The entire time I was playing the MQ, I kept thinking to myself, it'll tell me why Alduin attacked Helgren, effectively saving my life and Ulfric's, but I never did figure out why. Delphine, of the Blades, theorized that the Thalmor were directing Alduin, but through the MQ you find out they had no connection whatsoever, but the Thalmor were very happy Alduin did intervene since the Thalmor wanted Ulfric to stay alive.

It just seems extremely ODD Alduin would attack for no reason whatsoever. Seems like a missed opportunity for a good plot twist by Bethesda. Like maybe you're really Alduin's other dragon brother....or the dragonsoul inside you is actually his son's or his father's or some other random thing.

Or did I miss it entirely? Does the game actually ever tell you why Alduin attacked Helgren? As far as I can tell, he has very concrete objectives (ie resurrect all the dragons)...attacking Helgren seems pointless.

Coincidence, it really didn’t seem like he was there to save anyone.

Seems to me there are two possibilities: he was trying to prevent Ulfric from being murdered to prolong the war which would be an advantage for him to leave Skyrim weakened overall, or he knew by some prophecy or something that the Dragonborn would be there at that moment and so went there to try to kill him but ironically ended up saving his life instead.

Alduin will roast you like a marshmallow during the opening scene if you let him.

Alduin eats the souls of the dead. If Ulfric died than the war would end and there would be less souls to eat.

A little bit of fate. I too expected that playing through the MQ or the Civil War quests would lead to a better explanation, but alas.

Whichever god who is weaving the strands of fate simply decided it would be a good idea I guess.

This seems the most likely. Or perhaps Auduin was there, indeed, to kill the dragonborn before he realized his power. I still feel like Bethesda should had mentioned why Auduin was there. Either of these would work well in that case.

Why does everything have to be for a reason? Maybe Alduin's cat peed in his cereal that morning. Maybe he got passed over for a promotion at Dragons Inc. Jeez. Everything has to have a Big Secret Meaning, apparently

Pretty dang sure he was trying to kill you...

It was left open because that's what a good open rpg does. It's left to the player to come up with an idea. Just like, why was your character crossing into Skyrim, come up with a reason why Alduin was there. Come up with your own reason. Not every reason will fit every character.

For instance, my dark elf worships the ancient dragons and called out to them in ancient elven language to save her. Little did she know that she was unleashing Alduin on the world and that he was out to destroy humanity. Edited: Really even after she was declared dragon born, she still had to find herself and what purpose the dragons had for returning besides saving her. Alduin, the dragon she worshiped was evil not good. What did she know. So she set out to fix what she started.

Maybe because:
#1 You're the game's MAIN protagonist.
#2 Auduin is the game's MAIN antagonist.
#3 In most stories and tales, whenever the protagonist and antagonist meet, something has caused it or there's a reason for it.

In other news, Auduin has a cat? Is it a tabby?

Fate, destiny etc.

"Each Event is preceeded by Prophecy, but without the Hero, there is no Event"

They keep refering to it as the dragon interrupting ULFRIKS decapitation... But in actuality, the dragon didn't turn up until YOU were about to be deaded to death until you died.

You were not meant to be there in the first place, and the Captain seemed awfully fond of getting you killed first. I don't think Alduin is a fortune teller - if he was you wouldn't survive five minutes in this game.

i way killed by alduin a few times @ the start of the game, so it's more or less his intend to kill the dovakin

dovakin is just lucky to get away

I thought I read somewhere that the Alduin was there specifically for you, seemingly knowing you were dragonborn. You just managed to escape.

alduin went there to save ulfric to keep the war going

don't think he knew that the dragonborn is there


edit: and yes, if you stay around longer you can end up getting killed. one time he landed right next to me and send me to hell.... but only because i was busy that moment, because his fire is a very weak version of his later one.

Maybe it's like a Harry/Voldemort thing? Maybe he wants your dragon soul for himself and had to stop you from being killed by someone else? Then he got distracted by the town attacking him and couldn't get to you in time? He says something to you if you get cornered by him, does anyone know what he says? That could be a clue.

Hmmm... Try this explaination of why Alduin was at Helgren. Because he could!

When you are going to destroy/devour (or whatever) the world, you have to start SOMEWHERE, right? Perhaps Alduin flipped a coin, drew a name out of a hat, or some other equally random means to determine where to start, and Helgren came up. Or maybe Helgren was the first place he saw when he came back.

Psst Everybody.


Just sayin.

Because it makes for a good opening sequence to the game.
Ol' Aldy was always a bit of a drama queen and loved the attention.

My take was that he was gaining strength feeding off the souls of the dead, so was saving Ulfric to prolong the civil war and maintain the carnage.

Lookdown exactly where is that Time anomaly, in the throat of the world . Helgen is the first thing you will see.
Probably, Alduin attacked it because it was the first thing he saw in the time shift

Self fulfilling prophecy. He tried to kill us before we "became" the dragonborn, but in doing so set us on the path to become it. If he had done nothing, we would never have survived to defeat him.

This made me laugh, and is true, so deserves quoting.