Did anyone else think that Mercer Frey was a bit too obvious? The second you meet him he ridicules you with questions and sends you on a THIRD initiation mission - I just got the feeling immediately that he was going to be trouble later on - and the fact that in TES games you almost always end up being the leader of the faction you join by the end, meaning that it was likely we would have to get rid of him at some point.

If Mercer was less aggressive; perhaps more like a cross between Astrid, Savos Aren and Byrnjolf. Byrnjolf's confidence, Savos Aren's mysteriousness, and Astrid's Villainous mind - then it would have at least been a surprise when you realise that he had been double crossing you.

What do you guys think?

i think the thieves guild is the most enjoyable questline in the game despite its flaws

You could pass off his attitude as one where he didn't want competition for leadership. That said he was so easy to kill and I have yet to find a reason that I just had to be a Nightingale to go after him. It was billed to me "as our only chance" and I killed him with steel arrows, an Elven bow, wearing plain fur armor and with no help from the other Nightingales. Why did I need to be a Nightingale and sell my soul to Nocturnal???

I liked the character. I don't think it was too obvious

To be honest with you I never viewed Mercer Frey as the top-notch villain as he was doing exactly what hes suppose to do as a thief. Sure he killed off the former guild-master (Gallus) and betrayed that [censored] Nocturnal and took the skeleton key but isn't that natural for a thief? The thieves guild are nothing but hypocrites. They enjoy stealing from others but when someone else steals from them they're up and arm over it. If only Bethesda would've given us the option to join Mercer Frey on destroying the thieves guild together.

agreed, i thought him a selfish bastard, which makes sense if you're a thief and turned out to be right in the end

i guess it was rather obvious he was the end villian,a curveball would have been nice where you thought it was mercer but turned out to be brynjolf all along.

Not necessarily. You have to remember that a guild of thieves is basically a syndicate that needs to work together so they aren't supposed to victimize each other. Also, general thieves don't usually kill people. In fact, many of them use fake guns (air soft) when they commit robberies.

Even amongst the unjust, there must be a sense of justice.

I just thought he was selfish and arrogant. I never saw him as the villain. I didn't even want to trust Karliah at first until she convinced me that he was the villain.

Being a thief is being a thief. It doesn't matter if you choose to kill or not to kill... as long as your goals are to steal things. Do you think for a moment that the members of the thieves guild cares for another? Hardly. They're there for one thing and one thing only.....GOLD. Mercer was right about one thing... Nocturnal doesn't care about the dragonborn, the key or anything having to do with the guild.

The thieves guild is what many people accuse of Ulfric being.. Self centered.

I just thought that he was really cranky.

A thief is a thief and a murderer is a murderer - yeah, there are some cross-overs, but generally, criminals stick to their fortes. I think for several moments that the TG members care for one another as long as they contribute. It's a syndicate not a bunch of pirates hanging out in Port Royal out for nothing more than themselves. There's a structure and hierarchy to the TG and if it no longer worked for say Vex she would go out on her own - she wouldn't kill everyone else in the guild.

Nocturnal cares about anyone that can give her what she wants. If the guild worships/honors her then she cares about them. But, yeah, she's not a benevolent diety.

The TG is like any other organization: the primary goal of the organization is to maintain and sometimes grow the organization. The secondary goal is/are the service or services they provide to make them viable/acceptable.

Exactly, if the members of the guild didn't work together and trust each other then there'd be no point being in a guild at all. It just wouldn't work. Being a thief doesn't mean you steal from everybody, it is a job description more than anything, not a way of life.

I liked the Mercer Frey character until I realized that the same guy does voices for a godawful number of other NPCs. By itself that's okay, but the guy has no range. He sounds almost exactly the same playing Mercer Frey as he does as Enthir as he does as Gerard (sp?) at the Bard's College as he does as, etc. Every time I have to interact with those characters it annoys me.

As for my first impression before I realized that the voice actor must have worked for doughnuts and coffee, I thought he was pretty cool. A tough, no nonsense crime boss that's in charge of a fading guild. Then his second in command brings in some new person (you). The boss thinks this one is gonna be like the rest so he throws the newb to the wolves by sending him/her on a suicide mission at the bee farm. If they die, so what? There's nothing invested anyway. If they succeed, then it's all to the good.

Yeah, he's definately a hardass but it's not until he tries to kill you that you realize how much of a d!ck he really is. Frey's a great character. It's just that his uniqueness is spoiled by the overuse of his voice. Take Astrid as a contrast. She doesn't sound like anyone else in the game. It makes her character unique. And personall, I think Karliah's voice is annoyingly quiet but I think I've only come across one other NPC that sounds like her. It just makes for a better playing experienc when you don't come to see different NPCs as some underpaid guy behind a microphone in a recording studio.

If it was the real world I'd be more suspicious if my boss was really nice to me from the word go
Mercer Frey seemed ok to me

I never liked him. And now I hate him.

Agreed.

He came off as a [censored] to me, but then again, these are criminals hiding in the sewars so what else was I to expect? His betrayal was a nice twist. I enjoyed it, anyways.

I hated the character, and I hated him more because of his god awful voice actor.

i just wished i could flush out the thieves guild with the help of the jarl.
And get rid of maven.
sigh.. where is the 'destroy the thieves guild quest' bethesda???

I'm thinking maybe in an expansion. I run it on one character, but I'd like to see the removal on the other for the hell of it.

Perhaps that was the point as far as Nocturnal was concerned?

She just got the Dovahkiin as a permanant plaything and guard. Sounds like a steal to me.

Yeah, he was an obvious jerk from the start.