During the intro, the Imperial Legion calls out the prisoners with a list, stating clearly "Lokir from Rorikstead" and "Ralof from Riverwood", while being confounded as to who the player is.

How, then, is this possible? Lokir was but a horse thief, he certainly wasn't with the Stormcloaks, so even the Legion try to list out Ulfric's entourage, he wouldn't be on the list. Even if the player was captured after Ulfric's group (that is, they captured Ulfric and gang, list everyone up, then ran into the player), they'll most likely update the list with something like "random dude, probably Stormcloak agent or something. Chop 'em off". Or, at the very least, Hadvar would knew that the player is amongst the prisoner, yet his reaction shows that he didn't knew the player character exists up until that point.

The only answer I have for you is that you may be overthinking this a bit. It is possible that the player was a bit of an antisocial pariah of sorts prior to attempting to cross over the Skyrim border, and was reluctant to share his name with the Imperial forces until they begin calling their names off of the list.

Sorry I cannot help you any further, mate.

Probably because the dragonborn is unconscious, so they didn't have a chance to ask you who you were. And didn't much care.

The Carriages come from Fort Neugrad, it's possible Lokir was imprisoned there awaiting execution. Raloff was obviously a High-profile Stormcloak (Probably just under Galmar)

The Dragonborn wasn't on the List because s/he wasn't supposed to be executed. Victim of circumstance, and you probably would have been released if it was for Captain [censored]y the [censored].

That and the Dragonborn was coming in from Cyrodiil through Falkreath Hold. Ending up in Skyrim was a freak accident (or divine intervention).

Could be there was a bounty on that horse-thief,. You, unluckly, were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I call her Captain RedQueen because of her "off-with-his-head" propensities.

It seems to me that the player is just coming to (waking up), during the cart ride to the exacution. How the player got there, no clue, maybe just got caught up in some raid on a Stormcloak/thieves safehouse. Wrong place at the wrong time most likey.

I call her Captain SoonToBeDeceased because of my "this is why I escape with Ralof" propensities.

Possible this.


Or this.

They probably had the names of all the Stormcloaks. If you look, you can see the prisoners from the other cart being lined up the same way the the ones on your.

Two other things bugs me, though:

First, where do all the prisoners come from? On your cart, there are only you, Lokir, Ralof and Ulfric. On the other cart, I can see four prisoners - three men and a woman, I think. One gets executed - three left. Then we have two wounded soldiers and one attending them in that first tower you run into.
If you follow Ralof into the keep, you'll find the dead Gunjar there - it IS possible he's one of the guys from the first tower. But then you run into two other soldiers in the dungeons, a man and a woman. And now it's getting weird, since I'm alonst certain it's ANOTHER woman (blond, middle-aged) than the one who were waiting to be executed (who, if I recall correctly, has brown or possibly auburn hair). I'm not sure if any of the male soldiers on the cart looks like the one in the dungeons. Also, the ones you meet down there seem fine, not wounded at all. Oh, now I feel like I've got to check this...

Next, Hadvar refers to the captured Stormcloaks as Ulftic's "top lieutenants". But non of them wear officer armor, non are named except Ralof, and Ralof seems to be an ordinary footsoldier - he talks about how he has been promoted after Korvanjund (if you side with the Stormcloaks), and when you meet him later, he complains about that Galmar probably doesn't know his name. Hardly a high-ranking officer.

OTOH, Ulfric does know who Ralof is when you drop his name when you go to join the Stormcloaks, and says that Ralof is a "damned good man." So even if Galmar does not know who he is, Ulfric does. Most likley Hadvar meant to say that the captured 'Cloaks were Ulfrc's personal guard. Who else would they be after all? Haddie just has potatahs between his ears is all...

It is possible that the extra prisoners were already there in Helgen's dungeons, captured from some other action. That would explain why we did not see them come in with the rest of us, but ran across them in the catacombs.

Or perhaps Stormcloaks reproduce by fission? Just add some water mead, and each 'Cloakie divides into two?

Maybe...we're just over thinking this a little?

True!

It IS of course also possible that the carts we see are just models (like the way the cities if Skyrim was real would have been much bigger), and that Ulfric's entourage consisted of about ten or so soldiers, not five. But it bugs me still. (It is also a possibly sign of me having played through the intro way too many times. )

I think if you escape with Ralof and talk to him about it later in Riverwood, he'll say something about how their party was just Ulfric and his personal guard, which is how they were so easily outnumbered. Or that could just be my headcanon.

At any rate it couldn't have been a permanent personal guard, just whoever was chosen to accompany him from Point A to Point B. I'm saying this because if he had something resembing a permanent entourage of bodygards, Galmar would know who they were and probably would've had a hand in choosing them. Probably the closest thing Ulfric has to a "permanent personal guard" is Galmar himself, since he is Ulfric's housecarl. And in normal (non-modded) gameplay, if Ulfric travels around Skyrim Galmar is with him. At the time of his capture however Galmar was probably off in the field directing some aspect of the war and Ulfric was doing who knows what, getting his boots on the ground in some other part of the province to take command of an operation or traveling to Riften to bolster Laila's somewhat debatable loyalty or... I dunno. Maybe he just got a hankering for jazbay graqes and decided to go pick a bushel or two.

RE the other SCs who turn up inside the keep, whenever I've thought about it I've just assumed that they were part of an attempted rescue mission that got into the keep the same way Ralof and I got out. Or else they were SCs who were already being held prisoner there, perhaps brought in on a earlier cart, and in all the confusion of the dragon attack - surely many of the Legion soldiers inside came rushing out to help in the town's defense - they were able to overpower whoever was left and re-arm themselves.

Doesn't the player character in each game just kind of... pop into existence? CHIM, Godhead; all that malarky?

Your suppose to invent your characters history.

He was obviously having a secret affair with Annekke Crag-Jumper.

Perhaps Lokir was stealing a horse to escape Skyrim because he got caught in bed with the daughter of General Tullius? Just speculating here, but that would definitely get you on "the List". Now we know why Talsgar the Wanderer doesn't teach speechcraft anymore

I'd think if another prisoner suddenly just popped into existence in the cart halfway between who knows where and Helgen, the others would've noticed. Ralof's first words would've been more like, "Shor's blood - where did YOU come from? Are you a wizard? You must be a wizard... listen, there's no time to explain, but can you teleport all four of us out of here RIGHT NOW?"

The other StormCloaks could have been imprisoned days before the others.

Hidden somewhere in Tamriel, there's an immense prison with thousands of inmates kept magically unconscious. Whenever there's a Prophecy to be fulfilled, the prison dispatches an inmate to the appropriate location. The whole system is run by the Imperial Prophecy Fulfillment Bureau.

They probably had subtitles on.

I think you're on to something here!

I always figured that each prisoner's name, including Ulfric's, was added to the list after the prisoner was captured. It isn't a most-wanted list. For whatever reason, no one added your name to the list when you were captured. Maybe you didn't tell them your name. Maybe the Imperials handling you did not know that they were supposed to get your name. Maybe they were too busy with other things at the time and simply forgot.

i have a better question hehe opening a thread just for it so that everybody can see