#stormcloak

[artistncs]

never ask a Skyrim Nord stormcloak about their spouse…

[harbinger-of-reason]

What Changed About Skyrim Civil War Discourse?

I sided with The Stormcloaks on my initial Skyrim run, and always found the insistence by the majority of fans that they are objectively wrong a bit annoying. However, over the years I have realized that was a bit short-sighted of me and I understand other fans feeling that way a lot more. However, I've noticed a lot of Empire fans doing the same thing with The Stormcloaks. Which I find interesting and I want to explore a bit.

I've noticed for a while now that the discourse surrounding The Stormcloaks vs The Imperials has gotten a lot less black and white online. A lot more positive things are said about The Stormcloaks, even if a lot of it is memes. Meanwhile The Empire gets a lot more flak for being... well... imperialist.

Initially I kind of worried this was a rise of the alt-right in the fanbase. Especially given the pro-Stormcloak posts often come in the form of that "Of Course I'm Racist" meme. The one where the racist has a diverse friend group. However, that meme has clearly escaped its alt-right roots and plenty of cool and woke folk have used it in the context of Skyrim's Stormcloaks. So, I think that the alt-right are only a small part of the Stormcloak rise.

The other reason I think this debate has become more gray is the further education people have had on the lore and how complicated Tamriel's racial politics are. Skyrim was the first game for a lot of fans, myself included. Many of us walked into Windhelm and saw a drunken nord harassing a dunmer woman and immediately took her side. We further went on to ask Ulfric about this injustice, and he gave a very dismissive answer. This would naturally raise some ire. However, many of us then went on to play Morrowind and our perspectives on Tamriel race relations got an adjustment as we realized the dark elves were not quite the perfect, innocent, victims we assumed.

Just to be clear, this post isn't meant to make fun of those who initially sided with the dunmer. I understand why many fans would see a majority population of Scandinavian looking motherfuckers picking on dark skinned minority and immediately side with the dunmer. However, this narrative has been dropped so hard recently. I think this is indicative of how much the general fanbase has changed their attitude towards the dark elves. Especially since I remember one of the most popular Skyrim posts on Tumblr being a comic of someone's dunmer girl LDB OC melting Wuuthrad down. Then many learned that this comic could be interpreted as a dunmer (a race of slavers with legal assassination) destroying an artifact of a bunch of immigrants who were almost genocided by the Snow Elves. Also, the dark elves were never especially kind neighbors to either the nords of argonians. Plus, it seems to be implied the dark elves are why the argonians are forced to live outside the city walls, not the nords.

Ultimately though, I think the reason we as a fanbase have gotten more gray on the civil war is simply that a lot of us have matured after all these years. I was 12 when I first played this game. Not long after it came out. I'm now 27. I initially sided with The Stormcloaks because the game's opening made it seem like we were supposed to. Between the first guy who talks to you being a Stormcloak, and The Empire being the ones to try and take your head off. So, when I saw people getting weirdly antagonistic about it and saying "siding with the Stormcloaks is racist!" my pre-teen to teen brain got to me and I got defensive about it.

Now, if someone said that to me... I could only give them this look...

These are fictional factions of a fictional world. If someone told me "Ulfric Stormcloak is a racist and a fascist!", I'd simply tell them "So is the president of the United States. Frankly, I'm more concerned about him becoming king of the US than Ulfric becoming king of Skyrim".

Sorry to get a bit political at the end there, but I felt it needed to be said. Does anyone in the general fanbase feel the same way, or do you guys think the rise rise of Stormcloak sympathizers is for a different reason? Also, nowadays I kind of side with whoever I think my dragonborn would depending on how I'm playing them (race, play style, and backstory). Do you do the same?

[luciolafantastic]

A dumb drawing I made a year ago, about Aldia's problem as a Dragonborn and the context of the civil war in Skyrim.

[playthenpaint]

Today’s timelapse - a nose.

I’m trying to be a bit more subtle with the highlights on this one, as ideally I’d like it to look like she’s outside rather than it some studio somewhere, so lots of light blue and desaturated pinks.

All the features are in, anyway.

Hope you’re all well!

[galleryofalexandria]

You know what’s better than one guard?

Cosplay by @calvinandhobbit

Photography by me

[lavendarr00]

Saga | The Dragonborn & The Woman of the Rebellion

Ramblings below

Saga is a nord DB I made three years ago now (wtf where has all the time gone???) so I wanted to revisit her now that I’m better at making faces. Final photo below is her from 2023 when I created her.

She’s a little savage, fanatic, and a True Believer in the Stormcloak cause/rebellion. Most of her family were soldiers during the great war while she was a kid. She lost a lot of loved ones to the war and resents the empire for taking them away from her. That combined with living alone most of her life primed her to become a dutiful weapon for Ulfric.

---

Because of how I do faces now, she looks older than before. Could make a good Mijoll or Uthgerd replacer if I feel up for it. Love lots of different hairstyles on her and got to play around with some extreme scarring on the body. Ultimately went with a more subtle warpaint/tattoo on the face but I'll probably play around with that more. I love her face so I don't want to cover it too much.

For reference, I actually used a this reconstruction of a woman who may have been a warrior at the time of the vikings (tw if you click they show how she may have looked dead with a facial wound). Also referenced myself since my ancestry is majority nordic. She has my nose lol

Since I'm already rambling... I've been thinking of making my OCs followers in my game and placing them where they would be if they were not the dragonborn (or where they would be regardless if they never are). Saga would be in the Palace of Kings, another of mine in the Thieves Guild Cistern, another in the House of Dibella in Markarth, etc. I wanna see them out in the wild and take them with me if I'm not playing as them haha! Anyways... here's more Saga!

[klerothesnowman]

Skyrim Comes Off As Pro-Imperialism Because Of Limitations, Not Ideology (Maybe. I have like, no real evidence)

The Elder Scrolls series is cool as hell. Even the worst games in this series are solid, beloved entries. The games have an absurdly indepth and interesting universe of lore to draw on, ranging from funny in universe smut to The Coolest Mythology You Have Ever Read, all centered around the ups and downs of an Empire. They throw you into portions of this world and say "Explore! Check it out! We made it just for you!" and let you live in this fantastic world as a hero. Save reality! Kill an evil sorcerer king, use an ambiguously worded prophecy to destabilize a nation to be more easily colonized! Slay dragons! Be a Mage! Be a Fighter! Be a forcibly recruited member of the fantasy CIA! Be a Thief! Cast spells! Swing swords! Lie to people to gain their trust! What a cool game! You can do anything you want!

Sorry what was that destabilization thing? The CIA?

It's old news, but Morrowind is a little more based than the other games. Dark Elf culture is so well realized and imaginative, warts and all, and the story deals with concepts like religious manipulation, colonialism and betrayal. If in the future video games get canonized into academia somehow, I guarantee Morrowind will be in there. It's a big game and it has a lot to say.

Skyrim on the other hand? Ehhh... Skyrim brushes up against cool ideas sometimes. But they never quite commit. Never stick the landing. The main political argument of the game is the Empire vs the Stormcloaks. If you ask certain people The Stormcloaks are a native population of Scandinavian themed White People who are largely racist trying to return to tradition, fighting the aforementioned Imperials, a roman themed near global empire on the decline who have been capitulating to the demands of a foreign nation's influence whose sinister machinations have the end goal of the subjugation or elimination of all mankind. I am being very hyperbolic and incendiary, alluding to some very intense comparisons. I want to take a moment to stress that this is what other people have been saying about them and you know that's true.

So which side is the right side? Is it the racists, or the colonizers?

Let's put a pin in that, because I want to talk about Jarl Balgruuf.

Has anyone else found Jarl Balgruuf's dialogue to be kind of weird? Not just his, but most of the people in his home. Farengar, the court mage, calls you "The Jarl's newest protégé" when you met him, like, 5 minutes ago. When you're called by the Greybeards he wistfully asks "Did I ever tell you that?" when telling you he once made the pilgrimage you're about to go on. When you side with the Stormcloaks and attack Whiterun he angrily calls you out, after everything he did for you, despite doing basically nothing for you and you doing a whole lot for him.

It's my personal theory that this is a hold over from the way this game was written. This is very unsubstantiated, based entirely from Vibes, so I could be completely wrong. I think the story of Skyrim was written in broad strokes as a kind of traditional fantasy story, with characters and a single focused narrative, which was reworked to fit the gameplay of an Elder Scroll's game. In this hypothetical narrative Jarl Balgruuf would have "Taken the Dragonborn in" in some way, likely after discovering them crispy and tired after the Helgen attack. You'd have stayed in Balgruuf's care and learned from him, become close friends. He would be your mentor, you would be his protégé. Balgruuf is a cool retired adventurer, he'd be the perfect mentor. The problem is is that this is a Skyrim game. Being taken in, cared for and trained by this for a prolonged period of time breaks the design's most cardinal rule. The player has complete control of their agency. At any time they can leave and do what they want and the world will wait for them. That kind of restriction cannot coexist with the narrative, but they kept the details of it.

When you consider that this likely happened in other parts of the game too a lot of the issues with Skyrim's story telling clicks into place. The fact that on Day 1 of the College of Winterhold they announce an excursion to an ancient dig site and all of the new students go "Finally, we're going to actually learn something!". And once that one quest is over the archmage says something along the lines of "Tolfdir takes care of your little group, yes?" The implication was supposed to be that everyone has been sitting around learning the basics with Tolfdir for a long time, and that the other students are your friends. This likely was supposed to culminate in them going with you to Labyrinthian. You see the younger Archmage and his group of friends as weird spirits, and see how they separated and died one by one. There was probably supposed to be a parallel drawn between them and your mage pals! But, for that to work they'd have needed to build a connection, which just wasn't there. I'd wager this is the same with the Thalmor, intended to be the most direct threat on your adventure, with the reveal that they're NOT behind it being a massive twist, but when it came time to structure the whole thing for a video game they couldn't make it fit.

So what's my point here? My point is that Skyrim is strangled by limitations. They have all of these ideas that don't play out because they can't fit within the game's scope. Or their writing team doesn't know how to get them to paper. Or, entirely possible, Todd Howard is too scared to rock the boat by being Too Cool. When he talks about Morrowind's development he talks about how the game very nearly bankrupted them as a company and that he never wants to subject his people to that uncertainty again. And the investment and time it takes to make these games would basically necessitate that every launch be hugely successful to break even. It's no wonder they keep rereleasing Skyrim, it's the safest bet they have.

This is a lot and I haven't even addressed anything from my title. Let's keep not doing that and talk about Morrowind again.

Because you know what's fucking cool about Morrowind? Really, really interesting?

The Empire really is the good guys.

Dark Elf culture is so cool and interesting and well realized and also so fucking monstrous. They practice slavery, it's legal to have someone murdered if you fill out the right paper work, Dark Elves are intensely xenophobic, they mistreat the Ashlanders, their religious figureheads are traitorous monsters that stole power by meddling with forces beyond their ken. Meanwhile the primary force resisting the colonization of Morrowind is a rebellion made up of xenophobes and racists huh, that sounds familiar, led by an explicitly evil Vampire who has turned himself into a literal cancer on reality, spreading an evil disease across Morrowind that decimates the land and slowly transforms them into reflections of himself, misshapen monsters made of "His Flesh"

Meanwhile the Empire are blessed by the Nine Divine, the lineage of the Septim Dynasty keeps Tamriel safe from Oblivion. They outlaw slavery, they crack down on harmful substance abuse, you're not allowed to murder heretics, Necromancy is strictly regulated, freed slaves are automatically given full rights of citizens. They also respect the traditions and cultures of the provinces, the Dark Elves are given explicit and unconditional permission to perform Necromancy for the purposes of making Bonewalkers to protect tombs and such. The only culture the Empire is trying to stamp out is the stuff that's objectively bad.

And yet. They are still imperialist colonizers. Big key word doing a lot of work in that last sentence was trying, the only culture the Empire is trying to stamp out is the bad stuff. But they are still slowly eroding Dunmer culture through cultural hegemony. They are still taken to account for it and they are still doing shady things to achieve their goals. The first thing you do for them in the game is implicate yourself in smuggling. The second thing you do is desecrate a tomb for a Necromancer. And this without mentioning that they are explicitly setting you up as a false messiah to manipulate and destabilize the nation. The fact that Dagoth Ur is trying to remove the invaders from his homeland is used to humanize him. The text in Morrowind is very explicit. Even if the Empire is morally good. Even if they are legitimately bringing equality and freedom across the world, their actions are wrong. Imperialism is never justified. And the only reason you side with them against Dagoth Ur is because he's a threat to the whole world.

Based.

So let's go back to the Stormcloak Rebellion. There's obvious parallels between the plot of Morrowind and the plot of the Civil War. So who's correct, the racists who are trying to hold onto their ways, or the colonizers who are overall morally good. If you played the previous games it'd be pretty easy to say it's the Empire, you've experienced them being the good guys. You know that despite the bad things they do all around the Empire is pretty decent.

But once again, it's a little more complicated. Because this is not the same Empire. The Septim bloodline died in Oblivion. Their Aedric blessing is gone. There is no need for an Empire to hold shut the gates of Oblivion.

The new Imperial Dynastic is the Mede Dynasty, and they are explicitly the result of an outlaw Warlord seizing power. They've kept a lot of the laws and policies of the old Empire, so as not to rock the boat and have traditionalists turn on them. The current Empire is not stable enough to control what they used to, but is trying to anyone out of an Imperialist power grab. These are all really important details about the current Imperial Empire that the game just has no time or room to elaborate on outside of the completely optional books that only the most dedicated of lore nerds read.

And, as I'm sure you know, The Civil War in its entirely is a manufactured conflict. Ulfric Stormcloak has been lied to and manipulated by the Thalmor to instigate the rebellion and keep the Empire busy so that it can't rebuild.

In a game full of cut or unrealized content, the Civil War is absolutely the biggest compromise Bethesda made. It was supposed to be a major background element of the game, with the push and pull happening while you did the main quest. A massive conflict between two ideologically rotten forces, manipulated by the true enemy.

Who's correct? If I'm right about how the story of Skyrim is mostly unrealized and cut, probably Jarl Balgruuf. The man who tries to stay neutral for as long as he can. Acknowledges that both sides are due his loyalty but also don't deserve it anymore. Someone who only joins the war on the side of the Imperials because the Stormcloaks forced his hand and attacked him first.

Neither side are the correct side. The Stormcloaks are xenophobic racists who spout mottos about Skyrim belonging to the Nords while the Empire are Imperialists. And that's enough to damn them in the moral quandary.

It's all just another facet of Skyrim that had the potential to be so extremely cool, if it had more time to cook.

[rainbunnii]

The mistress of Ulfric Stormcloak

────୨ৎ────