I just spoke with her in Solitude and she enforces the Empires rule of outlawing the worship of Talos and yet asks me to give her husband a proper burial by placing his ornate horn at a Shrine of Talos. How can anyone support her if she herself can't even uphold her own laws?

She is a nord above all else. Just because the treaty required the nords to give up Talos doesn't mean she has personally done so. All nords still worship Talos. Most of them in secret.

She should still lead by example. They are now after all her own laws, would you support a potician who thought it was ok to do drugs and rob banks in his/ her spare time and yet throw you in jail or execute you for doing the same ?

She denies worshipping Talos herself if you ask her.

Most things Elisif does makes me roll my eyes, actually...

Just talk to Sybille Stendor about the duel between Torygg and Ulfric then recall the reason given for Roggvir's execution.

They aren't her own laws. They're the laws of the Empire. She's not enforcing them, just like all the other Jarls aren't. Even the Empire doesn't really enforce it. It's the Thalmor that enforce the ban on Talos.

Would I support a politician who knows that you occasionally have to make sacrifices in the short term for the greater good in the long term? Admittedly that's not why Elisif makes the sacrifices — she's a figurehead — but that's besides the point. Asking people to worship privately in the short term does not seem horrendous to me.

Torygg worshiped Talos, not Elisif (as far as we know). She just wants you to place the horn at a shrine as a homage to him.

And risk your life in the process, because if you've been around enough you know that those who visit Talos shrines occasionally get caught and killed by Thalmor enforcers. Talos forbid that she or one of her own peeps get caught not pretending to worship Talos, but it's perfectly okay for some commoner she just met to risk life and limb to honor her dead husband's hypocrisy so she can grieve him with what she considers a clear conscience. Give me a break, lady. Yeah I'll do it because it's the only way to get the damn house, but that doesn't mean I like it or respect it.

Actually the thing that made me lose what little respect I might have had for her was when she immediately swore fealty to Ulfric after the Stormcloaks won the battle of Solitude. Every other Imperial Jarl gets deposed because they supported her claim to succeed Torygg and stuck to their principles right to the bitter end, but when she has to make the same choice she caves in at the first opportunity.

Both things just give me the impression that the number of sacrifices she's willing to make for her presumed "princicples" is precisely zero.

I could only imagine my Nord PC was entirely disgusted at this request, too. A Nord woman asking a stranger to do something so personal, and showing so little backbone. If it's important enough to do, then do it yourself and damn the consequences. I still took the horn to the shrine for Torygg's sake, because he died bravely.

The ultimate would have been if the dovahkiin got arrested for it. Think Elisif would speak up for you? I'm gonna say not.

I got into playing devil's advocate up there a bit. Elisif is truly a [can't think of a descriptive enough term], it's crystal clear. Dervenin for Jarl of Solitude!
In all seriousness, I just took the horn to the place, unwillingly maybe, but in the end, it's not my problem, what she worships or pretends not/to worship. I'll let her live with her own guilty conscience of coldly asking a passerby to do what at least should have been her deed.

Well, it is the typical policy the Empire wanted to(and largely seem to have) with the ban of Talos in Skyrim. "If you don't make a big deal about it we won't do anytihng about it while we prepare for another war" etc.

Elisif risking your life is a [censored] move though.

To be fair, most things people ask you to do in the game involve you risking your life. Kill that vampire, go get me that shield in that falmer-infested cave, go get me that book in this cave swarming with spriggans, kill me a bandit leader, and so on. Leaving a horn at an altar is rather harmless in comparison.

Personally, I've only done her quest once, post-civil war, in a Skyrim where the Thalmor were, well, not so much present as they used to be, so the risk of being arrested was practically non-existent. Apparently someone broke into their embassy and killed everyone. Not that I know anything about it, of course, just a rumor I heard.

This is just another continuation of the overall theme of duality in the game in its entirety. There are many, many examples of this. The Civil War and Akatosh/Alduin are only the most glaring.

I'll always be fond of her, because when I pushed that gargoyle off the balcony to kill the Emperor's cousin, and the groom's family turned hostile to me, she defended me, unarmed! Although I'm sure that isn't really meant to happen.

You think the Imperials actually want Talos outlawed? Until Ulfric came around people still worshipped Talos freely without punishment. Hell, look at Whiterun: Heimskr is still preaching, even during an Imperial victory. Even Legate Rikke accidently lets it slip that she still worships Talos.

Damn elves will get what's coming to them.

Of course the Imperials don't like that Talos worship is outlawed. But seriously, the brief period in time between the signing of the WGC and "when Ulfric came around" (which would be the Markarth incident) when everyone could worship Talos without having the Thalmor drag them off in the middle of the night lasted for what, a year? If Ulfric hadn't been around, don't you think the Thalmor would have found another way to enforce the WGC by now? It was after all 25 years ago.

Considering the shrine she sends you to is near Whiterun she would need an escort to get there. A royal entorage would most definatly draw attention and the Thalmor love to keep track of petty [censored] like that. Giving the horn to someone who could fly under the radar is her only option.

I've only done the stormcloak side of the CW once. It's the same with diferent forts so it doesn't matter. I can imagine the rest of the deposed Jarls were pissed off at her for surendering and swearing fealty, but she seems weak willed anyway.

As for the WGC with as many times I've seen imperial troops finish fights that Thalmor start I don't think they care.

In the main temple in Solitude they was forced by the Jarl to remove the shrine of Talos. Then Elisif asks you to take a horn of her husbands to a shrine of Talos ? Which means her laws that she has put in place and makes her people follow by threat of execution she does not follow herself. Torygg was High King and he banned the worship of Talos and yet he still worshiped him.

The Imperial Legion worships Talos yet enforces the law of banning and arresting Talos worshipers. How can anyone follow these people and believe in what they do is right?
At least the Stormcloaks are honest and straight to the point about why they fight. The Imperials are just after land and money by depossesing Jarls and nobles who worship Talos and putting into place their own Jarls. Falkreath is a perfect example to this.

So I go back and say that the people who support and give aid to the Imperials are hypocrites and that they are as bad as the Thalmor.

This is my second play through of the game and I still can't bring myself to side with the Empire due to this duality with them. So glad I am playing a Dunmer who is indifferent to the 9 divines.

There is something called sacrificing for the greater good/pragmatism that's what the empire is doing now. Yes talos worship is outlawed for now since the empire has to comply with the treaty to raise their forces again as Tullius says at the end of the imperial quest line they are preparing to strike at the thalmor and even that thalmor dude in the markath says right now is the calm before the storm.

Ah well I killed the Thalmor in Markarth after he told me how the Thalmor saved the world from the Oblivion crisis.

None of my characters have any love for the thalmor. Anything I can do that gets their attention, why heck they will do it. I even bait them into fighting every chance I get. Random patrols, the embassy... all dead. And when they respawn I kill them again. I took it that Elisif saw in me a stone cold thalmor killer. She knew I'd accept her requst in the hopes some poor thalmor patrol would happen by. I even stood at the shrine, worshipped Talos and blew the horn for good measure... only a stupid bear showed up haha.

She's not a hypocrite. She's obligated under the terms of the White-Gold Concordat to enforce the ban on Talos or risk open war. If she flat out declared that she worshiped Talos, the Empire would have no choice but to have her arrested. Thats not hypocrisy, that is prudence.

I don't particularly like Elisif, but this seems to me to be people trying to find just another thing to hate her for when she doesn't deserve it.

She's not enforcing the ban when she asks someone else to make an offering to Talos on behalf of her dead husband. She's trying to circumvent the ban with minimal risk to her own life and position (and those of her established entourage) while expecting a member of the "common rabble" to take those risks instead. So... enforce the ban when it's convenient - oh, excuse me - when it's "prudent" - but ignore it when it gets in the way of what she wants, as long as ignoring it = having someone else risk the consequences of doing so.

But allowing them to be taken away by the Thalmor and imprisoned/killed...is ok?