#froki whetted-blade | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

snowberry-crostata · 1 year

Text

Better Reasons to Fight a Civil War

In TES:V, we’re told that the banning of Talos worship is the straw that broke the camel’s back and led to the creation of the Stormcloak rebellion after the White-Gold Concordat was signed (whether that’s due to earnest belief or because it was a convenient excuse for a power grab is outside the scope of this post).

Personally, I don’t like this as an explanation. If you're not a rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth Talos stan, there’s very little motivation for joining the Stormcloaks (other than muh freedom, I guess), which is why I always joined the Imperial side. But when I decided to start this Stormcloak playthrough for funsies, I still found myself wondering what would compel a Nord to join their cause.

Maybe it’s because I’m still struggling with what Talos’ role in the Imperial pantheon actually is (seriously, what does that guy even do) but on it’s own, forbidding the worship of the fan favorite God of Men doesn’t seem like it would be enough to plunge a country into war for decades, especially when it seems like he has relatively few dedicated worshippers. If this is all we have to go by, then the idea that the Talos ban is a convenient excuse used by Ulfric to grab power has merit BUT it doesn’t explain why so many people would join the Stormcloak cause since, as a recent post pointed out, people seem to be pretty ambivalent about Ulfric himself. Rikke has a line where she tells Tullius that more people join the Stormcloaks every day so there are obviously plenty of Nords who feel that establishing Skyrim as an independent kingdom is worth it, but why? Being part of the Empire obviously benefits Skyrim and its people, both economically and in terms of politics and stability. It feels like there has to be more going on here.

Interestingly, Ulfric Stormcloak’s (many, many…) speeches allude to a number of problems in Skyrim that do seem like they’d be more compelling reasons to take up arms against the Empire that has been your country’s ally and leader for six centuries. The problem is, you never actually see any of these issues in-game. Most of this stuff is only mentioned in books or in single lines of dialog (or in the case of Froki Whetted-Blade, a HUGE cultural shift that is only mentioned by a single character who lives in a shack in the wilderness).

So what are some better reasons to fight the Civil War on the Stormcloak’s side, especially for a Nord character? This is my personal list, from most to least compelling from a character/roleplay perspective:

(1) The Great War began when Emperor Titus Mede II refused to accept the terms demanded by the Aldmeri Dominion (outlawing Talos worship, ceding southern Hammerfell, paying tribute to the Dominion, etc.). He did this despite his own generals warning him that the Dominion had superior military strength compared to the Empire. Nord soldiers helped turn the tide of the Great War, but at great cost. Despite their sacrifice, and immediately following a significant victory at the Battle of the Red Ring, Titus II turns around and signs the White-Gold Concordat which gives the Dominion everything they were asking for in the first place! The sacrifice of what is presumably a large number of Skyrim's men and women who faithfully answered the call of the Empire is rendered useless. They died for nothing. If I was a Nord who lost loved ones in that war, I would be pretty mad.

(2) When Hammerfell objected to the terms of the White-Gold Concordat (one of the concessions, which was made without their input, would have forced them to surrender a large portion of southern Hammerfell to the Dominion), the Emperor betrayed them and renounced them as a province, leaving them to resist the Dominion on their own. Despite being abandoned by the Empire, the Redguards were able to fight the Thalmor to a standstill on their own for five years, eventually forcing a treaty which booted the Dominion out of Hammerfell. This victory would be highly motivating to those who envision an independent Skyrim. It also makes the Empire look really, really bad for rolling over and agreeing to the Dominion’s terms after they successfully pushed the Thalmor out of the Imperial City. If the Redguards alone could fight the Dominion to a standstill, then all of the Empire’s legions working together would have had a good chance at smacking down the Thalmor forces (there is definitely an argument that can be made in defense of the White-Gold Concordat, but this is post about the Stormcloak perspective).

(3) The Empire that Skyrim joined under Tiber Septim is not the Empire that exists today. Since the beginning of the fourth era, the Septim Dynasty (those of the dragon blood - culturally, this is probably as important to the Nords as it is to the Imperials) goes extinct. The Elder Council then spends decades bickering and backstabbing over who will be the next Emperor while the Empire’s territories try to recover from the Oblivion Crisis. As their leadership fails, Black Marsh secedes, then invades another part of the Empire. Hammerfell and High Rock go off and sack Orsinium, pushing Orc refugees into Skyrim. Skyrim, which actually seems to have it together at this point in history, steps in and not only allows the Orcs to settle in their lands, but gifts Solstheim to the Dunmer to help the refugees fleeing the eruption of the Red Mountain. While this circus is going on, the Thalmor take control of the Summerset Isles, back a coup in Valenwood, and then ally with them to form the Aldmeri Dominion. They manipulate the Khajiit into favoring them, and Elsewyr also secedes from the Empire to join the Dominion. Despite all of these losses, the Emperor still chooses to disown Hammerfell. By any accounting, the Empire of the fourth era is a shitshow. Their short-sighted bickering, backstabbing, and politics led to massive losses in power, territories, and allies. By the Stormcloaks’ reckoning, the Imperial leadership have shown themselves to be fickle, incompetent, and weak. Any competent leader is going to be questioning whether or not belonging to this Empire is worth it.

(4) The Empire was content to let the Reachmen take, and keep, control of Markarth (or at least ignore it while they monopolized Skyrim’s military forces for their own fight), despite the execution of Nords under the Forsworn regime (this in-game book says the Nords were jerks and deserved it, but the author is also pretty clearly a Forsworn apologist and miiiiiight not be the most reliable source).

(5) Skyrim’s resources are being exported to other regions of the Empire to pay their debts without suitable compensation or benefit to the Nords (I believe the silver coming out of Markarth is specifically mentioned in some dialog, but I could be misremembering). Those debts could very likely be tribute owed to the Thalmor (since that was one of their demands at the beginning of the war), adding insult to injury.

I'm going to throw out one more wildcard headcanon, because this really bugs me (but it’s not as supported by the in-game dialog and texts, so it gets its own section):

My personal headcanon to explain some of the retconning that happens vis-a-vis Nords between games is that the culture of the Nords has been slowly disappearing, consumed by the Imperial way of life, but (and this is where it diverges from canon) it is still the dominant way of life for the majority of Skyrim. Their language, their religion, and their traditions - all are being eaten away at by Imperial influence. One of the things that’s really bothersome is the retconning of the Nordic pantheon away from being the dominant faith in Skyrim. The Imperial Cult of the Eight Divines developed by St. Alessia in the first era was literally created by watering down the Nordic pantheon and adding in Elven lore. UESP describes it as “a carefully designed compromise between the Aldmeri deities …and the deities of Alessia's Nordic allies.” During TES:IV, Nords are still reported as being devout followers of the Nordic Pantheon, not the Eight/Nine Divines, but 200 years later in TES:V, they're all suffering from cultural amnesia and have completely switched over to the Imperial Cult.

(Side note: apparently discarding the Nordic pantheon for TES:V was not an oversight, but a conscious decision on the part of the lead designer, and I will argue to the ends of Nirn that it was a stupid-ass decision that seriously reduces the narrative potential of the main story)

The fact that this compromised pantheon is treated like the universal and unquestioned faith of Skyrim in TES:V is weird. The people of Skyrim have been violently opposed to elves and elven influence since the days of Ysgramor, so shrugging their shoulders and being like, “Sherzarr? Oh, you mean elven Shor. Yeah, I’ll accept it, no problem” would be so out of character. There are previous High Kings who have gone to war to fight the expanding influence of the Imperial Cult in Skyrim. Narratively, it would make more sense if there was tension between the traditionalist worshippers of the Nordic gods and the growing number of followers of the Eight/Nine Divines - things like disagreements about establishing temples of the Imperial Cult gods like Kynareth (rather than Kyne) and Mara (who has a relatively minor role in the Nordic pantheon) in Skyrim’s cities. Fighting the Empire and establishing Skyrim as its own kingdom is a way for Nord traditionalists (and isolationists, and xenophobes - let's not forget them in all of this rationalizing) to "return to the old ways" and push back against the erasure of Nord religion, language, and tradition.

#wow this got long #ramble #my stuff #civil war #the elder scrolls #skyrim #tes:v #I really like the dilemma that the Forsworn and Reachmen present in Skyrim but this post was already super long

26 notes · View notes