Sorry this took so long, my other job has been keeping me pretty busy. Next up is Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood! I have plans for more Elder Scrolls stuff, at some point when I’m more familiar with the game I’ll cover Morrowind, if Oblivion gets that remaster I’ll probably use it as a chance to rework that rough first video and include the DLC, and I have plans for a smaller Skyrim video later this year. Thanks for watching! Happy holidays and happy new year!
Really excited for the Brotherhood video, hope you touch on the whole Truth puzzles implying that the Templars transitioned the Divine Right of Kings into capitalism and CEOs
On the topic of the cities I think you would be pleasantly surprised by Morrowind settlements, I think out of all 3d TES games they feel the most lived in and thriving despite their size. But that's subjective
“Neloth is an interesting character. He’s selfish, he’s arrogant, and at multiple points he’ll send the Dragonborn into a deadly situation underprepared and he’ll be pleasantly surprised when we make it out alive. He has no respect for our legend, would scoff at the idea of power necessitating responsibility and his indifference towards everyone but himself won’t change no matter how closely we work with him. He might remind you of _someone else_ we end up working with in this DLC.” In other words, he’s a model House Telvanni mage! Hell, he might even consider being compared to the likes of Hermaeus Mora as a bloody _compliment_ with how high off his own Bug Musk he is.
I mean, if gathering knowledge at all costs while retaining control of yourself despite being a bit warped by the process is your goal, then that comparison is a massive compliment!
Honestly Neloth's complete disregard for the player or others is something refreshing in a way, maybe there could be more chances to call him out on some things but he'll no doubt pompously scoff off such things. Like he's got his own gig and him not caring much about some walking incarnation of a nordic legend as a Dumner out in the boondocks kind of shows the world doesn't entirely revolve around the DB. But maybe in some ways he does appreciate the DB's efforts in so far as what he can do for him, but without any sense of sentimental respect.
@@burningbox6660 Nazeem is the worst kind of snooty character. Hes barely fleshed out, he doesn’t interact with the player much at all outside of a few lines basically calling you poor. And worst of all, he doesn’t really have a home in game. He sleeps at the drunken huntsman. So he’s a hypocrite.
I feel this. Like based on the lore you can pick up from precious entries, especially Morrowind, I like to imagine that Elder Scrolls has some like DnD level world building even when it really doesn't. But you can just see the potential in it all. Whenever I go through my yearly Skyrim phase, I'd spend so much time just imagining what could be, the politics of the land that you explore. I guess that's just Bethesda's charm and why so many people, even to this day, mod the game
If you really think so when why would those people try to analysis a story written by worse writers ? Maybe instead of trying to devalue Bethesda writers notice that people doing the analysis consider the story worth analyzing in the first place.
@@nickhard7615 skyrim and oblivion owe a lot to Morrowind and earlier lore. With how shitty writing is, imagine what would happen. Oh right, Starfield is what did
As though he ain't gonna just usurp it after the events of Skyrim anyways. Nothing kills the dragon born, if I was him, I'd stroll on down to Cyrodil and park my ass on a throne.
Do the dark brotherhood questline and join the imperial army. roleplay you’re the Dragonborn reclaiming the throne. When you kill the emperor, take his clothes and boom you’re the God Emperor
the need for a dragonborn emperor is gone. The dragonfires are permanently lit. The dragonborns child/heir wouldn't be dragonborn. It wouldn't make sense
About Miraak’s cultists killing off the Greybeards, I think that would have been really dumb. From a storytelling standpoint it makes sense for the mentor to die to motivate the hero, but also most of the Greybeards have to whisper anything they feel the need to say because their voices alone carry the raw power of a dragon, and even when they do whisper the very ground beneath you trembles. The idea that some cultist schmucks could walk up and kill the Greybeards is absolutely absurd.
Then maybe one of them is assassinated before the cultists themselves are, in turn, shouted out of reality so hard they end up in another Kalpa and that draws you to their monastery to start the quest.
Maybe an alternative would be the Dragonborn going to check on them only to find cultists bodies and a letter saying that they are leaving for a bit until things cool down. Would be in character for them to not want to directly do much about it and still have a somewhat similar impact to the story. Personally I would at least have one of them die, if the cultists plan ahead, a sneak attack could probably get 1 of them.
I understand the idea of killing the mentor in order to get the hero to be committed to the cause. It’s a classic way to tell a story and has worked well before. However, I don’t think it would work well concerning the display of the Dragonborn, greybeards or how the game plays. The Dragonborn is an adventurer and yearns for challenges and fights akin to classical heroes. He doesn’t need a moral reason or vengeance to goad him towards Mirrak rather just the idea of mystery enticing does and adds to the independence of the character to chose why their Dragonborn did so as if it was for the death of the mentor than that may not mesh with their role playing experience. The Dragonborn like elder scrolls protagonists are meant to be completely blank slates (excluding Daggerfall to an extent) before the character gets their hands on them. They’re not Henry from KCD or geralt from the Witcher who have established personalities but rather are meant to be you. And honestly that’s fine for me. Bethesda has tones of issues when it comes to writing but I understand the Players are meant to be explorers, adventures and knights who love to explore the unknown and challenges the world gives them.
Also it wouldn’t work because the quest starts right when you’re sent to get the horn, or right after I can’t remember, so it would break the game, they’d have to re do like half of the main quest which isn’t feasible for a dlc since they try not to affect the normal game as much to avoid corrupting your game. That’s why most dlc stuff is cordoned off into another area off the map.
I wonder if Mora's "At last, the Skaal's secrets are mine" and Storn's "You... liar..." is supposed to mean that Mora deliberately allowed Miraak in Apocrypha to set up an eon-spanning plan to use the threat of Miraak's return as a way to ensure that the Skaal are pressured into giving up their secrets.
That fits Mora’s personality Mora is the Prince of Fate. He can see how events set into motion will eventually unravel. His entire realm is knowing everything, be it the written word or what comes in the future Which is why I think the idea of making him the villain is…not workable. Its like trying to stab Cthulu. You arent *scratching* Mora and you sure as hell aren’t outsmarting the Prince of Knowledge. And your in his realm. Your inside of him.
He probably didn't start for that reason, given that the skaal are the descendants of the people who lived on the island at the time and would have just been dragon cultists back then. That said I can easily see him being behind the methodology of Miraak's return to get that skaal knowledge, but the timing is clearly because he wanted an upgrade in minions given the whole fated to kill Alduin thing.
no, it's worse : Think about all the knowledge and secrets the dragonborn learned : thu'hums, paarthurnax, etc... Miraak was not free to act without the permission of Mora. Even during the oblivion crisis, when there was no frontiers between tamriel and oblivion, or apocrypha, miraak never could make a move. Butn eventually, came someone who has read THREE elders scrolls, who freed the oghma infinium, who learn the secrets of the dwemers, and of the falmers, and that a dragon was alive during milleniums, someone who has learned more voices of power thant the greybeard, etc... The secrets of the skaals never has been the purpose of mora.it's just... a bonus. But now, he made a pact with someone who knows more secrets and weild more knowledge than anyone, except Psijjics (and theses one already served Sithis) ever had. Remember well the lesson of Boethia and Sanguyin : act as you want, thats what daedras demands.
@sunbro-s6d Except that Mora probably knew almost all of that already, he may or may not have already known Dragon Rend but he certainly knew all the shouts you found on walls as they were all written down. The issue with the skald was the tension between written and oral traditions. The elder scrolls thing may or may not give him anything, and the ogma infinium is literally his dadric artifact. As for the dwarves he probably knows the vast majority of lore about them only missing what Kagranak failed to write down about his work and exactly what(or right) went wrong with his experiment.
@@TheMichaellathrop here is the list of all the shouts used by miraak : Become Ethereal, Cyclone, Dragon Aspect, Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Unrelenting Force, Whirlwind Sprint. All the shouts learned during dawnguard dlc are missing, and a lot of the shouts kept by the other dragon priests. Thunder, Etheral form, etc... Nothing gives us any clues or proofs that Mora or Miraak knows about Paarthurnaax being alive, Nothing gives usany proof that Mora knows the truth about the falmers, and this chapter is not in the books of kargenac. His book "divine metaphysic" talk about the creation ofthe Numidium, but there is not a word about the falmer in it. This is fairly normal, considering that IRL this book his written for Morrowind. And Mora says, basically "thank you, i needed someone to free the oghma, now that you have proven youreself more worthy than this shmuck i perverted, kill him, plz" Like Boethiawith his own champion, or Peyrite, or Malacath, or Nocturne... And the oghma was, indeed, kept hidden from the world until the dragon borne's intervention. And he his his champion, even if he tries to deny it : " I am not your champion, monster. "Who do you think brought Septimus here? Who do you think protected you on your journey to open the box and loose my knowledge on this world? Your free will is an illusion. Whether you acknowledge me or not is your own business. But I will be in your mind."" And you cannot be more wrong about the scrolls. The Elder scrolls are even above aedras. Even Lorkhan does not know what is written in the scrolls, they are the manifestation of the dreamer, a force exterior to the universe, He MAY be the god of the skaals. But... that is unsure, we do'nt know what secrets Mora learned. But he knows everything the dragon learned, a minima since he met Septimus for the first time and learned about the first scroll. And, Mora is Mora. If you put a random number of wheat grain in your hand, he NEED to know exactly how much there are. Once again, the WILL does not matters here : Whoever discovers the most secrets is de facto Mora champion. And Mora, de facto, has to know everything. "your free will is an illusion Wether you aknowledge me or not is your own buisness but i WILL be in your mind" "You thought to reject me, and yet here you are. Your journey towards enlightenment has finally led you here, to my realm, as I knew it would."
26:23 there’s also a huge issue with the assassination quest - there’s no crime being committed. Within Dunmer society, hiring the Morag Tong to murder someone is perfectly legal. The whole purpose of the Tong is so that the Great Houses can settle disputes without open war. Every House, including the Redoran, make use of the Tong (they even had a guild hall in Under-Skar prior to the Red Year), so the fact that the Hlaalu hiring them is treated as a crime punishable by death is ridiculous. And then you go murder the entire Tong presence on the island? No Dunmer would ever do that!
I'm not sure if it's ever stated explicitly that *only* the Great Houses can make use of them, but I'm fairly certain that's the case, and Hlaalu is no longer a Great House. Therefore, the writ is not legitimate, and the whole thing is reduced to the level of foul murder-for-hire. That they're referred to as a "rival Great House" is definitely a mistake in the dialogue. Sadras is the house that replaced them.
@ I actually never considered that might be the case. I can’t find any lore saying one way or another. However, I will say that in Morrowind playing through the faction you get a lot of contracts that it wouldn’t really make sense for a Great House member to put out. I don’t know.
Yeah there's a big conflict between how the Morag Tong are presented in lore and how it actually plays out. Hell, between the three Great House questlines, I think they might be relevant *once* in the Hlaalu line, and that might just be me misremembering all the times I've mixed up the council building and Morag Tong guildhall in Balmora. Oh, and you kill one in a Telvanni chore, but him being Morag Tong is largely irrelevant and nothing comes of it.
Miraak: I am the first Dragonborn, with thousands of years of study TLB: Consider the following: 100 smithing 100 enchanting 100 alchemy 100 2-handed 100 heavy armor 100 sneak….
Miraak: "Fool, what power could you possibly have to compare to me?" TLB: "Well, i spent several hours making dwarf bows, using bunny souls to make kitchen knives that banish demons, and brewing tons of potions that let me be an Argonian for half a minute." Miraak: "...crap."
1:24:22 So it's been a while and I might be misremembering, but afaik basically all the water in Tamriel isn't "just" water, it's also a materialisation of all the forgotten memories and the minds of those past. Pretty much all information held by mortal minds has/ will find it's way into the waters of this world. Mora's realm has an abundance of waters itself, which could be inferred to be all of the knowledge he's gathered that doesn't take a written form, so all those memories and oral traditions that never made it into text would be within the water. With that in mind, the fact the water in Mora's realm is stagnant, murky, and toxic is suggestive of the way Mora collects knowledge but then sits on it like a hoard. Unlike most of those we see throughout Skyrim, the waters here aren't flowing; the information isn't getting passed on, or at least not nearly enough for the amount there is, and so with nowhere to go it just sits there and festers, and we end up with this mouldy half drowned library of a world. It's a place of gathered knowledge, but from what we can reasonably infer it's mostly neglected knowledge that isn't being regularly shared or put to substantial use, which is somewhat in line with Hermaeus Mora's hunger for knowledge and apathetic tone towards just about everything else. The colour scheme is reasonably within question but I think it does help sell the vibe; that green cloudy sky paired with the murky still waters and piles of books strewn about means you can practically smell the place, the damp and the mould. The problem is that afaik there's nothing in game that tells us this fact about water in TES, certainly nothing that's put front and centre, and without knowing that Mora's realm becomes just a stereotypical damp and slimy lovecraftian setting without much justification for it besides that he's an eldritch blobby tentacle thing. It is those things, but it does at least feel more appropriate imo when you know what the water is, and thus can interpret what the nature of the water in Mora's realm says about him. Also with your conclusion at 2:04:22 there's something really poetic about your point that Skyrim "wants to always be there" considering the main story had us fending off Alduin on account of the threat that he'd bring about end the world.
If this is true (too tired to verify it rn), that is simultaneously possibly the coolest and most disturbing elder scrolls lore I have learned yet because then people are bathing in and drinking memories and that just feels strange. lol I love your comment about the contrast between the waters in Mora’s realm and what we see in Skyrim/Tamriel too.
You are right! IIRC this is lore that MK introduced (correct me if im wrong on that front though), but ESO kind of ran with & you can see it in a few quests there. Water holding memory is considered in the world of tamriel to be a closely guarded secret that only Hermaeus Mora and a scant few others know, so his realm being FULL of water makes sense.
I think why I love the Dragonborn DLC is exactly why its pretty frustrating to play. The story has the potential to be SO much, to give us a very nuanced antagonist that is a mirror of ourself. But there's very clearly so much that was left out, and that gap is what fascinates me so much. Miraak had the potential to be so incredibly compelling, the throw away lines where he ponders having his soul eaten, where he says he regrets that he has to kill his only kin in the world. There's so much sorrow surrounding him, and he's willing to create leagues more to try and end his imprisonment. How much of the cruelty we see displayed in his temple was real or for show? How much of it still reflects his mindset? What does he think about Valok? Does he have the same half heart compassion for him as he does us? How much of his hubris is just bravado masking fear? Killing alduin would have made him insanely powerful, so why didn't he? I dont buy that he just didn't feel like it, I think he was and is scared. Skyrim in general is so frustrating cause the lore is so compelling, but its expressed so little and so poorly that it leaves you wanting. Sidenote, I also don't fully get why we HAVE to go kill Miraak. Once we destroy his hold on Solstheim. That leaves a pretty solid gap for the Skaal to protect the totems/shrines. We could do that, but instead we waltz in to potentially offer up our powerful soul to him? For what? He's not going anywhere. The game never really gives us any real reason why we have to go and offer ourself up more to Mora.
You know ive listened to a LOT of Skyrim retrospectives over the years as youtube retrospectives are my favorite mental distraction at work. But 6 minutes in you have already asked the most compelling questions ive ever heard anyone ask, that is commendable im excited to hear the rest of this.
My greatest frustration with "Dragonborn" is the Bend Will Shout's lack of utility across the in-game world. This Shout doesn't even allow the player character to manipulate the minds of NPCs in any practical way.
@@drewgoin8849 Enter "why Larian Studios stopped and level 6 spells in Baldur's Gate 3?" Bend Will is literally what would happen if Larian added higher level spells in BG3 people would try to do in a game RPG what they can do in a TRPG, which with currently technology is impossible. So the best we can do with Bend Will is tame a dragon and fly in circles.
@@LuizFelipe-lk1hs to be fair they could've just excluded some of those spells. I mean owlcats pathfinder crpg games let you get to level 20 and pathfinder is similar dnd in how its spell levels work. They just don't include stuff like wish on the spell list because it would be impossible to accomodate. But tbh 5e's high level spells are rather disappointing imo, ill never forgive them for what they did to Weird. In older editions/pathfinder(heavily based on 3.5e) if you fail both saves you just straight up die. In 5e you take a paltry amount of damage for the level you'd be at to have someone be able to cast weird on you.
I think introducing Frea just to immediately kill her off would be worse and more nonsensical than the story already is, especially considering the fact that the player barely knows Frea by that point. I really hate the trope of introducing characters just to kill them off for emotional fodder. I do agree that they should have made Miraak more evil, but killing off Frea is not the way to do it. I also think that cultists killing off the Greybeards is equally nonsensical, especially considering how powerful the Greybeards are. Yes, they are peaceful monks, but they can also kill a man with a whisper. Do you genuinely think those cultists could touch them? I don't think so.
I agree with that statement. I do not care for Frea as character, mostly because we are not given reason to do so. So I believe killing her off for cheap drama wouldn't be better than what we actually got, instead she could be more fleshed out, basically make us care for her same as in Dawnguard DLC, but in different way with different character archetype. I know it wouldn't be perfect solution, but considering how bad skyrim writing is, it would still seem like one of best parts of game
I love love LOVE the part about how the sprawling wilds in most high fantasy worlds are likely to be conquered and colonized at some point in the future. It's so well-written, and not a point I see made often. Kudos.
The reason the DB can't say no to Herma Mora is because Bethesda needs an excuse to remove the DB from the world for TeS 6 as they did with Hero of Kvatch and Morrowind character.
I personally do not believe that the player character is able to meaningfully pledge his/her soul to any Daedric Prince. The Dragonborn is empowered by either Sheor or Kyne, depending on one's interpretation of the in-game lore. The mythological Dovahkiin is destined to oppose Akatosh's agent of destruction and rebirth. This central piece of mythology transcends any contract to serve Herma Mora and his fellow Princes.
@drewgoin8849 Except, generally Daedra make mincemeat of Aedra due to their nature. Also, in the end, a DB is still a mortal. They can become a vampire and a werewolf, which is of the domain of daedra.
@@drewgoin8849 yeah I don't think any dadric Prince could actually take their soul they'd have to fight akatosh for it and they'd be erased from reality if they tried
Haven't watched yet but just want to say here that I appreciate the style with which you do video game narrative analysis. I feel that a lot of other people who do this style of video essay often try to cover too much without much focus or even a consistent thesis while you are succinct and deliberate in your approach. Plus I can fall asleep to your videos almost nightly.
One thing that's often missed about Solstheim as an environment is that it very deliberately resembles early-modern Greenland. It's an island at the frontier of Imperial (European) society. You've got the Nords/Skaal as a close parallel to the medieval Norse, who vanished in the 15th century but were rumoured to still be alive somewhere along the coast. You've got the Imperial settlers who parallel the Danish settlers in the 18th century (and the East Empire Company which parallels the Royal Greenland Trade). And most significantly you've got the Rieklings, whose physicality is a very close approximation of the way Inuit people (called Skraelings by the Norse) were represented on European maps - small and basically non-human. In Skyrim there's a quest where you are forced to confront your assumptions about the Rieklings when they clearly show sentience, language, and complex social systems. There's so much going on in the way different societies interact and fundamentally misunderstand each other in Solstheim, and while there were golden moments in Dragonborn, I really wish they had done more with that fascinating situation.
I found it funny that Morrowind's "Bloodmoon" DLC includes a character at the Thirsk Mead Hall (a Breton named Bereditte Jastal) who is visiting to study the culture and write books about the Skaal. Meanwhile, Skyrim's "Dragonborn" DLC features Tharston in the Skaal Village serving an identical purpose.
About the EIC hiding the Nordic ruin from people who might want to explore it, the Empire was already doing this kind of thing back in Morrowind (the game and the province) with Dwemer ruins, even making treasures from those ruins a contraband item for most people, and mostly for the same reason: because otherwise too many people would try to loot the ruins, and most of them would just get themselves killed by automatons. (Well, the devs didn't actually implement any possibility for the player character to get in trouble for looting and selling Dwemer items, but the ban does come up in a couple of quests)
generic dialoge does exit to justify the lack of any restrictions on selling dwemer artifacts(and ebony) saying that trading in it is too lucrative for even otherwise upstanding merchants to pass up on even if the actual gold value on all dwemer items is too low for me to find that belivable for those
The brief exploration of Game Designer Gregory absolutely killed me. Thanks for the laugh. ...the other 2 hours of highly entertaining and thoughtful critique was good too, i guess.
10:30 Yeah, this issue is EXTREMELY noticable. Some random bandit wants to fleece me for gold? Bruh, I'm literally wearing the crystalized blood of a god possessed by a deadra, why would you and your crappy leather armor think it's at all reasonable to try and steal gold from me? Or how NONE of the mages in the game even THINK about talking to you if you're a mage, they just attack on sight. Honestly, with how 90% of mages in Skyrim attack on sight, it's perfectly reasonable to be mistrustful of mages. Or how that one wandering orc calls you a milk drinker despite being the effective leader of the Companions. I can't even get a discount buying mage supplies despite being the literal archmage of the highest magical authority in Skyrim. I'm a vampire and accidentally stumble upon a coven of vampires? Not so much as a simple warning to leave as kindness for being a fellow vampire, they just attack. Nazeem or Maven Blackbrair insults me again as they walk past? Bruh, I don't have some thieves and assassins in my pockets, I OWN those thieves and assassins PLUS mages, warriors, and LITERAL DRAGONS. Why I can't intimidate Maven or Nazeem when I can literally kill gods is beyond me. Hell, CLAVICUS VILE of all people acknowledges you if you're strong enough. If you ask him to I think bring peace to Skyrim, he straight up asks you why you're asking him, and he tells you that you're MORE than strong enough to do it on your own. The ONLY other time I've seen my status be reflected in Skyrim is when that random event mage seeks me out and wants to duel because I'm a great mage. Other than that, nothing.
The primary and overshadowing reason for this is voice acting. It is expensive and time-consuming, and reactive dialogue naturally makes the amount of voice lines you have to do skyrocket. In short, if your game is fully voice-acted, it will almost by definition less reactive than a non-voiced game made at the same budget could be. A secondary reason is scripting, which applies regardless of whether your game is voiced or not. The more reactive your game is, the more of a buggy mess it risks becoming, because more complicated code will have to be written. It is, in short, both difficult and expensive to make a quest or dungeon care about your level, vampire status, gear or whatever. Bethesda went for the option to provide truly staggering amounts of content, but that came at the cost of (among other things) reactivity and narrative cohesion. Personally, I would've preferred that they cut 60-70% of the content in the game and made the rest more narratively satisfying and reactive, but perhaps then it wouldn't have sold as well. Either way, that Skyrim (a game that came out in 2011!) is both as large and as reactive as it is, is arguably a miracle.
I think the dying feel of the cities and the likes does work well with the idea that this was supposed to be a world going to end as it's kalpa came to an end by Alduin devouring it all. Just, the game fails to lean in on this hard enough due to it's constant problem of never using what it has put out to great enough effect. A fear of comitting to it's own story. In a way Alduin could have easily represented that feeling everyone has had at some point about the world: that it's too broken for repair, beyond salvaging, and would be better to let it all burn and then start from scratch without any of those complex issues. Alduin being stopped left a world that needs to find a way forward despite it's broken state. Night falls with uncertainty. The Harkon alligned vampires would then have been a manifestation of this decay deciding to fully play their hand, the parasitic force that has fed on the world as befitting of vampires that deal in decay, plots, and trickery. Amplifying and worsening all problems until the mask fully slips off and now they are ready to just take over uncaring of how destructive it is by eliminating the last safeguard in place (the literal sun) stopping them from total omnipresent rule. Their fall would represent one element that amplifies the woes of the world being rid of, and be a slight sliver of dawn in the still long night ahead. A spark of hope that can either be fed, or allowed to flicker and fade. Given to all, or to the select few. Miraak in this scenario would have represented a fallen power of old who is someone waiting to fill the power vaccuum. A being that steps out of the dead of night. Incapable of learning that this will only repeat the cycle rather than lead to anything new - though for Miraak, this is just fine, as it's not about the new: only their way. Power and domination. The old ways, but channeled to serve him as their new master. Miraaks defeat would cement the old as being gone, never to return. There is only forward, the past shall not claim rule to the future. It would also signal that dawn is far away, and that this night plays host to far worse monstrosities in the form of Hermaeus Mora. Things that will truly underline how important it is that this path forward is chosen, less all become their playthings. The primordial cost of failure made manifest. I could also be cheeky and say that the Heartfire building dlc could easily be slotted in to come last or in any which order. A need to build, and for the Dragonborn who has seen so much to construct their own quarters around the region. Never staying in one for too long, as there is much to be done, but yearning to occasionally kick back and relax for a safe nights rest. One does weather the night far more comfortable with a roof over their head. While also allowing these private estates to serve as little footholds for fledgeling communities to begin forming around with the wandering Dragonborn always ready to swoop in and extinguish any trouble. It does take more than simply a sword to guide the world towards a new tomorrow.
I have to say it feels very dark souls. Except in Skyrim the question of whether to let the world end to make place for the next or to push the world beyond its intended ending to preserve what exists there is never really up for debate. The world has to go on, no matter how broken. (Honestly might be an apt metaphor for bethesda and the elder scrolls franchise)
my favorite part of TH-cam comments is stumbling upon a dissertation written with professional skill. This comment screams "competent creative writer". I really enjoyed reading this, thanks for dropping it for free in a comment section. 👍
@@OswaldStretchdisaz My pleasure. I do enjoy writing dearly. I am pleasantly surprised for the positive reception too. Kinda taken aback too. It's one of those funny moments where I just wrote something up on the spot and it seems to have turned out far better than I saw it turning out.
To me I always thought the world of Skyrim (while not done well enough) was meant to convey a world on the brink like you mentioned above. Skyrim takes place a setting that’s pretty much collapsing in terms of society, order and even reality with Alduin, mirrak and harkon. But even before that the empire is collapsing, red mountain exploded, a Great War occurred and Skyrim is going through a civil war which tears apart the continent which I always thought was the reason for all the bandits as they’d naturally take advantage of the lawlessness of the countryside. The clear message to me was Skyrim was already in collapse before the dragons show up and the world of elder scrolls is too. I also really like your take on hearth fire. Intentional or not by Bethesda I like the idea of the dragon starting to settle down and build after adventuring and putting the world to somewhat rest. Also, to me it’s very heartwarming for the characters to take care of the innocent (children) after dealing with lovecraftian monsters and world ending nightmares showing that the characters understands their good worth fighting for.
While I think there's many different problems with the writing in Skyrim and I never like to pin all writing/design issues on a single wonk, the thing that always comes to my mind when I look back on the storytelling in Skyrim and the Dragonborn DLC's main quests is that they fail to establish the villains as significant threats, nevermind giving them interesting characterisation. In the base game, Alduin is simply not established as proper threat. He isn't active enough in the game, doesn't have much presence, and there isn't any specific villainous plot that you are foiling. The worst thing he personally does in the game is destroy Helgen at the very start, and then he goes around ressurecting dragons, and nothing in the game ever indicates that he or any other dragons have any clear and organised ideas and plans of what they're going to do next. There's no sense of urgency at all in the main plot (which I'll bring up again in a bit), no feeling of "we have to do *blank* in order to stop Alduin from doing *blank*". It's more just they say that Alduin is back, that him and all his dragons are nasty bad dudes and they have to go. This takes away from the random dragon encounters (and the mystique of the dragons in general), as they come across more like territorial wild animals than ancient pseudo-angelic beings from before the dawn of time who used to rule the world (do note that I don't like that second idea for dragons anyway, I'd prefer if they were just intelligent and powerful creatures who used to rule the world, rather than all the weird lore stuff surrounding their background, IE I like them to be more traditional). Finally, on top of all this there's the dual facts that: A) we defeat Alduin once before his final defeat and he just runs away before his next fight which is essentially identical, which just makes him seem cowardly and unthreatening as a villain. B) Both fights against Alduin are done with forced allies by our sides, so we never go one-on-one against our destined opponent which is a bit disappointing. This lack of threat/characterisation extends to the rest of the dragons, who have a total of 4 dragon characters who are given any proper attempts at characterisation (Alduin, Paarthurnax, Odahviing, and then Durnehviir in Dawnguard), and what little is there is extremely thin. I have a distinct memory of reading the back of Skyrim's CD case where they specifically used the phrase "the only one who can stand *amongst* them" rather than *against* them, which before I first played the game back in 2011 made me imagine there'd be a more diverse and more fleshed out selection of dragon characters that you'd get to interact with, but alas it is not so. The lack of characterisation also extends onto all of the dragon cult related content, draugr, dragon priests and their old ruins. There's a handful of isolated storylines in a few dungeons (for example Forelhost: en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Forelhost), but for the most part the game doesn't delve very deeply into the dragon cult's background which I thought was pretty damn strange in the game where their history would be most important. It's understandable considering the length of time since the cult's heyday that information on them would be somewhat scarce, but I would expect there to be fairly strong oral histories preserved, even if we ignore the existence of the many word walls in burial places that usually tell stories, so there's not really any excuses for occasionally shining more of a spotlight on the dragon cult and what went on (or supposedly went on) in the olden days, outside of the handful of lore books that might bring it up. In terms of threat, it's kind-of sort-of implied that Alduin has a lot of undead draugr dragon cultists under his control, but again it's not really established firmly or focused on a lot, and there isn't much of a sense that there's an organised draugr threat to be concerned about, and even if there is no use of this tool is made by Alduin during the course of the game (like attempting to use them to conquer stuff, or capture some artifact or something). Now about the urgency of the plot, this is something of tight rope that devs have to walk when writing the stories. If you make the main threat too urgent in games like this then it goes against the open world nature and the player is left feeling either like they're forced to complete the main quest lest any of their other adventures feel out of place, or like they have to just ignore the main quest and pretend it isn't there in order to enjoy the side content. Oblivion ended up in the first camp (where the main plot was just too urgent and the villains too powerful and close to victory for us to have a justifiable in-game sense of having the time to get distracted by side-quests and such). If you make the main threat not urgent enough, then you end up with villains like Alduin who everyone claims is actually a massive threat, honest!... But in practice comes across as completely toothless and clueless, with no clear ambitions or goals or evil plots to foil. I am admittedly loath to praise Morrowind for much, but it did strike a perfect balance in terms of plot urgency vs player freedom. The entire plot and setting is established such that the player can take as long as they need to defeat the villain, and the player is even encouraged during the main quest to take a break and go and do side content at several points during the main quest. Dagoth Ur is a threat to everyone, but not in the immediate sense. He *is* currently causing problems like the blight, and he *is* gathering sleeper agents and collecting influence, but he is not going to put his plans into action for a long time yet, so the villain has ambitions and plots to be foiled, but the player also has the freedom to go exploring and side-questing without it feeling out of character to do so. And there you go, there's a collection of rambling thoughts about the writing in some of the TES games (and probably not particularly original ramblings at that). I like different pieces of different TES games, and it's a franchise where I think the "they all do some things right but other things wrong" idea rings true. As little good as it might do, I do like talking about them sometimes.
Man this video has such great comments your included. Echoing some thoughts my scrambled brain would never let me get fully written down. Skyrim is a game of if only, great base but feels like it was never fully realized. The little connections are sometimes there but you can't do anything about them. A big one I point to is the Thalmor dossier on ulfric, imagine being able to explain to ulfric he is playing into their hand, have him come to that realization and take the war directly to them, joining with the imperials and sacking the embassy, or something. Also agree on it being a very fine line in writing a narrative in an open world setting, one that I have run into and done improperly on both ends in my 15 years as a tabletop GM. It can be quite difficult to run a sandbox campaign( or an open world video game) with a main antagonistic force, it is hard to create tension by having a villain with plots they will succeed on without intervention from the player/party but not have it feel like they need to ignore the farmer who's wife was kidnapped because if they don't stop the main villain they will win by next morning. I don't have a good answer, I wish I did but its a struggle I still have to this day. Skyrim is a game that is a marvelous shut your brain off adventure, with open ended gameplay choices. It has little narrative choices besides do or don't do, but you don't actually refuse to do it and have backlash you just let the quest stare at you from the quest log. The lore is most exciting thing about the game, but they rarely bring that deep and often insane lore to the forefront. On its surface its a pretty generic fantasy story and thats what the average person playing it would think, which is a shame because TES has some of the most unique lore for a fantasy setting and it should feel like anything but generic.
Great video! Glad to see you're back. I'd like to offer one story beat that I think would solve a lot (or just a few) of the issues you identified with the plot: scrap Frea's special necklace, and make Miraak mind control our Dragonborn into killing Frea. That's why we have to deal with Herma Mora; we cannot risk a Dragonborn like ourselves falling under Miraak's control. Also makes him a more insidious villain because it further highlights his true threat: not as someone with Dragon shouts but as someone who can destroy the agency of the free-thinking people in Tameriel. Even throw in some extra backstory where he originally learned this power to win agency away from the Dragons but he instead got corrupted by it and suddenly he's a very compelling villain.
Imagine if when you first meet Miraak with Frea, after monologuing at us how powerful he is and how he will first conquer Solstheim and then Tamriel with an army of dragons, you get a few choices to respond with before he uses his power of Bend Will to control the player into killing Frea. This would not only make the player motivated to kill Miraak, it would also show that he is powerful and a threat that needs to be dealt with. In the Scald village we could then learn, either from Storn or Mora that the only way to shield your mind from Miraak's power is to also learn it.
Manipulating the player character into killing Frea would eliminate one of Storn's biggest personal motivations to protect the secrets of the Skaal. If Frea's amulet of protection ceases to serve a function, Storn would be more willing to surrender his people's magical/cultural esoteric knowledge to Herma Mora.
38:48 You inspired me man. I'm going to make a mod that expands on Miraak by giving him a final conversation before the final battle. I still don't know if it's doable, but I sort of made it work with Serana, so I might be able to do something with Miraak. Do you mind if I take notes from your essay? It's really good!
Thank you for this, excellent narrative critique. There's so many shallow retrospectives, but I always feel I learn something new with yours! Looking forward to more 💚
I feel like using "Kyne peace" for different ending might have been cool, like partysnax can teach us how to calm or pacify dragons to not attack us or maybe help us (ingame it can be perk or boost like you get when meditating) . Kyne peace can also be used to break the control of mirrak.
Seems a lot of people have been rewashing your other skyrim videos. Alas, I'll have to catch this one tomorrow. Thanks for thr early Christmas present!!
Can't wait to fall asleep to this several times over the next month, eventually absorbing all of the information in chunks when I wake up randomly to pee or skip chapters to get to the parts I slept through the night before.
One big issue I have with this otherwise excellent analysis is that it could have delved deeper into examining Solstheim through the lens of its initial depiction in Morrowind. The essence of the land, particularly the Skaal, is firmly established in that earlier portrayal. While Skyrim regrettably retcons much of this lore, if you suspend disbelief and bridge the Morrowind canon with the Miraak narrative introduced in Skyrim, Solstheim emerges as a vital element in any story set there, not merely a backdrop.
I agree completely, while there is some mentions of blood moon with the wear bears and some references I wish they did more to tie it back to that dlc. bloodmoon and Dragonborn I thought were always cool dlc as morrowind lets you explore a bit of skyrim and then Skyrim lets you explore a bit of Morrowind.
Well I think he's coming at by basing it on the content in DB, I haven't played Blood Moon, so DB was my first time in Solsthiem. Connecting to Blood Moon would be talking about content not in DB
@@rdc1279 Yeah but he is talking a lot about the history of Raven Rock and its context for the story. So I think it would be beneficial to further that background.
That part in the middle where you talk about how this world feels like it’s best days are behind it is so perfect because like, literally yes. The modern times in TES are literally just worse than the past. Teleportation is a lost magic (except for the psijics, but they just refuse to tell anyone anything). Levitation was illegalized and is now basically lost as well. The Dwemer, the most advanced race ever on Tamriel, all disappeared. The Dunmer’s golden age died with the Tribunal. Atmora, yokuda, and aldmeris (if that one ever existed) are gone, and akavir might die as well. The divines now barely interact with the world, while the daedra are becoming more and more bold (and possibly more treacherous, but that could just be a Skyrim thing). Winterhold is gone, Skyrim has lost all of its strongest warriors and mages. Cyrodil was unbelievably damaged by the oblivion crisis. The thalmor exist. Everything about the world of Nirn has gone downhill, and it’s entirely possible we’re entering the end of this kalpa and the beginning of the next.
I do have to give Bethesda some credit for actually trying to make their DLCs have more depthful stories. I think having a bigger, more self-contained storyline instead of 12 smaller inconsequential storylines gives them an opportunity to focus on what actually makes a story interesting. Far Harbor is by far the best part of Fallout 4, and while Dragonborn isn't quite as good as Far Harbor, I feel the same way. I actually look forward to playing the dragonborn questline and visiting Solstheim when I play Skyrim, where I'll actively avoid massive parts of the base game.
What ive learned about these critiques is that Bethesda likes to raise or hint at complex problems or situations but is not interested or willing to explore these scenarios outside of what would a murder hobo in DND do.
I think mechanically speaking DB is the best dlc (which isn’t a hard contest tbh), adding in the black books, new dragon shouts and priest masks, all the new tiers of gear can’t be understated for what they added to the mid-end game of a skyrim playthrough
Skyrim’s a funny lil game. There’s… so, so, *so* many good ideas in its stories, quests, narratives, whatevs, great concepts. But they feel unfinished, like a solid first draft of a really good story. Full of holes and with a rushed ending where the writer started to run out of steam and where they should’ve come back and patched it up after taking a breather. Same with the game mechanics, half baked good ideas that come out as “yeah it’s alright”. When you put it altogether it’s very engaging and I think it stands as a gameplay experience but any one thing you pick apart is like turning a corner, expecting to see something great and instead seeing something that’s just… fine.
You say you like Neloth, but unfortunately he is just the idea of a telvanni wizard, they have laws like: -If you steal something, and manage to kill the former owner, it is yours by right. -If you want someones position, kill them. If you manage to you had the better argument. That is the fundamental of Telvanni society. Its not Neloth's character.
Funnily enough, I bought Skyrim complete edition after Dragonborn was released, and got the note about Mirak first. It actually worked so well as an intro for me to the franchise. I have a large nostalgic soft spot for this.
I forget exactly what triggers it, but there’s a point where Mirak will also start appearing when you slay a dragon and take its soul before you can…which can be a pretty driving factor to beat him 👀
@ I think it happens after you meet him in apocrypha for the first time. As a new Dragonborn with barely 2 previous dragons under my belt it was so frustrating (in a good way) when Mirak would take a dragon soul. It really made him feel so much stronger than me and like a big threat.
Tbh the most interesting lore bits that were introduced in the Dragonborn dlc are Azhidal’s and Vahlok’s fates and the continuation of Neloth’s storyline. (even though I never played Morrowind) I still wish that solstheim in Skyrim paid homage to morrowind’s draugr in the bloodmoon dlc and made them faster and more interesting and unique than just having them be the same as every Nordic ruin on the mainland.
Having Solstheim being no different mechanically than base game Skyrim is a shame. For dawnguard it kinda makes sense but there’s nothing the island of solstheim with its skaal natives and dunmer refugees does differently than the base dungeons of Skyrim. There’s nothing even for Lycanthropy other than a couple of lines of dialogue different than if you’re a base mortal, and adding a few sparse werebears, and you cannot even obtain the lycanthropic curse that turns you into a werebear. Raven Rock is a cool settlement but there isn’t enough to do and they have no real personality difference than any Skyrim base town. They don’t care if you are argonian or khajiit. There is more lore around a side character in Falx Carius than the explosion of red mountain and the fall of the Tribunal. I love the black books and the intersection of the dragon priests into Solstheim’s lore but everything else falls flat before SE/AE added ghosts of the tribunal and that isn’t even strictly canon.
On industrial progress in Tamriel: magic *is* industry in TES, and Skyrim has only grown more distrustful of it since the oblivion crisis. Yes, war can be a powerful driver of innovation; but The Great War, skyrim’s civil war and the dragons have siphoned Skyrim resources and attention to the point that they can no longer progress and are instead simply fighting to survive. Any hope of improvement in the future is ruined with a second great war on the horizon.
First of all, happy holidays and great work with these videos! I’ve been watching since the Skyrim analysis, and you bring up some great points in each one. Having said that, I can’t help but worry that you’re setting yourself up for disappointment story-wise with a lot of the big franchises out there (Ubi games, modern-day BGS & BioWare, etc.) Don’t get me wrong, I know every game has at least something of value, and that you’ve built your channel on storytelling (no one makes 1hr+ videos on something they don’t care about, after all.). But as I’ve aged as a gamer and nerd in general, I’ve come to realize that the big names don’t deserve fans that are this dedicated. Because the fans still care, and they’ve long since stopped caring.
You have some of the best critiques of Skyrim I’ve ever seen. I appreciate all the videos you’ve made so far but these are definitely my favorite. Looking forward to whatever you do next!
Around 22:00 you mention the possibility of the company hiring mercenaries to clear the dungeon, but now I'm wondering what mercenaries you could hire to take on a dragon priest? Does that even exist? I feel like you would have to partner with a real military or something
These Skyrim videos are perhaps the highest quality content on the entire platform. The way the unique complexities of the medium of video games are brought into the literary analysis is absolutely amazing to watch every time. Thanks for putting the time into these, I absolutely love them.
Man I’m I glad I kept getting your Chanel recommended. Great stuff. Also I’d recommend you play enderal (the complete conversion- whole new world and every thing). It’s the of mod that just fits your way of reading things. Also would love your perspective on it in six months.
I really loved your ac2 story critique, and i must say, I'm incredibly interested how you're going to continue on. You've made absolutely incredible content man! Best of luck with your next videos, while I watch this, then binge all the rest
This is my first video that the algorithm suggested! Just so you know what videos I've been watching to help you plan your keywords and stuff, I've been going through the videos of A Bard's Ballad and his oblivion content, Loopy Longplay for Oblivion, Grandma Shirley for Skyrim, and lots of writing and world building videos. My usual fare haha I thought it might help you pinpoint some of the commonalities between the videos to help you get more content seen out there. Cause I'd love to experience more videos like this and have more of you in the community. I loved the deep dive into the history, the possible inspirations or what they could have done to improve the storyline, etc... Your insights definitely help you stand out in the sea of Elder scrolls content and I'll definitely be back! Like/commented/subscribed 🙌 27:31 - this part made me truly laugh out loud even when I looked away to rescue something from the dog. And then had to rewind to see who Bethesda was beating to death by your tone alone 🤣
I replayed this dlc like, a week ago. I really enjoy the intimate small town vibes of raven rock and I think the dlc does a lot of cool stuff! I think you did a great job breaking down why the execution really doesn't work though, skyrim in general has these issues pretty prominently...
I just watched this in one go while the base game video has been in my Watch Later playlist for half a year. Guess it's finally time, thank you for the great content!
What’re the chances? This morning I got a notification that someone replied to my comment under the Assassin’s Creed 2 video and it reminded me that I’m waiting for the Dragonborn video and lo and behold he drops it
totally forgot that using bend will on miraak is not part of the original experience. i kept waiting for you to talk about it during the video and then realized it's not an option in the original dlc. still agree that we needed more miraak lore for it all to make sense, but being able to redeem miraak is an interesting choice. it's something geralt might do.
great analysis again !! absolutely killing it w these videos. the world of tamriel is absolutely fighting against the concept of civilization placed upon it - i think the series should explore w that what civilization means, going beyond the nation and the state as we know it as an alternate resolution but idk if they ever will lol.
Sorry this took so long, my other job has been keeping me pretty busy. Next up is Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood! I have plans for more Elder Scrolls stuff, at some point when I’m more familiar with the game I’ll cover Morrowind, if Oblivion gets that remaster I’ll probably use it as a chance to rework that rough first video and include the DLC, and I have plans for a smaller Skyrim video later this year. Thanks for watching! Happy holidays and happy new year!
Missed you, chief. Funnily enough I was about to rewatch that Oblivion video when I noticed the new upload
Really excited for the Brotherhood video, hope you touch on the whole Truth puzzles implying that the Templars transitioned the Divine Right of Kings into capitalism and CEOs
Need more oblivion material
Ty for doing it.
On the topic of the cities I think you would be pleasantly surprised by Morrowind settlements, I think out of all 3d TES games they feel the most lived in and thriving despite their size. But that's subjective
Now make a Narrative Critique of Horse Armor
A narrative critique of Hearthfire
I'll be honest, ripping all the CC content would be a fun 45 minute romp
@@AlolanRoy I think you could at least milk a solid 60 out of it
This! Should be a "short" narrative critique, so maybe only 4 hours?
is a 12 hour vid on horse armor and other amazing (s) in game purchases to much to ask for 😂
“Neloth is an interesting character. He’s selfish, he’s arrogant, and at multiple points he’ll send the Dragonborn into a deadly situation underprepared and he’ll be pleasantly surprised when we make it out alive. He has no respect for our legend, would scoff at the idea of power necessitating responsibility and his indifference towards everyone but himself won’t change no matter how closely we work with him. He might remind you of _someone else_ we end up working with in this DLC.”
In other words, he’s a model House Telvanni mage! Hell, he might even consider being compared to the likes of Hermaeus Mora as a bloody _compliment_ with how high off his own Bug Musk he is.
I mean, if gathering knowledge at all costs while retaining control of yourself despite being a bit warped by the process is your goal, then that comparison is a massive compliment!
Frankly that's why love Neloth as a character,that bug musk makes him hilarious and charming
The complete opposite reaction I get compared to Nazeem
Honestly Neloth's complete disregard for the player or others is something refreshing in a way, maybe there could be more chances to call him out on some things but he'll no doubt pompously scoff off such things. Like he's got his own gig and him not caring much about some walking incarnation of a nordic legend as a Dumner out in the boondocks kind of shows the world doesn't entirely revolve around the DB.
But maybe in some ways he does appreciate the DB's efforts in so far as what he can do for him, but without any sense of sentimental respect.
@@burningbox6660
Nazeem is the worst kind of snooty character. Hes barely fleshed out, he doesn’t interact with the player much at all outside of a few lines basically calling you poor. And worst of all, he doesn’t really have a home in game. He sleeps at the drunken huntsman. So he’s a hypocrite.
The family meal is cancelled, I have more pressing matters to attend
I love skyrim plot analysis because the person writing the analysis is almost always a better writer than the skyrim writers.
This is such a good way of putting it. Something so satisfying about it.
I heard all the good writers are actually in the Cloud District. I wouldn't know personally, though...
I feel this. Like based on the lore you can pick up from precious entries, especially Morrowind, I like to imagine that Elder Scrolls has some like DnD level world building even when it really doesn't. But you can just see the potential in it all. Whenever I go through my yearly Skyrim phase, I'd spend so much time just imagining what could be, the politics of the land that you explore. I guess that's just Bethesda's charm and why so many people, even to this day, mod the game
If you really think so when why would those people try to analysis a story written by worse writers ?
Maybe instead of trying to devalue Bethesda writers notice that people doing the analysis consider the story worth analyzing in the first place.
@@nickhard7615 skyrim and oblivion owe a lot to Morrowind and earlier lore. With how shitty writing is, imagine what would happen. Oh right, Starfield is what did
It's always absurd to me that not a single character mentions the possibility of the dragonborn having a claim on the imperial throne
As though he ain't gonna just usurp it after the events of Skyrim anyways. Nothing kills the dragon born, if I was him, I'd stroll on down to Cyrodil and park my ass on a throne.
Assuming they haven't just completely retconned the nature of the Dragonborn.
play the Rigmor of Bruma and Cryodiil mods and you'll get your wish
Do the dark brotherhood questline and join the imperial army. roleplay you’re the Dragonborn reclaiming the throne. When you kill the emperor, take his clothes and boom you’re the God Emperor
the need for a dragonborn emperor is gone. The dragonfires are permanently lit. The dragonborns child/heir wouldn't be dragonborn. It wouldn't make sense
About Miraak’s cultists killing off the Greybeards, I think that would have been really dumb. From a storytelling standpoint it makes sense for the mentor to die to motivate the hero, but also most of the Greybeards have to whisper anything they feel the need to say because their voices alone carry the raw power of a dragon, and even when they do whisper the very ground beneath you trembles. The idea that some cultist schmucks could walk up and kill the Greybeards is absolutely absurd.
Then maybe one of them is assassinated before the cultists themselves are, in turn, shouted out of reality so hard they end up in another Kalpa and that draws you to their monastery to start the quest.
Maybe an alternative would be the Dragonborn going to check on them only to find cultists bodies and a letter saying that they are leaving for a bit until things cool down. Would be in character for them to not want to directly do much about it and still have a somewhat similar impact to the story.
Personally I would at least have one of them die, if the cultists plan ahead, a sneak attack could probably get 1 of them.
True but they could at least have an attempt on the Greybeards lives have them do something interesting for once
I understand the idea of killing the mentor in order to get the hero to be committed to the cause. It’s a classic way to tell a story and has worked well before. However, I don’t think it would work well concerning the display of the Dragonborn, greybeards or how the game plays. The Dragonborn is an adventurer and yearns for challenges and fights akin to classical heroes. He doesn’t need a moral reason or vengeance to goad him towards Mirrak rather just the idea of mystery enticing does and adds to the independence of the character to chose why their Dragonborn did so as if it was for the death of the mentor than that may not mesh with their role playing experience. The Dragonborn like elder scrolls protagonists are meant to be completely blank slates (excluding Daggerfall to an extent) before the character gets their hands on them. They’re not Henry from KCD or geralt from the Witcher who have established personalities but rather are meant to be you.
And honestly that’s fine for me. Bethesda has tones of issues when it comes to writing but I understand the Players are meant to be explorers, adventures and knights who love to explore the unknown and challenges the world gives them.
Also it wouldn’t work because the quest starts right when you’re sent to get the horn, or right after I can’t remember, so it would break the game, they’d have to re do like half of the main quest which isn’t feasible for a dlc since they try not to affect the normal game as much to avoid corrupting your game. That’s why most dlc stuff is cordoned off into another area off the map.
I wonder if Mora's "At last, the Skaal's secrets are mine" and Storn's "You... liar..." is supposed to mean that Mora deliberately allowed Miraak in Apocrypha to set up an eon-spanning plan to use the threat of Miraak's return as a way to ensure that the Skaal are pressured into giving up their secrets.
That fits Mora’s personality
Mora is the Prince of Fate. He can see how events set into motion will eventually unravel. His entire realm is knowing everything, be it the written word or what comes in the future
Which is why I think the idea of making him the villain is…not workable. Its like trying to stab Cthulu. You arent *scratching* Mora and you sure as hell aren’t outsmarting the Prince of Knowledge. And your in his realm. Your inside of him.
He probably didn't start for that reason, given that the skaal are the descendants of the people who lived on the island at the time and would have just been dragon cultists back then. That said I can easily see him being behind the methodology of Miraak's return to get that skaal knowledge, but the timing is clearly because he wanted an upgrade in minions given the whole fated to kill Alduin thing.
no, it's worse :
Think about all the knowledge and secrets the dragonborn learned : thu'hums, paarthurnax, etc...
Miraak was not free to act without the permission of Mora.
Even during the oblivion crisis, when there was no frontiers between tamriel and oblivion, or apocrypha, miraak never could make a move.
Butn eventually, came someone who has read THREE elders scrolls, who freed the oghma infinium, who learn the secrets of the dwemers, and of the falmers, and that a dragon was alive during milleniums, someone who has learned more voices of power thant the greybeard, etc...
The secrets of the skaals never has been the purpose of mora.it's just... a bonus.
But now, he made a pact with someone who knows more secrets and weild more knowledge than anyone, except Psijjics (and theses one already served Sithis) ever had.
Remember well the lesson of Boethia and Sanguyin : act as you want, thats what daedras demands.
@sunbro-s6d Except that Mora probably knew almost all of that already, he may or may not have already known Dragon Rend but he certainly knew all the shouts you found on walls as they were all written down. The issue with the skald was the tension between written and oral traditions. The elder scrolls thing may or may not give him anything, and the ogma infinium is literally his dadric artifact. As for the dwarves he probably knows the vast majority of lore about them only missing what Kagranak failed to write down about his work and exactly what(or right) went wrong with his experiment.
@@TheMichaellathrop here is the list of all the shouts used by miraak : Become Ethereal, Cyclone, Dragon Aspect, Fire Breath, Frost Breath, Unrelenting Force, Whirlwind Sprint.
All the shouts learned during dawnguard dlc are missing, and a lot of the shouts kept by the other dragon priests.
Thunder, Etheral form, etc...
Nothing gives us any clues or proofs that Mora or Miraak knows about Paarthurnaax being alive,
Nothing gives usany proof that Mora knows the truth about the falmers, and this chapter is not in the books of kargenac. His book "divine metaphysic" talk about the creation ofthe Numidium, but there is not a word about the falmer in it.
This is fairly normal, considering that IRL this book his written for Morrowind.
And Mora says, basically "thank you, i needed someone to free the oghma, now that you have proven youreself more worthy than this shmuck i perverted, kill him, plz"
Like Boethiawith his own champion, or Peyrite, or Malacath, or Nocturne...
And the oghma was, indeed, kept hidden from the world until the dragon borne's intervention. And he his his champion, even if he tries to deny it :
" I am not your champion, monster.
"Who do you think brought Septimus here? Who do you think protected you on your journey to open the box and loose my knowledge on this world?
Your free will is an illusion. Whether you acknowledge me or not is your own business. But I will be in your mind.""
And you cannot be more wrong about the scrolls.
The Elder scrolls are even above aedras. Even Lorkhan does not know what is written in the scrolls, they are the manifestation of the dreamer, a force exterior to the universe,
He MAY be the god of the skaals.
But... that is unsure, we do'nt know what secrets Mora learned. But he knows everything the dragon learned, a minima since he met Septimus for the first time and learned about the first scroll.
And, Mora is Mora. If you put a random number of wheat grain in your hand, he NEED to know exactly how much there are.
Once again, the WILL does not matters here : Whoever discovers the most secrets is de facto Mora champion. And Mora, de facto, has to know everything.
"your free will is an illusion Wether you aknowledge me or not is your own buisness
but i WILL be in your mind"
"You thought to reject me, and yet here you are. Your journey towards enlightenment has finally led you here, to my realm, as I knew it would."
26:23 there’s also a huge issue with the assassination quest - there’s no crime being committed. Within Dunmer society, hiring the Morag Tong to murder someone is perfectly legal. The whole purpose of the Tong is so that the Great Houses can settle disputes without open war. Every House, including the Redoran, make use of the Tong (they even had a guild hall in Under-Skar prior to the Red Year), so the fact that the Hlaalu hiring them is treated as a crime punishable by death is ridiculous. And then you go murder the entire Tong presence on the island? No Dunmer would ever do that!
I think the implication is that dunmer society has collapsed, meaning it's not a lesser evil anymore just an act of aggression.
I'm not sure if it's ever stated explicitly that *only* the Great Houses can make use of them, but I'm fairly certain that's the case, and Hlaalu is no longer a Great House. Therefore, the writ is not legitimate, and the whole thing is reduced to the level of foul murder-for-hire. That they're referred to as a "rival Great House" is definitely a mistake in the dialogue. Sadras is the house that replaced them.
@ I actually never considered that might be the case. I can’t find any lore saying one way or another. However, I will say that in Morrowind playing through the faction you get a lot of contracts that it wouldn’t really make sense for a Great House member to put out. I don’t know.
Yeah there's a big conflict between how the Morag Tong are presented in lore and how it actually plays out. Hell, between the three Great House questlines, I think they might be relevant *once* in the Hlaalu line, and that might just be me misremembering all the times I've mixed up the council building and Morag Tong guildhall in Balmora. Oh, and you kill one in a Telvanni chore, but him being Morag Tong is largely irrelevant and nothing comes of it.
@@KosmonautKongredoran questline has you defend someone from a tong assassination attempt
Miraak: I am the first Dragonborn, with thousands of years of study
TLB: Consider the following: 100 smithing 100 enchanting 100 alchemy 100 2-handed 100 heavy armor 100 sneak….
Bill Nye the Dragon Guy, "Consider the following!"
Somehow, the player character becomes far more frightening under the premise of SCIENCE!
Miraak: "Fool, what power could you possibly have to compare to me?"
TLB: "Well, i spent several hours making dwarf bows, using bunny souls to make kitchen knives that banish demons, and brewing tons of potions that let me be an Argonian for half a minute."
Miraak: "...crap."
Consider this wooden toy that does 2 billion damage slapping ya face
1:24:22 So it's been a while and I might be misremembering, but afaik basically all the water in Tamriel isn't "just" water, it's also a materialisation of all the forgotten memories and the minds of those past. Pretty much all information held by mortal minds has/ will find it's way into the waters of this world. Mora's realm has an abundance of waters itself, which could be inferred to be all of the knowledge he's gathered that doesn't take a written form, so all those memories and oral traditions that never made it into text would be within the water. With that in mind, the fact the water in Mora's realm is stagnant, murky, and toxic is suggestive of the way Mora collects knowledge but then sits on it like a hoard.
Unlike most of those we see throughout Skyrim, the waters here aren't flowing; the information isn't getting passed on, or at least not nearly enough for the amount there is, and so with nowhere to go it just sits there and festers, and we end up with this mouldy half drowned library of a world. It's a place of gathered knowledge, but from what we can reasonably infer it's mostly neglected knowledge that isn't being regularly shared or put to substantial use, which is somewhat in line with Hermaeus Mora's hunger for knowledge and apathetic tone towards just about everything else.
The colour scheme is reasonably within question but I think it does help sell the vibe; that green cloudy sky paired with the murky still waters and piles of books strewn about means you can practically smell the place, the damp and the mould.
The problem is that afaik there's nothing in game that tells us this fact about water in TES, certainly nothing that's put front and centre, and without knowing that Mora's realm becomes just a stereotypical damp and slimy lovecraftian setting without much justification for it besides that he's an eldritch blobby tentacle thing. It is those things, but it does at least feel more appropriate imo when you know what the water is, and thus can interpret what the nature of the water in Mora's realm says about him.
Also with your conclusion at 2:04:22 there's something really poetic about your point that Skyrim "wants to always be there" considering the main story had us fending off Alduin on account of the threat that he'd bring about end the world.
If this is true (too tired to verify it rn), that is simultaneously possibly the coolest and most disturbing elder scrolls lore I have learned yet because then people are bathing in and drinking memories and that just feels strange. lol I love your comment about the contrast between the waters in Mora’s realm and what we see in Skyrim/Tamriel too.
You are right! IIRC this is lore that MK introduced (correct me if im wrong on that front though), but ESO kind of ran with & you can see it in a few quests there. Water holding memory is considered in the world of tamriel to be a closely guarded secret that only Hermaeus Mora and a scant few others know, so his realm being FULL of water makes sense.
Oh d%mn, I didn't know that about the water. That's really neat.
Apocrypha's "water" is actually ink.
Love the videos, you're one of the few people who truly "analyze" things and not just recap the plot. Merry Christmas, hope you are doing well!
ITS A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!
A christmas miraakle
A saturalia miraakle
I think why I love the Dragonborn DLC is exactly why its pretty frustrating to play. The story has the potential to be SO much, to give us a very nuanced antagonist that is a mirror of ourself. But there's very clearly so much that was left out, and that gap is what fascinates me so much. Miraak had the potential to be so incredibly compelling, the throw away lines where he ponders having his soul eaten, where he says he regrets that he has to kill his only kin in the world. There's so much sorrow surrounding him, and he's willing to create leagues more to try and end his imprisonment. How much of the cruelty we see displayed in his temple was real or for show? How much of it still reflects his mindset? What does he think about Valok? Does he have the same half heart compassion for him as he does us? How much of his hubris is just bravado masking fear? Killing alduin would have made him insanely powerful, so why didn't he? I dont buy that he just didn't feel like it, I think he was and is scared. Skyrim in general is so frustrating cause the lore is so compelling, but its expressed so little and so poorly that it leaves you wanting.
Sidenote, I also don't fully get why we HAVE to go kill Miraak. Once we destroy his hold on Solstheim. That leaves a pretty solid gap for the Skaal to protect the totems/shrines. We could do that, but instead we waltz in to potentially offer up our powerful soul to him? For what? He's not going anywhere. The game never really gives us any real reason why we have to go and offer ourself up more to Mora.
You know ive listened to a LOT of Skyrim retrospectives over the years as youtube retrospectives are my favorite mental distraction at work. But 6 minutes in you have already asked the most compelling questions ive ever heard anyone ask, that is commendable im excited to hear the rest of this.
My greatest frustration with "Dragonborn" is the Bend Will Shout's lack of utility across the in-game world.
This Shout doesn't even allow the player character to manipulate the minds of NPCs in any practical way.
@@drewgoin8849 Enter "why Larian Studios stopped and level 6 spells in Baldur's Gate 3?" Bend Will is literally what would happen if Larian added higher level spells in BG3 people would try to do in a game RPG what they can do in a TRPG, which with currently technology is impossible. So the best we can do with Bend Will is tame a dragon and fly in circles.
@@LuizFelipe-lk1hs to be fair they could've just excluded some of those spells. I mean owlcats pathfinder crpg games let you get to level 20 and pathfinder is similar dnd in how its spell levels work. They just don't include stuff like wish on the spell list because it would be impossible to accomodate. But tbh 5e's high level spells are rather disappointing imo, ill never forgive them for what they did to Weird. In older editions/pathfinder(heavily based on 3.5e) if you fail both saves you just straight up die. In 5e you take a paltry amount of damage for the level you'd be at to have someone be able to cast weird on you.
I think introducing Frea just to immediately kill her off would be worse and more nonsensical than the story already is, especially considering the fact that the player barely knows Frea by that point. I really hate the trope of introducing characters just to kill them off for emotional fodder. I do agree that they should have made Miraak more evil, but killing off Frea is not the way to do it. I also think that cultists killing off the Greybeards is equally nonsensical, especially considering how powerful the Greybeards are. Yes, they are peaceful monks, but they can also kill a man with a whisper. Do you genuinely think those cultists could touch them? I don't think so.
I agree with that statement. I do not care for Frea as character, mostly because we are not given reason to do so. So I believe killing her off for cheap drama wouldn't be better than what we actually got, instead she could be more fleshed out, basically make us care for her same as in Dawnguard DLC, but in different way with different character archetype. I know it wouldn't be perfect solution, but considering how bad skyrim writing is, it would still seem like one of best parts of game
yeah, for every point this guy raises about the flaws of the story, he offers alternatives that are 10 times as trope-y and insufferable.
I love love LOVE the part about how the sprawling wilds in most high fantasy worlds are likely to be conquered and colonized at some point in the future. It's so well-written, and not a point I see made often. Kudos.
The reason the DB can't say no to Herma Mora is because Bethesda needs an excuse to remove the DB from the world for TeS 6 as they did with Hero of Kvatch and Morrowind character.
Tes6 we’ll be playing as the nerevarine mark my words
I personally do not believe that the player character is able to meaningfully pledge his/her soul to any Daedric Prince.
The Dragonborn is empowered by either Sheor or Kyne, depending on one's interpretation of the in-game lore. The mythological Dovahkiin is destined to oppose Akatosh's agent of destruction and rebirth. This central piece of mythology transcends any contract to serve Herma Mora and his fellow Princes.
@drewgoin8849 Except, generally Daedra make mincemeat of Aedra due to their nature. Also, in the end, a DB is still a mortal. They can become a vampire and a werewolf, which is of the domain of daedra.
@@drewgoin8849 yeah I don't think any dadric Prince could actually take their soul they'd have to fight akatosh for it and they'd be erased from reality if they tried
Haven't watched yet but just want to say here that I appreciate the style with which you do video game narrative analysis. I feel that a lot of other people who do this style of video essay often try to cover too much without much focus or even a consistent thesis while you are succinct and deliberate in your approach. Plus I can fall asleep to your videos almost nightly.
One thing that's often missed about Solstheim as an environment is that it very deliberately resembles early-modern Greenland. It's an island at the frontier of Imperial (European) society. You've got the Nords/Skaal as a close parallel to the medieval Norse, who vanished in the 15th century but were rumoured to still be alive somewhere along the coast. You've got the Imperial settlers who parallel the Danish settlers in the 18th century (and the East Empire Company which parallels the Royal Greenland Trade). And most significantly you've got the Rieklings, whose physicality is a very close approximation of the way Inuit people (called Skraelings by the Norse) were represented on European maps - small and basically non-human. In Skyrim there's a quest where you are forced to confront your assumptions about the Rieklings when they clearly show sentience, language, and complex social systems. There's so much going on in the way different societies interact and fundamentally misunderstand each other in Solstheim, and while there were golden moments in Dragonborn, I really wish they had done more with that fascinating situation.
I found it funny that Morrowind's "Bloodmoon" DLC includes a character at the Thirsk Mead Hall (a Breton named Bereditte Jastal) who is visiting to study the culture and write books about the Skaal. Meanwhile, Skyrim's "Dragonborn" DLC features Tharston in the Skaal Village serving an identical purpose.
A narrative critique on Riverrun next?
The Westerosi castle?
@@pastlife960 2:17
What are you guys on about?
@@APOCKALYPTICIn the video the guy accidentally says "Riverrun" instead of Riverwood, Riverrun is from game of thrones' world Westeros
@@APOCKALYPTIC2:17
About the EIC hiding the Nordic ruin from people who might want to explore it, the Empire was already doing this kind of thing back in Morrowind (the game and the province) with Dwemer ruins, even making treasures from those ruins a contraband item for most people, and mostly for the same reason: because otherwise too many people would try to loot the ruins, and most of them would just get themselves killed by automatons. (Well, the devs didn't actually implement any possibility for the player character to get in trouble for looting and selling Dwemer items, but the ban does come up in a couple of quests)
generic dialoge does exit to justify the lack of any restrictions on selling dwemer artifacts(and ebony) saying that trading in it is too lucrative for even otherwise upstanding merchants to pass up on even if the actual gold value on all dwemer items is too low for me to find that belivable for those
The brief exploration of Game Designer Gregory absolutely killed me. Thanks for the laugh.
...the other 2 hours of highly entertaining and thoughtful critique was good too, i guess.
Senile scribbles perfectly captured the essence of miraaks speech, that’s cannon as I see
10:30 Yeah, this issue is EXTREMELY noticable. Some random bandit wants to fleece me for gold? Bruh, I'm literally wearing the crystalized blood of a god possessed by a deadra, why would you and your crappy leather armor think it's at all reasonable to try and steal gold from me? Or how NONE of the mages in the game even THINK about talking to you if you're a mage, they just attack on sight. Honestly, with how 90% of mages in Skyrim attack on sight, it's perfectly reasonable to be mistrustful of mages. Or how that one wandering orc calls you a milk drinker despite being the effective leader of the Companions. I can't even get a discount buying mage supplies despite being the literal archmage of the highest magical authority in Skyrim. I'm a vampire and accidentally stumble upon a coven of vampires? Not so much as a simple warning to leave as kindness for being a fellow vampire, they just attack. Nazeem or Maven Blackbrair insults me again as they walk past? Bruh, I don't have some thieves and assassins in my pockets, I OWN those thieves and assassins PLUS mages, warriors, and LITERAL DRAGONS. Why I can't intimidate Maven or Nazeem when I can literally kill gods is beyond me. Hell, CLAVICUS VILE of all people acknowledges you if you're strong enough. If you ask him to I think bring peace to Skyrim, he straight up asks you why you're asking him, and he tells you that you're MORE than strong enough to do it on your own. The ONLY other time I've seen my status be reflected in Skyrim is when that random event mage seeks me out and wants to duel because I'm a great mage. Other than that, nothing.
The primary and overshadowing reason for this is voice acting. It is expensive and time-consuming, and reactive dialogue naturally makes the amount of voice lines you have to do skyrocket. In short, if your game is fully voice-acted, it will almost by definition less reactive than a non-voiced game made at the same budget could be.
A secondary reason is scripting, which applies regardless of whether your game is voiced or not. The more reactive your game is, the more of a buggy mess it risks becoming, because more complicated code will have to be written.
It is, in short, both difficult and expensive to make a quest or dungeon care about your level, vampire status, gear or whatever. Bethesda went for the option to provide truly staggering amounts of content, but that came at the cost of (among other things) reactivity and narrative cohesion. Personally, I would've preferred that they cut 60-70% of the content in the game and made the rest more narratively satisfying and reactive, but perhaps then it wouldn't have sold as well.
Either way, that Skyrim (a game that came out in 2011!) is both as large and as reactive as it is, is arguably a miracle.
@@asgerlakkenborg2435 what a beautifully grounded take.
I think the dying feel of the cities and the likes does work well with the idea that this was supposed to be a world going to end as it's kalpa came to an end by Alduin devouring it all. Just, the game fails to lean in on this hard enough due to it's constant problem of never using what it has put out to great enough effect. A fear of comitting to it's own story. In a way Alduin could have easily represented that feeling everyone has had at some point about the world: that it's too broken for repair, beyond salvaging, and would be better to let it all burn and then start from scratch without any of those complex issues. Alduin being stopped left a world that needs to find a way forward despite it's broken state. Night falls with uncertainty.
The Harkon alligned vampires would then have been a manifestation of this decay deciding to fully play their hand, the parasitic force that has fed on the world as befitting of vampires that deal in decay, plots, and trickery. Amplifying and worsening all problems until the mask fully slips off and now they are ready to just take over uncaring of how destructive it is by eliminating the last safeguard in place (the literal sun) stopping them from total omnipresent rule. Their fall would represent one element that amplifies the woes of the world being rid of, and be a slight sliver of dawn in the still long night ahead. A spark of hope that can either be fed, or allowed to flicker and fade. Given to all, or to the select few.
Miraak in this scenario would have represented a fallen power of old who is someone waiting to fill the power vaccuum. A being that steps out of the dead of night. Incapable of learning that this will only repeat the cycle rather than lead to anything new - though for Miraak, this is just fine, as it's not about the new: only their way. Power and domination. The old ways, but channeled to serve him as their new master. Miraaks defeat would cement the old as being gone, never to return. There is only forward, the past shall not claim rule to the future. It would also signal that dawn is far away, and that this night plays host to far worse monstrosities in the form of Hermaeus Mora. Things that will truly underline how important it is that this path forward is chosen, less all become their playthings. The primordial cost of failure made manifest.
I could also be cheeky and say that the Heartfire building dlc could easily be slotted in to come last or in any which order. A need to build, and for the Dragonborn who has seen so much to construct their own quarters around the region. Never staying in one for too long, as there is much to be done, but yearning to occasionally kick back and relax for a safe nights rest. One does weather the night far more comfortable with a roof over their head. While also allowing these private estates to serve as little footholds for fledgeling communities to begin forming around with the wandering Dragonborn always ready to swoop in and extinguish any trouble. It does take more than simply a sword to guide the world towards a new tomorrow.
I have to say it feels very dark souls. Except in Skyrim the question of whether to let the world end to make place for the next or to push the world beyond its intended ending to preserve what exists there is never really up for debate. The world has to go on, no matter how broken. (Honestly might be an apt metaphor for bethesda and the elder scrolls franchise)
bro this actually made me tear up, good stuff.
my favorite part of TH-cam comments is stumbling upon a dissertation written with professional skill. This comment screams "competent creative writer". I really enjoyed reading this, thanks for dropping it for free in a comment section. 👍
@@OswaldStretchdisaz My pleasure. I do enjoy writing dearly. I am pleasantly surprised for the positive reception too. Kinda taken aback too. It's one of those funny moments where I just wrote something up on the spot and it seems to have turned out far better than I saw it turning out.
To me I always thought the world of Skyrim (while not done well enough) was meant to convey a world on the brink like you mentioned above. Skyrim takes place a setting that’s pretty much collapsing in terms of society, order and even reality with Alduin, mirrak and harkon. But even before that the empire is collapsing, red mountain exploded, a Great War occurred and Skyrim is going through a civil war which tears apart the continent which I always thought was the reason for all the bandits as they’d naturally take advantage of the lawlessness of the countryside.
The clear message to me was Skyrim was already in collapse before the dragons show up and the world of elder scrolls is too.
I also really like your take on hearth fire. Intentional or not by Bethesda I like the idea of the dragon starting to settle down and build after adventuring and putting the world to somewhat rest. Also, to me it’s very heartwarming for the characters to take care of the innocent (children) after dealing with lovecraftian monsters and world ending nightmares showing that the characters understands their good worth fighting for.
I don't mind the lurkers. A giant hulking innsmouther is a decent idea.
Ah hell yeah, after a real viewing this is going straight into the sleepytime playlist
Wake up 😈
having a sleep playlist is genius
Bro I just finished all your other retrospectives this is the best Christmas gift!!!
While I think there's many different problems with the writing in Skyrim and I never like to pin all writing/design issues on a single wonk, the thing that always comes to my mind when I look back on the storytelling in Skyrim and the Dragonborn DLC's main quests is that they fail to establish the villains as significant threats, nevermind giving them interesting characterisation.
In the base game, Alduin is simply not established as proper threat. He isn't active enough in the game, doesn't have much presence, and there isn't any specific villainous plot that you are foiling. The worst thing he personally does in the game is destroy Helgen at the very start, and then he goes around ressurecting dragons, and nothing in the game ever indicates that he or any other dragons have any clear and organised ideas and plans of what they're going to do next. There's no sense of urgency at all in the main plot (which I'll bring up again in a bit), no feeling of "we have to do *blank* in order to stop Alduin from doing *blank*". It's more just they say that Alduin is back, that him and all his dragons are nasty bad dudes and they have to go. This takes away from the random dragon encounters (and the mystique of the dragons in general), as they come across more like territorial wild animals than ancient pseudo-angelic beings from before the dawn of time who used to rule the world (do note that I don't like that second idea for dragons anyway, I'd prefer if they were just intelligent and powerful creatures who used to rule the world, rather than all the weird lore stuff surrounding their background, IE I like them to be more traditional). Finally, on top of all this there's the dual facts that:
A) we defeat Alduin once before his final defeat and he just runs away before his next fight which is essentially identical, which just makes him seem cowardly and unthreatening as a villain.
B) Both fights against Alduin are done with forced allies by our sides, so we never go one-on-one against our destined opponent which is a bit disappointing.
This lack of threat/characterisation extends to the rest of the dragons, who have a total of 4 dragon characters who are given any proper attempts at characterisation (Alduin, Paarthurnax, Odahviing, and then Durnehviir in Dawnguard), and what little is there is extremely thin. I have a distinct memory of reading the back of Skyrim's CD case where they specifically used the phrase "the only one who can stand *amongst* them" rather than *against* them, which before I first played the game back in 2011 made me imagine there'd be a more diverse and more fleshed out selection of dragon characters that you'd get to interact with, but alas it is not so. The lack of characterisation also extends onto all of the dragon cult related content, draugr, dragon priests and their old ruins. There's a handful of isolated storylines in a few dungeons (for example Forelhost: en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Forelhost), but for the most part the game doesn't delve very deeply into the dragon cult's background which I thought was pretty damn strange in the game where their history would be most important. It's understandable considering the length of time since the cult's heyday that information on them would be somewhat scarce, but I would expect there to be fairly strong oral histories preserved, even if we ignore the existence of the many word walls in burial places that usually tell stories, so there's not really any excuses for occasionally shining more of a spotlight on the dragon cult and what went on (or supposedly went on) in the olden days, outside of the handful of lore books that might bring it up. In terms of threat, it's kind-of sort-of implied that Alduin has a lot of undead draugr dragon cultists under his control, but again it's not really established firmly or focused on a lot, and there isn't much of a sense that there's an organised draugr threat to be concerned about, and even if there is no use of this tool is made by Alduin during the course of the game (like attempting to use them to conquer stuff, or capture some artifact or something).
Now about the urgency of the plot, this is something of tight rope that devs have to walk when writing the stories. If you make the main threat too urgent in games like this then it goes against the open world nature and the player is left feeling either like they're forced to complete the main quest lest any of their other adventures feel out of place, or like they have to just ignore the main quest and pretend it isn't there in order to enjoy the side content. Oblivion ended up in the first camp (where the main plot was just too urgent and the villains too powerful and close to victory for us to have a justifiable in-game sense of having the time to get distracted by side-quests and such). If you make the main threat not urgent enough, then you end up with villains like Alduin who everyone claims is actually a massive threat, honest!... But in practice comes across as completely toothless and clueless, with no clear ambitions or goals or evil plots to foil.
I am admittedly loath to praise Morrowind for much, but it did strike a perfect balance in terms of plot urgency vs player freedom. The entire plot and setting is established such that the player can take as long as they need to defeat the villain, and the player is even encouraged during the main quest to take a break and go and do side content at several points during the main quest. Dagoth Ur is a threat to everyone, but not in the immediate sense. He *is* currently causing problems like the blight, and he *is* gathering sleeper agents and collecting influence, but he is not going to put his plans into action for a long time yet, so the villain has ambitions and plots to be foiled, but the player also has the freedom to go exploring and side-questing without it feeling out of character to do so.
And there you go, there's a collection of rambling thoughts about the writing in some of the TES games (and probably not particularly original ramblings at that). I like different pieces of different TES games, and it's a franchise where I think the "they all do some things right but other things wrong" idea rings true. As little good as it might do, I do like talking about them sometimes.
Man this video has such great comments your included. Echoing some thoughts my scrambled brain would never let me get fully written down.
Skyrim is a game of if only, great base but feels like it was never fully realized. The little connections are sometimes there but you can't do anything about them. A big one I point to is the Thalmor dossier on ulfric, imagine being able to explain to ulfric he is playing into their hand, have him come to that realization and take the war directly to them, joining with the imperials and sacking the embassy, or something.
Also agree on it being a very fine line in writing a narrative in an open world setting, one that I have run into and done improperly on both ends in my 15 years as a tabletop GM. It can be quite difficult to run a sandbox campaign( or an open world video game) with a main antagonistic force, it is hard to create tension by having a villain with plots they will succeed on without intervention from the player/party but not have it feel like they need to ignore the farmer who's wife was kidnapped because if they don't stop the main villain they will win by next morning. I don't have a good answer, I wish I did but its a struggle I still have to this day.
Skyrim is a game that is a marvelous shut your brain off adventure, with open ended gameplay choices. It has little narrative choices besides do or don't do, but you don't actually refuse to do it and have backlash you just let the quest stare at you from the quest log. The lore is most exciting thing about the game, but they rarely bring that deep and often insane lore to the forefront. On its surface its a pretty generic fantasy story and thats what the average person playing it would think, which is a shame because TES has some of the most unique lore for a fantasy setting and it should feel like anything but generic.
No way! I just rewatched your main game retrospective yesterday and was gonna rewatch dawnguard today. Cheers!
Mora has so many copies of the lusty argonian maid that he actually uses it as building material lol
Great video! Glad to see you're back. I'd like to offer one story beat that I think would solve a lot (or just a few) of the issues you identified with the plot: scrap Frea's special necklace, and make Miraak mind control our Dragonborn into killing Frea. That's why we have to deal with Herma Mora; we cannot risk a Dragonborn like ourselves falling under Miraak's control. Also makes him a more insidious villain because it further highlights his true threat: not as someone with Dragon shouts but as someone who can destroy the agency of the free-thinking people in Tameriel. Even throw in some extra backstory where he originally learned this power to win agency away from the Dragons but he instead got corrupted by it and suddenly he's a very compelling villain.
i think that's a great idea
Neloth is probably my favorite Skyrim character. I absolutely love his voice acting and his unadulterated arrogance and pride.
Imagine if when you first meet Miraak with Frea, after monologuing at us how powerful he is and how he will first conquer Solstheim and then Tamriel with an army of dragons, you get a few choices to respond with before he uses his power of Bend Will to control the player into killing Frea. This would not only make the player motivated to kill Miraak, it would also show that he is powerful and a threat that needs to be dealt with. In the Scald village we could then learn, either from Storn or Mora that the only way to shield your mind from Miraak's power is to also learn it.
Manipulating the player character into killing Frea would eliminate one of Storn's biggest personal motivations to protect the secrets of the Skaal.
If Frea's amulet of protection ceases to serve a function, Storn would be more willing to surrender his people's magical/cultural esoteric knowledge to Herma Mora.
I've been waiting so long for this it feels like a christmas gift.
38:48 You inspired me man. I'm going to make a mod that expands on Miraak by giving him a final conversation before the final battle. I still don't know if it's doable, but I sort of made it work with Serana, so I might be able to do something with Miraak. Do you mind if I take notes from your essay? It's really good!
I use your mod I think, thanks for all your work :)
@@bonnnetwork Serana Dialogue Expansion? Yes, that's me. I hope you enjoyed it! :D
@@garmagictes5399Oh awesome! I've had a really good time with the mod. Great work
Oh my God I didn't think you'd make this! Looks like christmas came exactly on time. Thank you for another critique, I love these videos!
It's the return of the king, welcome back good sir.
Thank you for this, excellent narrative critique. There's so many shallow retrospectives, but I always feel I learn something new with yours! Looking forward to more 💚
I feel like using "Kyne peace" for different ending might have been cool, like partysnax can teach us how to calm or pacify dragons to not attack us or maybe help us (ingame it can be perk or boost like you get when meditating) . Kyne peace can also be used to break the control of mirrak.
This is genuinely an awesome idea, the narrative of following the way of the voice to overcome the subversion of power to evil would be so satisfying
Seems a lot of people have been rewashing your other skyrim videos. Alas, I'll have to catch this one tomorrow. Thanks for thr early Christmas present!!
Rewashing? I hope they get extra clean then.
Can't wait to fall asleep to this several times over the next month, eventually absorbing all of the information in chunks when I wake up randomly to pee or skip chapters to get to the parts I slept through the night before.
One big issue I have with this otherwise excellent analysis is that it could have delved deeper into examining Solstheim through the lens of its initial depiction in Morrowind. The essence of the land, particularly the Skaal, is firmly established in that earlier portrayal. While Skyrim regrettably retcons much of this lore, if you suspend disbelief and bridge the Morrowind canon with the Miraak narrative introduced in Skyrim, Solstheim emerges as a vital element in any story set there, not merely a backdrop.
I agree completely, while there is some mentions of blood moon with the wear bears and some references I wish they did more to tie it back to that dlc. bloodmoon and Dragonborn I thought were always cool dlc as morrowind lets you explore a bit of skyrim and then Skyrim lets you explore a bit of Morrowind.
Well I think he's coming at by basing it on the content in DB, I haven't played Blood Moon, so DB was my first time in Solsthiem. Connecting to Blood Moon would be talking about content not in DB
@@rdc1279 Yeah but he is talking a lot about the history of Raven Rock and its context for the story. So I think it would be beneficial to further that background.
how little he's mentioned morrowind in any of his videos leads me to believe that he hasn't played it yet. i'm super excited for when he does
2:41 RIVERRUN🤔 GOT ALERT
Riverwood
@ riverrun
@@emilysimmons3517 riverhold? 🤣
That part in the middle where you talk about how this world feels like it’s best days are behind it is so perfect because like, literally yes. The modern times in TES are literally just worse than the past. Teleportation is a lost magic (except for the psijics, but they just refuse to tell anyone anything). Levitation was illegalized and is now basically lost as well. The Dwemer, the most advanced race ever on Tamriel, all disappeared. The Dunmer’s golden age died with the Tribunal. Atmora, yokuda, and aldmeris (if that one ever existed) are gone, and akavir might die as well. The divines now barely interact with the world, while the daedra are becoming more and more bold (and possibly more treacherous, but that could just be a Skyrim thing). Winterhold is gone, Skyrim has lost all of its strongest warriors and mages. Cyrodil was unbelievably damaged by the oblivion crisis. The thalmor exist. Everything about the world of Nirn has gone downhill, and it’s entirely possible we’re entering the end of this kalpa and the beginning of the next.
I do have to give Bethesda some credit for actually trying to make their DLCs have more depthful stories. I think having a bigger, more self-contained storyline instead of 12 smaller inconsequential storylines gives them an opportunity to focus on what actually makes a story interesting. Far Harbor is by far the best part of Fallout 4, and while Dragonborn isn't quite as good as Far Harbor, I feel the same way. I actually look forward to playing the dragonborn questline and visiting Solstheim when I play Skyrim, where I'll actively avoid massive parts of the base game.
What ive learned about these critiques is that Bethesda likes to raise or hint at complex problems or situations but is not interested or willing to explore these scenarios outside of what would a murder hobo in DND do.
I listen to the first two videos every night because it’s just so good, this is a dream that there’s a third now
Foaming at the mouth for this. I adore your videos and I cannot get enough of this! Thank you for the wonderful Christmas gift.
I think mechanically speaking DB is the best dlc (which isn’t a hard contest tbh), adding in the black books, new dragon shouts and priest masks, all the new tiers of gear can’t be understated for what they added to the mid-end game of a skyrim playthrough
Skyrim’s a funny lil game. There’s… so, so, *so* many good ideas in its stories, quests, narratives, whatevs, great concepts. But they feel unfinished, like a solid first draft of a really good story. Full of holes and with a rushed ending where the writer started to run out of steam and where they should’ve come back and patched it up after taking a breather.
Same with the game mechanics, half baked good ideas that come out as “yeah it’s alright”. When you put it altogether it’s very engaging and I think it stands as a gameplay experience but any one thing you pick apart is like turning a corner, expecting to see something great and instead seeing something that’s just… fine.
I got your first two critiques on skyrim in my recommended a couple weeks ago and now i get one over dragonborn. This is a great christmas surprise
You say you like Neloth, but unfortunately he is just the idea of a telvanni wizard, they have laws like:
-If you steal something, and manage to kill the former owner, it is yours by right.
-If you want someones position, kill them. If you manage to you had the better argument.
That is the fundamental of Telvanni society. Its not Neloth's character.
Woke up Christmas morning and was surprised with this. A great gift!
This is honestly a pretty good video! Keep it up man! You got potential, and a new subscriber
I watch your videos almost every other night. So stoked for this!
I have been waiting and checking my notifications for this video.
Thanks for this Christmas gift
found your channel merely days ago and was ready to wait a long time for this one, but fortunately i don’t have to, it’s a christmas miracle
Merry Christmas. Thank you for the best gift anyone could ever ask for.
This has been one of the greates Christmas presents I have ever gotten, smoething I wanted but didn't even fathom to happen. Love your videos
I was just thinking about this, what an amazing Christmas gift!!
Funnily enough, I bought Skyrim complete edition after Dragonborn was released, and got the note about Mirak first. It actually worked so well as an intro for me to the franchise. I have a large nostalgic soft spot for this.
I forget exactly what triggers it, but there’s a point where Mirak will also start appearing when you slay a dragon and take its soul before you can…which can be a pretty driving factor to beat him 👀
@ I think it happens after you meet him in apocrypha for the first time. As a new Dragonborn with barely 2 previous dragons under my belt it was so frustrating (in a good way) when Mirak would take a dragon soul. It really made him feel so much stronger than me and like a big threat.
Tbh the most interesting lore bits that were introduced in the Dragonborn dlc are Azhidal’s and Vahlok’s fates and the continuation of Neloth’s storyline. (even though I never played Morrowind) I still wish that solstheim in Skyrim paid homage to morrowind’s draugr in the bloodmoon dlc and made them faster and more interesting and unique than just having them be the same as every Nordic ruin on the mainland.
Having Solstheim being no different mechanically than base game Skyrim is a shame. For dawnguard it kinda makes sense but there’s nothing the island of solstheim with its skaal natives and dunmer refugees does differently than the base dungeons of Skyrim. There’s nothing even for Lycanthropy other than a couple of lines of dialogue different than if you’re a base mortal, and adding a few sparse werebears, and you cannot even obtain the lycanthropic curse that turns you into a werebear. Raven Rock is a cool settlement but there isn’t enough to do and they have no real personality difference than any Skyrim base town. They don’t care if you are argonian or khajiit. There is more lore around a side character in Falx Carius than the explosion of red mountain and the fall of the Tribunal. I love the black books and the intersection of the dragon priests into Solstheim’s lore but everything else falls flat before SE/AE added ghosts of the tribunal and that isn’t even strictly canon.
@DukeofWhales
Merry Christmas! Love this series
AHHH ITS HERE
please never apologize for blessing me with what I’ve wanted for many a months
On industrial progress in Tamriel: magic *is* industry in TES, and Skyrim has only grown more distrustful of it since the oblivion crisis.
Yes, war can be a powerful driver of innovation; but The Great War, skyrim’s civil war and the dragons have siphoned Skyrim resources and attention to the point that they can no longer progress and are instead simply fighting to survive. Any hope of improvement in the future is ruined with a second great war on the horizon.
First of all, happy holidays and great work with these videos! I’ve been watching since the Skyrim analysis, and you bring up some great points in each one.
Having said that, I can’t help but worry that you’re setting yourself up for disappointment story-wise with a lot of the big franchises out there (Ubi games, modern-day BGS & BioWare, etc.)
Don’t get me wrong, I know every game has at least something of value, and that you’ve built your channel on storytelling (no one makes 1hr+ videos on something they don’t care about, after all.).
But as I’ve aged as a gamer and nerd in general, I’ve come to realize that the big names don’t deserve fans that are this dedicated.
Because the fans still care, and they’ve long since stopped caring.
You have some of the best critiques of Skyrim I’ve ever seen. I appreciate all the videos you’ve made so far but these are definitely my favorite. Looking forward to whatever you do next!
Around 22:00 you mention the possibility of the company hiring mercenaries to clear the dungeon, but now I'm wondering what mercenaries you could hire to take on a dragon priest? Does that even exist? I feel like you would have to partner with a real military or something
So blessed been awaiting this banger , merry Christmas brother
These Skyrim videos are perhaps the highest quality content on the entire platform. The way the unique complexities of the medium of video games are brought into the literary analysis is absolutely amazing to watch every time. Thanks for putting the time into these, I absolutely love them.
Yoooo! I lost hope that you would do this video! So happy
Yeah baby!!!! Every time there is a gap im worried you gave up on the channel. This is the best analysis channel on YT
And with this upload, you have gained another subscriber
I have been patiently waiting for this. My second run already, love your videos man.
IVE WAITED FOR SOOOO LONGGG YAYAYAYAYAY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Comment for the algorithm, love your vids brother. Merry Christmas and happy holidays
Man I’m I glad I kept getting your Chanel recommended. Great stuff.
Also I’d recommend you play enderal (the complete conversion- whole new world and every thing). It’s the of mod that just fits your way of reading things. Also would love your perspective on it in six months.
Truly the best christmas gift I could have asked for I've been wanting this for SO LONG
Christmas came early today! Greatest gift we could have received today, gents
Santa brought me exactly what I wanted this year: a Duke of Whales video on Christmas Day!
I really loved your ac2 story critique, and i must say, I'm incredibly interested how you're going to continue on. You've made absolutely incredible content man! Best of luck with your next videos, while I watch this, then binge all the rest
This is my first video that the algorithm suggested!
Just so you know what videos I've been watching to help you plan your keywords and stuff, I've been going through the videos of A Bard's Ballad and his oblivion content, Loopy Longplay for Oblivion, Grandma Shirley for Skyrim, and lots of writing and world building videos. My usual fare haha I thought it might help you pinpoint some of the commonalities between the videos to help you get more content seen out there. Cause I'd love to experience more videos like this and have more of you in the community.
I loved the deep dive into the history, the possible inspirations or what they could have done to improve the storyline, etc... Your insights definitely help you stand out in the sea of Elder scrolls content and I'll definitely be back! Like/commented/subscribed 🙌
27:31 - this part made me truly laugh out loud even when I looked away to rescue something from the dog. And then had to rewind to see who Bethesda was beating to death by your tone alone 🤣
Yoooo, I’ve been waiting for this for so long! Thank you ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
I replayed this dlc like, a week ago. I really enjoy the intimate small town vibes of raven rock and I think the dlc does a lot of cool stuff! I think you did a great job breaking down why the execution really doesn't work though, skyrim in general has these issues pretty prominently...
Thank you for this Christmas gift 🎁 you are awesome!
Damn pal, forget Christmas dinner, we're already feasting with this one!
Since you mention them, seeing some BioWare narrative critiques would be hype
I just watched this in one go while the base game video has been in my Watch Later playlist for half a year. Guess it's finally time, thank you for the great content!
This didn't appear on my sub feed, I had to stumble upon this one 4 days later and realize what I'd been missing. Great video, as always 👍
YES!!! Merry xmas to us all! Thanks
What’re the chances? This morning I got a notification that someone replied to my comment under the Assassin’s Creed 2 video and it reminded me that I’m waiting for the Dragonborn video and lo and behold he drops it
I’ve been waiting for this dude, this is better than any Christmas gift I’ve gotten this year
totally forgot that using bend will on miraak is not part of the original experience. i kept waiting for you to talk about it during the video and then realized it's not an option in the original dlc. still agree that we needed more miraak lore for it all to make sense, but being able to redeem miraak is an interesting choice. it's something geralt might do.
Finally! I was waiting for this haha.
damn... i never actually thought about it, but you're right - we never talk to Miraak...
DUUUUDE I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO LES GOOOOOOO
It’s a Christmas miracle, I’m working tonight and will listen to this until my next break thoroughly enjoyed all your other critiques
great analysis again !! absolutely killing it w these videos. the world of tamriel is absolutely fighting against the concept of civilization placed upon it - i think the series should explore w that what civilization means, going beyond the nation and the state as we know it as an alternate resolution but idk if they ever will lol.