s ambiguous enough for people to be from anywhere.
My theory is: If you're in prison; base on what kind of player. Like, killing, stealing, fighting. For my. Am in prison cause I keep stealing people bread and gold.
9:50 The issue with this theory is it's explicitly stated the Aedra can't create anything without exacting a significant loss to themselves. It took the vast majority of Aedra just to help Kynareth create a small amount of the worlds foliage. Creating Mortals nearly killed the 8 Divines, and Oblivion and the Daedra exist specifically because they refused to create *anything* in mundus in order to retain themselves, opting only to alter what had already been created. Akatosh lost nearly all of his remaining power just in creating the Amulet of Kings and Auriel's bow. The power Akatosh regained when the Amulet of Kings was destroyed was enough for him to manifest and fight off Mehrunes Dagon for *10 seconds.* Creating a new living being from nothing would require leveling a small chunk of Secunda.
That being said: they can still influence people. Like granting a Septim the greatest Mysticism abilities ever.
Most TES games involve the player being arrested on questionable charges and carted off somewhere against their will, and in each circumstance while Uriel Septim VII is alive he's the one directly responsible for placing you where you need to be. Champion of Tamriel, Agent of Daggerfall, and the Nerevarine were all hand picked by Uriel Septim, arrested, and conscripted to fulfill a vision he had of his empire's success. Uriel VII being the most powerful Mystic to ever live in TES means he has the ability to divine future events decades in advance and converse with Daedric Princes on equal footing. He *knew* Jagar Tharns', King Lysandas', Azura's, and Mankar Cameron's plans in advance by 50 years and made plans to ensure the safety of Tamriel well beyond what his visions couldn't show him.
It's not entirely out of character to say Uriel could've orchestrated the Hero of Kvatch's *birth* specifically to aid Martin, knowing what he did just to find/create the Nerevarine. As for why he acts like he doesn't know why you're in jail, to quote Caius Cosades: "That's how the empire operates. Let not the Left hand know what the Right is doing."
As soon as you mentioned shackles, I thought to myself, "Hold on to those shackles." I'm not totally sure why. Maybe it isn't easy to find enchantable hands-slot items that *don't* count as armor? I'm into controlled leveling, and sometimes, you need to avoid leveling either armor skill.
I like to think he stole a apple on a Saturday when the main warden was off and got jammed in the last cell available due to the overflow from the celebrations on Grey Prince's Friday night throwdown at the Arena.
There isnt a single answer. Because it is up to the player. A player makes a nord. He is a massmurderer that is why he is in jail. He lies "why am in jail?"
Then you decide to make a redguard. He got thrown in for the night in wrong cell for being drunk (or they just thought he was drunk)
A bosmer that crossed the border without papers.
Then a high elf that arrested by a corrupt guard wanting a bribe.
The nine placed a breton there. A guard was blank in his eyes. Controlled. "Come with me" and put in jail.
Etc etc
I like to imagine the skeleton in the cell is the prisoner who belonged there. As opposed to the 9 simply willing your character into existence something similar to the Adam and Eve story where you are actually created from a portion of the skeleton. The divine could have conjured you into the cell in a manner similar to that. Due to you being created by the 9 could somewhat explain why the emperor is unable to see your death as you are created from something outside of what he has the ability to see.
Theorizing about this completely defeats the purpose of it. It's literally a blank slate start that you create your own reasons for. Even a good character could have been framed or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even in Skyrim you're caught crossing the border. Why you were crossing the border is what you create your own reason for.
We think of the key. Each in his prison. Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.
I think there are three answers:
1. Because it's a theme Bethesda goes for. Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim all begin as penniless criminals (or former criminals) that start with nothing.
2. To give us a sense of ambiguity. We make our own reasons why we got there and how our character would react to it.
3. The gods placed us there to cross paths with Uriel and path us to stopping Mehrunes Dagon from taking over Tamriel.
The secret 4th answer is so we have an excuse to go back and whack Valen Dreth during the Dark Brotherhood quest.
In my imagination when playing oblivion my prisoner is secretly a member of imperial intelligence and your boss had you placed their so that you could meet the emperor so that you carry out your destiny without gaining any undue attention so that they look like any other prisoner but we're placed in that convenient cell just for that purpose it is also why their is no hue and cry or wanted posters when you escape because it's all covered up by someone with the power to do so
Remember kids, next time you get arrested for no reason whatsoever. It means you're about to save the world!
Citizens in a medieval kingdom would absolutely NOT know how their king looked like, because they would not see him almost at all. They could recognise him because of his clothes, or if he had an extremely recognisable feature - like a facemask (Baldwin IV) or a huge scar, or something along those lines.
9:50 lol the perfect hero willed into existence...
only to spend hours and hours (years of in-game time even) procrastinating by assassinating people, serving daedra, duplicating lockpicks, stealing from themselves simultaneously as arch mage and thief guild member, stealing from the empire itself, disrupting the imperial guard, crawling in and out of sewage, contracting and curing vampirism, fighting in the arena, and eating random bread from dungeon barrels
all while Oblivion gates are still wide open because they're not "fun"
Others have pointed this out but a likely possibility is that the hero partied too hard at a tavern and was probably thrown into the “drunk tank” for the night
knowing how the game world works it's pretty obvious why you were imprisoned: you accidentally picked up an owned object, you couldn't pay the fine
and in the process you knocked over a bunch of objects which due to the physics engine killed several bystanders in the process
I don't support the "divinely popped into existence" theory, but to play daedra's advocate, i think if the gods spawned the hero from nothing, they could probably give him the appropriate outfit. Also even at face value, Dreth never says anything like "i saw them put you in there" so they could have dropped ya off, yknow, as he was asleep. All he needed to know is that you were new, and he was gonna mess with ya.
The truth is that your character was supposed to be a sleeper agent for the Mythic Dawn meant to murder the emperor as he entered the cell.
I like the fancy thumbnail
Thank you! I was inspired by some other channels to make my thumbnails more stylized and personal!
It is possible that the prisoner was put in the cell as a temporary measure. The cell you start in isnt meant to be used as a long term holding cell, or ever, as the last prisoner's remains are still there, but turned to a skellyboi. So it seems that the cell was meant to remain vacated for worst case scenarios, such as the one you are witnessing at the start of your adventure. It is possible that the divines did intervene to put him in the cell, perhaps through an agent who falsely arrested him on no charges, or through a bureaucratic mishap/setup to put the character in that specific cell. As for the character's amnesia...well, that's not easy to explain, but perhaps there is nothing behind it except leaving room for the player to create a backstory themselves. I don't think the divines would just spawn a deus ex machina character. If they would, then...why spawn a single person rather than just spawn tremendously powerful creatures to invade Mehrunes' plane or anything else more overpowered.
How ironic that Bethesda made a lost daedric prince in ESO that basically explains all the heroes existence and how the heroes are all the only ones with any kind of free will
I would posit the option that The Hero is an addict and a graverobber.
He’s just unlucky enough to have been caught in the act of removing some very nice pants from a very dead person when, “STOP THERE CRIMINAL SCUM! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!”
{💭don’t say graverobbing, don’t say graverobbing} “Groping!” { 💭F*¢£! }
I imagime the prisoner in the cell opposite you is the source of knowledge about the crime of necrophila. Given his background, taste for insults and attitude.
let's be real. The payer is a murder hobo who will rise up to be simultaneously the world's greatest hero and villain. We did something to deserve being locked up.
i like making up my own backstory and not ask why am i in prison question
You mean finally, in the other three games that preceded oblivion?
Didn't watch but he accidentally picked up a piece of bread that was marked as stolen and a zealous guard captured him.
Gods magically create a hero only for them to die a few minutes later on very hard mode to a giant rat
I like to think you did commit a crime, you just have to fill in the blanks yourself.
It’s a metaphor for how enslaved by Todd Howard’s will you are.
only dudes with some bad-bad, weirdo-type charges would try pulling something as wild as an amnesia-excuse!
I think the Hero of Kvatch most likely did something foul and is on a List back home in Vvardenfell..
Maybe the reason why you are in jail might be just created on the players imagination same as your character backstory. Something common on early RPGs.
"And finally, oblivion"
Lol like arena and daggerfal don't exist😂
You start off in a prison cell in Arena also.
can never tell if uriel looks worse modded or not
I doubt most people would know what the emperor actually looks like. Unless they're a noble or servant who are allowed near the emperor all most people would have seen is a figure in the distance or a rough painting. This is not a world with photography or film. So all the prisoner had to go on was what (s)he saw, an old man with expensive looking clothes and bodyguards.
Buy lesser men he means anyone not of Dragonborn blood.
because he is not the Messiah, he has been a very naughty boy. now go away!
This seems to ignore that the Hero of Kvatch "just so happens to know" the punishment for necrophilia in Cyrodil.
Just saying
we need a new land mod where the dragonborn meets the vestige , We got already got two other mods where you meet The Champion of Cyrodiil and The Nevaraine.
Bethesda has a prisoner fetish. I really wish they break this trend for elder scrolls 6 seriously this whole routine has been done for at least 5 times. I really want the player for once create their own backstory that affects their character starting. For instance a player who orients towards combat skills starts out as a guard, a player who orients toward charisma is a travelling merchant, a player with magic skills tends to be the town local novice mage, a player who orients towards range and stealth is a wandering hunter. Only players who orient towards thief or assassin style builds should start as a prisoner implying they were a thief or assassin who got unlucky
The mod " another life or alternate start " let you choose who you want to be in skyrim . Choose a breton and you have the option of being a forsworn . High elf you can choose to be a thalmor . Ect
@@antonfowler6582 Same goes for Oblivion btw. There is a mod called 'Alternate start by ship' which let you create a decent backstory of your life.
@RocketHarry865 This seems to be a very good idea! But knowing Bethesda they will most probably stick to their usual MO, meaning we will start as a prisoner. But I'm pretty sure there will be mods like 'Alternate Start', just like for the previous games.
he downloaded a car
Let me guess... someone stole your sweetroll?
As for what you have done, it does not matter. That is not what youll be remembered for !
The reason you're in prison at the start of the game is because that's what Bethesda decided.
If you were detained, where are your belongings? Is there a spot with their stuff we can reasonably say without a doubt?
Theres lots of ways to explain that away
They got "lost"
You didnt have anything on you when you got arrested (maybe you got arrested for public indecency?)
Maybe your stuff was destroyed because you were being excuted?
Fallout: The choosen one
Fallout 3: Big deal scientists' only child
Fallout New Vegas: Courier 6
Morrowind: Nerevarine
Skyrim: Dragonborn
Fallout 4: Vengeful Dad
Oblivion: a convict 😂
Considering the jail cell had a skeleton but was otherwise clean my vote it was a "scared straight" situation where a misbehaving kid (who'd say, got in a drunken brawl the night before) was thrown in across the way from a foul mouthed prisoner to try and get him to see the error of his ways.
That sounds incredibly logical. The cell isn't usually used, the cell is clean, there is a skeleton in that hasn't been removed. All that hints to the fact that it's a setup.
I think it was illegal skooma smuggling in all games. They take the player character crossing the border and throw them in a cell. Then the game begins.
Both sound good ,but I like the ida of it bieng anything and everything
In the previous games youre just an imperial agent. The pretext is that the emperor can put you wherever he wants to. IE, you start on a prison ship in Morrowind but by direct orders from uriel septim. Youre also an agent for and apparent super close friend to Uriel in daggerfall as well. @@Sylvershade
That's so gay. Let's make the pc a eunuch while we're at it
Uriel Septim Not being able to see your death also could be related to the fact you become Sheogorath the daedric prince.
I love the fact that the Hero of Kvatch is the Sheogorath we see in Skyrim
@@ChiqueIndustriesI hate that…
@@mar3869Boo Hoo
@@mar3869why though?
@@NotSoSerious69420because people hate fun
As with all of the other games (except for Elder Scrolls: Redguard), I don't think a single detail about the player character's backstory before the start of the game is set in stone. Bethesda made it intentionally ambiguous so that the player could write their own backstory, not hunt for answers that were never intended to exist. But that's just one eldritch horror's opinion.
Not much has been told about the hero! I think Bethesda wanted us to fill in the gaps for the backstory for the added immersion!
I'm Commander Shepard and I love when people stay in character for TH-cam comments. 😂
And all the backstories for the Heroes are canon. And all the endings are canon.
Other than the fact that Bethesda literally said exactly what you just said, it's also pretty obvious because that was cool at the time (and still is, dammit)
The only point of this video is fun speculation. Also obvious because that's what is cool at this time.
Iirc in the Arena the character is in the court of the emperor, and in Daggerfall they're supposed to be good friends with them, but that's as much detail as they'd ever get into
"Stand up... there you go. You were dreaming. What's your name?"
The simple answer is its just a great way to open an rpg. The question of how your character wound up in prison could be answered endlessly in a variety of ways. It gives your complete freedom in deciding who and what your character is. It lays the foundation for creating a story for your character.
My high elf commited insurance fraud
@@SadChiefThis is why you can't trust elves.
Another idea:
- The Hero was a criminal who committed a serious or a petty crime. This is another plausible explanation, as the Elder Scrolls games allow the player to choose their own moral alignment and actions. The Hero could have been a murderer, a thief, a bandit, a smuggler, a spy, a forger, a traitor, or any other type of criminal who broke the law and was caught by the guards. The Hero could have also been a necromancer, a vampire, a werewolf, a daedra worshipper, or a practitioner of any other forbidden or illegal magic or religion. The Hero could have even been a necrophiliac, as some fans have jokingly suggested, based on the fact that the Hero knows the fine for necrophilia in Cyrodiil is 500 gold.
They could be all of that, except a vampire or werewolf. They are specifically not either of those.
Best comment
You know, this comment is making me wonder if this is really the hero we need or deserve.
A thieving, murdering, forging, spying, smuggling, traitor bandit who is also an illegal daedra worshipping necromancer, werewolf, and vampire who practices illegal magic. And also a necrophiliac on top of all that?!
You are obviously in prison for moving an apple
I always play a dunmer, that means that I don't pray to the Devines, but I DO pray to Three Daedra Princes. Your idea justifies my time in jail.
I like to use a mod that delays the main quest ("Main quest delayer") until you commit a crime and get arrested.
The way I get "arrested" is by taking part in the corrupt guard quest in the Imperial City, only instead of reporting him to another guard, I confronted him myself. Of course, him being corrupt, he used my accusation as an excuse that I "attacked" him and arrested me and then the main quest began with me being unjustly imprisoned.
That's pretty cool.
@@burge117 thank you. It also allows you to get revenge on that guard by turning him in after you start the main game.
Just make sure you're not carrying anything important or expensive on you at the time of your arrest, as everything will be confiscated and locked up in the prison, meaning you'll have to steal it back.
Do you have a link to the mod??
Alright, getting that damn mod downloaded the next time i play for sure!
@@user-yx9is6zk4h I posted the link and the website name but TH-cam deleted it.
I'll try again, its on nexusmods.
I like to think Audrns Avidius imprisoned the Hero of Kvatch, it just makes a little too much sense to me that maybe you looked at him and he took it the wrong way or you couldn't pay his made up fine or maybe you accidentally bumped into him.
Just some pre determined misunderstanding that the corrupt watchman took advantage of and hastily put you into the first cell in the Prison where the escape happened to be
That would've been a really cool idea, and it could have been our characters payback to get him arrested. Would've been neat if he had dialogue like "your face looks familiar....I've arrested you before..."
Best part about this theory is it doesn't destroy the illusion of no backstory. Just that you get arrested by a jerk using his power on people. Which explains why the character don't know why they are there cause he could have got forceful and knocked the character out and he had other guards book & cell the character which wakes up to see themselves locked up.
I've had a similar idea, instead the watch captain in question was Adamus Philida.
Baurus' comment about "lesser men" was not referring to strength of character or ones station. But literally that the Septims are on a higher standing than everyone else. They are recognized by the Divines to be the ones to rule Tamriel.
And for asking the Emperor himself why you are there. That's the beauty of the writing. It could be that the PC doesn't know why they were imprisoned. It could be that they do know, but don't think they should be. It could be pre-determinism, that they were always meant to be there in that exact moment. It could be that they were magicked into being there, either teleported or being created. Are they amnesiac, self-righteous, indignant, a manifestation of the Divine's will? The Emperor doesn't know, but the player does, because it's whatever you want it to be(within reason(or not)).
I like your theory I think the Dark Brotherhood set you up for a murder. in the mission we had to kill the dark elf the prison and they knew you were in that prison 2
Now that makes sense.
Turns out the DB were pulling the strings all along. They set up the Hero of Kvatch to become what he became just to fuck with the Mythic Dawn, a rival daedra worshiping murder cult.
This is a interesting theory. I'd like to add that Shezzar/Lorkhan might also be behind the divine intervention. This comes from the Knights of the Nine DLC where the player takes up the same title as Pelinal Whitestrake, famous knight who also battled Daedra and their worshippers (the Ayleids). Pelinal is often called a Shezzarine, essentially an avatar of Shezzar who does his bidding. If true (which is highly unlikely) then that puts the player on the list of potential Shezzarine candides but that's to deep a rabbit hole for a TH-cam comment.
I like the add on for the theory! If the gods all make the player a puppet for their wills and even the Daedric gods too I think it becomes more plausible!
The player always ends up doing the gods bidding in all games if you really think about it. From the Neverarine, to the Champion of Cyrodil and even the dragonborn. it seems whenever a mortal of high skill and power emerges the gods all sort of turn their focus on them. @@ABardsBallad
3:19 If playing as a female Dark Elf he comes on to you and sound really creepy, suggesting he ask the guard to let us share cell. I rather prefer him to insult me!
Pelinal didn't care much for being called a Shezarrine. One guy who proclaimed him a Shezarrine was "smothered by moths" but let's be honest, Pelinal was a brutal bloodthirsty murderer who just so happened to occasionally kill the right people, he probably choked the guy out himself. When the Nords saw him drenched in elf blood and proclaimed Shor had returned, he spat at them for profaning Shor's name, even though if Pelinal was a Shezarrine, he would technically be an aspect of Shor, as Shor is one and the same as Lorkhan, who is one and the same as Shezarr.
Since Tiber Septim ascended to godhood specifically by mantling Lorkhan (though CHIM also played a part), that means, retroactively, Tiber Septim is Talos is Pelinal is Lorkhan is Shor is the Last Dragonborn and possibly several other main characters.
Elder Scrolls lore is fucking wild. Something tells me Kirkbride wasn't the only writer for the series prone to massive drug binges.
there's a flimsy - but interesting theory that Sheogorath put you there to test your worth to see if you can take his mantle later on. but that was only made after the expansion came out (as said, its a flimsy theory)
there used to be a mod where you could start out elsewhere in the game, but the moment you got arrested and agreed to go to jail (in the imperial city), that's when the story mission would kick off. the mod wasnt around for long, but i miss when i had it downloaded. it kinda made the intro make more sense
Does Sheo really look like a man with a long term plan?
@@xxXXRAPXXxxTrying to predict the madness of a true madman is impossible
Basically he's so mad you don't know what he'll do. He could have had a plan, he could have not. Only he can truly know
@@hazeltree7738 Donno man, making plans and executing them requires patience to think things over sometimes for longer periods of time.
Im guessing that mod prevented the Oblivion Gates from spawning, but what about kvatch?
That would be cool but I can definitely see why that wouldn’t make it into the game. Much more accurate to real life but absolute hell trying to figure out what coincidental action begins the main quest line. Obviously everyone playing the mod probably knows you need to get arrested but that’s just hindsight
There is only one game in the Elder Scrolls series that you do not begin the game as a prisoner. Daggerfall, the second game in the series, does start you in the very first dungeon, Privateer's Hold, but if the player decides to look at the journal to read their character's backstory they would find that there are some choices during CharGen that actually have the character vary in background from being childhood friends of the emperor all the way up to the usual thing of being a prisoner who is summoned by the Emperor to that meeting experienced in the intro cutscene. However, that cutscene will ALWAYS have Uriel state that you are his friend. "I ask this as your Emperor. And your friend."
My experience with the first game, Arena, was very brief and I downloaded it when they were offering it on their website as a free download before they released the Anthology with all five games in one boxed set. Argonians were some green human model in that game and that threw me off and I never touched the game again.
I downloaded Arena when it was free on steam. I got lost in the cell after battling copius amounts of rats, rested to heal, only to have the rest interrupted by more rats, repeatedly, and eventually died from them.
Also haven't touched it since.
Starting each game as a prisoner was given some weird significance after the fact, starting with Morrowind. It was always hinted at but MK pointed it out explicitly out of context. The Daggerfall protagonist, the only one who arguably didn't begin the game as a prisoner (but who also arguably did) and who was in the only game until Skyrim that gave the player significant choices (as in, choices that would affect final outcomes for the world- Picking a Great House in Morrowind does not really change anything that happens thereafter, but deciding who gets the Mantella or who wins the Civil War definitely does, and Daggerfall and Skyrim both feature justifications for a "Dragon Break" that resolves mutually-exclusive outcomes into a single timeline), is called "the Agent," which on the one hand means a kind of "secret agent" sent by the emperor to perform certain discrete tasks, but also has the meaning of "a being possessing free will."
The "metaphor of the prisoner" in general can be interpreted in two opposite ways: Either by beginning in a state of imprisonment and escaping, the prisoner becomes conscious and demonstrates liberation, gaining free will at the moment that they become the player's handle (from this perspective, because of the player they are among the few beings in this universe that can actually act of their own agency), or they begin as prisoners as a metaphor for the fact that they are among the few beings in this world that actually have no agency whatsoever, their every action being decided by some outside force (ie the player, who is controlling them). The fact that the answer could go either way and isn't clear and is really an abstract philosophical question rather than an actual answer may not be satisfying, but that is the lore reason that since Morrowind the player character starting the game as a prisoner was codified into a rule for the series. What they were imprisoned for doesn't really matter (though Skyrim actually tells us, kind of), and they could just as easily start the game as a slave or indentured servant for example.
@@goatslayer3160Skill issue. You were ratblocked.
Todd Howard was open about this introduction. It's intended to be open to the player's interpretation. The player is able to come up with any explanation they like for why they're there. As they intended, there is NOTHING in the game to definitively say how and why the player arrived in prison.
But it does make you wonder if the person/people who wrote it had any intentions at the time, what they envisioned. Although I definitely lean towards the end of the spectrum that if something is not readily available info it probably was not written in the first place.
@@monhi64 writers can definitely write something in such a way that you think they know more information than they're telling you, and that can definitely be a delightful sensation in the audience. This game did not make ME wonder what the writer knew that I didn't know. The mean dark elf (dunmer) in the other cell for instance just made we go "oh gosh, they don't sound like they did in morrowind at all!" In fact, that dunmer seemed to be lacking the dignity most elves are known for, and I thought it was distracting. I didn't and still don't think that he knew what my character did to end up in prison. I thought he was just being a miserable for the sake of it, or maybe he was hazing my character.